Louis glanced up at me as if surprised that I was responding to him and I wondered how often he talked to himself in public. He stared at me for a moment then grinned and bobbed his chin toward a glass fronted set of cabinets. “Third row down. Pyridine. Do you know what happens when even a drop of that chemical is spilled?” He chuckled, looking altogether too pleased with himself, and lifted his hand from beneath the table where he held three vials of liquid.
My eyebrow shot up. I had no idea what the clear liquid would do when and if the vials broke but I had enough respect for chemistry to back away to the edge of the table. Louis’ look of impatience didn’t help.
“I’m not going to release it here,” he said as if speaking to a child. Then he leaned closer and whispered softly so no one nearby could hear. “They’re stink bombs!” His eyes lit up with a glee I hadn’t seen before.
My mouth dropped open. “You aren’t going to use those are you?” If he was, I needed to plan on being far away from the drop site. Our kind had incredibly sensitives olfactory abilities and something as innocently gross as a stink bomb to humans would be downright debilitating to wolves. “You could get expelled,” I hissed.
He made a dismissive sound and waved a hand towards me. “They can’t kick me out. My parents practically built the north campus.” He grinned crookedly. “But if you get a whiff of fish stink one day, run.”
“Mr. Ansley,” Dr Sweets barked out Louis’ surname and began weaving her way toward their table. I shot the vials a slide glance and tried to distance myself from him even further. He might not fear being expelled, but I was under no such protection. He lowered them out of sight and leaned forward on the table’s edge.
“Yes, Dr. Sweets?” His voice was all innocence now but out of the corner of my eye I could see him maneuvering a shallow drawer open just enough to slip the vials inside without our professor noticing.
She eyed him suspiciously and moved around the table a split second after he shifted his hand and closed the drawer with his chest as he leaned forward, looking compliant and eager to help. For a long moment, I thought she’d remember the drawer and check, but she shifted her gaze to his notes, read them over quickly, then turned and walked away with a spine so straight I got a backache just watching her.
I sagged with relief as she leaned over another student to check their notes and closed my eyes. It wasn’t as if I could complain about my lab partner, not if he was as connected as he claimed to be. I’d just have to watch out and steer clear of any trouble he presented.
An alarm sounded from the front of the lab, signaling the end of the class. Dr. Sweets nodded curtly and turned to look back at us as she reminded us to keep up with the readings. I watched Louis’ hand hover above the drawer for a moment as she strode toward us, then fall to his side. With an audible swallow, he gathered up his books and left class as my nerves sang with tension.
I didn’t relax until I was well out of the lab and, even then, my heart thumped painfully at the thought that I would be lumped in with Louis’ deviant plan. It wasn’t until my mind skipped back to the issue of The Sisterhood that my anxiety began to settle and fade away.
Without bothering to change out of my uniform, I started towards the library, hoping there would be something there to help me locate the meeting of the sorority I felt in my bones was happening tonight. I’d wandered the library several times already, searching the stacks for research or enjoying the walls covered in art ranging over a thousand years. It really was my favorite place on campus.
I chewed thoughtfully on my lip and worried over the problem. The note’s clue had been so vague that I didn’t really have anywhere solid to start and it wasn’t as if I was particularly knowledgeable about a campus I’d never dreamed of attending. I didn’t even know all the names of the buildings that made up Alpha Wolf Academy.
I slipped into the library, for once not taking the time to appreciate the majestic columns and ceiling, and headed to the front desk. An older woman, who looked surprisingly like my mother, looked up from her computer with a smile.
“Do you need some help, dear?” she asked in a soft Irish lilt that reminded me of home even more. I swallowed down the lump that had appeared in my throat and nodded.
“Please. I’m looking for a map of campus.” I knew it had to be in here somewhere but I didn’t have time to waste searching myself.
“That’s easy enough.” She pointed to her left where a hallway angled away from the main library. “Down that hall and to the right. There’s a wonderful display of maps from the area including one from before work began on AWA.” She smiled again then looked back at her screen, dismissing me.
I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder and followed her directions. The hallway opened up to a fair-sized room whose walls were covered in framed maps. I dropped my stuff near the door and started around the room, stopping to take in the hand-drawn maps of the original campus layout. It had been so small, I thought, noticing the legend that marked the campus as no bigger than your average Walmart. There was very little information on the map, though, only a basic outline of the local land and the campus outline. I kept wandering.
I struck gold on one of the large electronic table displays. An architectural plan of the campus as it was now could be seen on screen but the controls showed labels that read, “Campus 1816,” “Campus 1859,” “Campus 1900”, and “Campus 1973.” Curious, I started at the beginning, pressing the buttons one at a time and watching in awe as the campus grew from its modest beginnings to what it was today.
The Sisterhood had been in existence for centuries, according to their PR front person, and Sylvie LaFlamme had been instrumental in its inception. She’s also helped her husband plan and build Alpha Wolf Academy. I clicked on the earliest plans and enlarged the screen to get a better look at the original names of the buildings.
Swing and a miss, I thought wryly. The buildings had been named after Alpha families, so there was LaFlamme Hall and Dougherty Auditorium. I flipped to the next screen then the next and realized they’d been changed at some point between 1900 and 1973. The main campus had been added to and renovated over the years but the buildings that had made up the original structure were still there. I recognized one as campus housing for professors and their families. It wouldn’t be there, though, I reasoned, there would be too much traffic for a secret society. No, they’d need a more reclusive location for their meetings, somewhere women could easily access.
I chewed intently on my fingernail and stared at the screen until my eyes went blurry then leaned against the table with a frustrated sigh. Time was running out.
Determination stole through me, fortifying my will, and I narrowed my eyes at the plans again. There had to be something here.
Old buildings, new buildings, the campus quad, even the library and cafeteria, I poured over every inch of the plans, enlarging the measurements, the notes done by the architect, and every insignificant detail in case I’d overlooked something.
My eyes slid over the crest as it had twenty times already but this time, I came back to it and enlarged. The Manford Building, so called for the Alpha family of England, housed the education faculty where women had been trained to teach since the founding of Alpha Wolf Academy, I realized. Its crest was represented by two wolves and a lion, representing both their people and the country in question. At first glance, it looked similar to the other family crests shown on the plans, but there was something different there, something…
The two wolves were female I realized with a gasp that echoed through the silent room. They were rounder than the wolves depicted in other crests, which made no sense unless it was a clue. I studied the lines of the wolves, the way they faced the lion between them, and the swords that lay at their feet.