“Is that his real name, do you think?” I asked softly.
She was silent a moment. “What is that?” she asked, pointing to the symbol instead.
“I think it’s the symbol for infinity,” I said, and at her faint look of confusion, added, “you know, something that goes on forever.”
“I saw that,” she said, spinning away to a different corner of the room. “Here,” she said, pointing to another portrait, “and there,” indicating the one I’d touched first. I looked back up at the green-eyed man, unsettled by his grin. The inscription read Hemlock, and nothing else but the infinity symbol in the same emerald color as his eyes. I moved toward Camille and the other portrait. This was of a woman, and though she wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful, there was a sort of magnetic pull to her expression, one of captivating total self-assurance. Meredith the Ender, it read, with the infinity painted in blood red.
Camille murmured something.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Three immortals,” she repeated, looking up at the woman with an odd reluctance. “Once upon a time, chosen by gods. Pawns in a war. Bets on the winner.” She shook her head. “A story Gabriel told me.”
“Who won?” I asked.
“‘Ask me later,’ he said.” She looked at his portrait, expression unreadable.
The painting pinned up next to it caught my eye. The Tailor’s Sword was scrawled across the bottom.
“Camille,” I tugged on her sleeve, pointing at it. “You think this is what that guy wanted?”
It was a very plain-looking sword, in an ancient style. There was nothing distinct about the handle, or the hilt; nothing remarkable except perhaps its total lack of individuality.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” I said. “It doesn’t even look cool.”
Camille shrugged, rubbing her bracer with her right hand as if she could scratch the skin beneath. “Doesn’t have to, if it’s magic,” she said. She looked across the room. “Oi, one more.”
I followed her gaze, seeing one blank parchment. “I thought I got them all,” I said, approaching it. I pressed my hand to it. “Show me.”
Nothing happened. “Maybe it’s really just blank,” I said.
“Yeah right,” Camille said. “Just being an ass. Show it who’s boss.”
Brows knitted in concentration, I focused on the rough paper under my fingers, trying to pull the image out of it, looking for the web of what it hid behind. An outline ghosted into my mind, sketchy and colorless, of a woman in a flowing, low-cut gown studded with gemstones, long hair cascading in looping curls down her shoulders and back. A delicate, heart-shaped face with curling lashes, looking shyly over her shoulder, partially hidden by a lacy parasol. She was almost familiar, but I needed to peel back the spell to see her more clearly. The resistance was as tightly woven as silk, and my hand on the parchment made a fist, as if I could rip it away. Sharp pains spiked up my arm. I cried out, sinking to my knees.
“Jul!” Camille exclaimed.
I looked at my trembling arm. Black, vein-like marks pulsed, until the pain subsided and they vanished. “Holy crap,” I breathed.
“Holy crap,” she echoed. “Are you alright?”
“I think so,” I said, accepting her proffered hand, standing shakily. The parchment was still blank of the woman I’d caught a glimpse of, but at the bottom in the same titling scrawl as the other paintings, was one word.
Harbinger.
“What’s that?” Camille asked.
I shook my head. I was so far out of my league.
The latch behind us clicked and we turned.
“You idiots,” came Tailor’s horrified voice from the doorway. “What have you done?”
Mac
Who left the door to the roof open? Don’t they know catbats can escape the building that way?
The little monster cringes to a halt at the top of the stairs, apparently stunned by the sudden sunlight. Sensitive eyes, eh? Finally, something to my advantage. I bound up the stairs and grab for the scruff of its neck.
“Gotcha!” I exclaim, too soon. It skitters beyond my reaching fingers, squinting blearily at the ground. In the sun, its fur no longer looks like an extension of shadow - it’s a dingy dark grey, matted with leaves and dirt. Its eyes are as big around as golf balls, with eerie yellow irises. The long, flicking tail is tufted like a kangaroo rat. Leathery scales grow from its joints and its jaw. Its wide, catlike ears flatten as it looks back at me. It opens its mouth and hisses, jaw unhinging like a snake to show an extra-wide mouth filled with deceptively long, needlelike teeth.
I rock back slightly. What the hell is this thing? I wonder, but I’m not going to be deterred. I have to prove my innocence, especially after the mess I just caused.
“Can it, catbatsnakemonkey,” I tell the creature. “You’re coming with me.” I advance cautiously, wary of its teeth.
It backs up, disoriented, weaving. I’m not going to let it get back into the door behind me.
“You’re going to help me prove to the principal that I’m not insane.” I hold out my jacket, inching closer. “So I’m gonna wrap you up in this, and you’re not going to give me rabies. Deal?”
It dives at me with a screech. I catch it, trying to keep it away from my face. I stumble back and trip over an exposed pipe, and fall off the roof. My jacket flutters away and I yell, still clutching the creature. In an instant, my face will be splattered across the dumpster -
But it doesn’t happen.
A weird feeling goes through me, like my entire nervous system is rotating a quarter of an inch.
And then I land in a big pile of mud, in near darkness. I cough, tasting the clay in my mouth. The catbat has wriggled out of my hands and leaps for a dark spot on the floor. It’s about to vanish through it. I grab its tail.
“Oh no you - ”
My nerves twist again, and I fall forward, landing on tile floor.
“ - don’t,” I grunt. Free of me at last, the creature sprints down the hall.
The hall?
I’m back at school - inside, no less. I’m covered in red clay mud, and my shoulders hurt from the impact with the floor. I push up on my hands, looking behind me. The lockers? Had I just hitchhiked with a...a...I barely believe my own conclusion.
A...teleporter?
The creature had pulled me through the dumpster, then whatever was in that cave, and then finally dumped me back out through the lockers.
“That was AWESOME!” I yell, not caring who heard.
I hear a door slam and the pounding of someone coming down the stairs very fast. I struggle to my feet, wondering how I’d explain myself.
Tailor comes around the corner and freezes, a nanosecond of relief in his expression before he explodes in fury. “What in the hell were you thinking?” he seethes. “My god, Mac, if you hadn’t - if someone else saw you - ” he looks around swiftly. “Go to my classroom right now, I’ve had enough of all of you!”
“All of us?” I try to sound as innocent as I can, covered in mud.
“All of you,” he snarls.
Jul
Camille and I slumped guiltily in desks at the front of the English classroom. On her other side, Destin hunched over as if attempting to make himself not massively taller than the rest of us. Mac stood to one side, arms folded, blonde curls matted from the mud that spattered him head to toe. Apparently he was unwilling to sit and get mud all over a chair since he’d be the one cleaning it up. He caught me staring wide-eyed at all the mud and flushed. “The catbat’s a teleporter,” he said, presumably to distract from his state.