Keepers of the Labyrinth (6 page)

8

L
il carried the note card in her hand as they ascended the main stairs. In the silence of the hallway, Sydney's words itched at the back of her mind. Perhaps they would get in trouble, if not for looking in the library, at least for being out of bed past curfew.

She hadn't come for the scholarship, but, well, maybe the others had. And she had to admit, it couldn't hurt.

Lil looked down at the note card and hurried up the stairs, pausing as they came to the top floor. She lowered her light to the wooden panel next to the door.
Α
(
HALL
A
)
. Lil grasped the handle and pushed the door open, expecting to stare into another dark hallway, but as the door swung, Lil stared into a bright, moonlit hall. Beams cascaded in through skylights in the high ceiling. So this was why the different dormitories had different fees. They'd left an old olive mill and entered a palace.

“Whoa,” Kat said, lowering her candle. They didn't need them now.

Lil looked from door to door. Instead of the short stall-like doors in Hall D, the ones in Hall A were large, arched at the top and white. Big urns sat in the corners at the far end, but they weren't the same type of clay-colored urns they had seen in the lower levels. These were more like marble, and they stuck out in a stark blue as if they held the moon under their stony skins.

“I see what Bente meant,” Sydney whispered from behind. “I wonder why they're even competing.”

A rustle erupted from one of the rooms, and they all blew out their candles. Sydney went silent, and everyone stepped back into the shadow of the doorway. Lil waited, ears alert, body tensed. When nothing moved, she stepped into a moonbeam and raised the note card in front of her.

“Straight down this hall. On the right,” she whispered.

“Let's get a move on,” Sydney said. “Just standing here is giving me the creeps.”

They hurried quickly down the hallway, passing the moonlit urns. Lil looked behind them and gave a sigh of relief as they entered the shadows of the alcove. She peered down the hallway on the other side. It, too, was bright with moonbeams. That would be the way to the counselors' quarters. On that side, too, there seemed to be nothing but a wash of moonlight. She turned to the door and squinted to read a raw wood sign:

(
LIBRARY
)

Charlie grasped the door handle.

“Wait,” Lil said, stilling her hand. “Just in case someone's inside. Slow and steady.”

Charlie nodded and took a breath, then pulled the door open just a little, holding her eye to the crack.

“All clear,” Charlie said, opening the door fully. Lil checked both hallways once again, then held the door open as the others spilled inside. She followed softly, pulling the door closed behind her, and drank in her surroundings. The library was even more elegant than the hallway. Large round windows on the ceiling let in the moonlight. Frescoes adorned the walls. They were bigger and brighter than the ones downstairs.

“Probably replicas,” Kat said as if reading Lil's mind. They went over to the nearest one. Three women side by side, their hands raised in what might have been some sort of a dance or ritual, Lil thought.

“What makes you think they're replicas?” Lil asked.

“Well, they're so bright.” Kat traced her fingers over the fresco. “Not like the ones that you find in ruins, covered in years of dirt and dust. Those you can barely see the lines to reconstruct.”

“We don't have time for an art lesson,” Sydney said, eyeing the door. “Let's get what we need and get out.”

“She's right,” Lil said, scanning the room for some sort of library catalog or a public access computer like they had at her local library. Her eyes fell on an upright cabinet with many small drawers that stood in the corner. She jutted her chin toward it. “It's a bit old looking for a future leaders' conference.”

“You would think they would have something more up to date,” Sydney said. Her nose crinkled up as if she had smelled something foul. “At least in a hall as fine as Hall A.”

“You would think so,” Lil said. They all circled the card catalog.

“Our riddle said Minoan, right? I wonder if there is a subject heading for Minoan,” Charlie said as she scanned the small rectangular labels. She pulled out the drawer that said
L–M
and riffled through a stack of cards.

“Ah! Minoan—Society and Culture,” Charlie said, picking up three cards. “Looks like they have a few books on it. All in the nine hundreds. Let's go with this one. Nine hundred thirty point one FIT.” She closed the door and circled the library, staring at the bindings.

“I'm glad you're here,” Lil said, unsure of the process Charlie was using to find the book.

A moment later, Charlie pulled a volume from the shelf and moved back toward them. They stepped over to a large mahogany table next to a floor-to-ceiling window.
M
inoans
by P. T. Fitzgerald. Charlie flipped it open, scanning the index.

“Minoan, Burial ritual, one hundred sixty-two,” she muttered, then flipped the pages.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Sydney said. “It's ten twenty now.”

“Relax,” Kat whispered.

Lil was getting a bit uneasy, too, but a smile stretched across Charlie's face. “Right here. Minoans buried their dead in the gorge caves.”

Lil heard a rustle. Her ears went alert. Her shoulders back. The hair on her neck seemed to stand up of its own accord. “Shh, shh.” She waved a hand. There it was again, the light
tap, tap, tap
of feet on stone.

“You're kidding me,” Sydney hissed.

A warm pool of candlelight eased under the door.

“Behind the curtains,” Lil said, grabbing Sydney's arm and rushing around the table to the window. Charlie and Kat fell in as they dove behind the curtains. Lil and Sydney landed on one side and Kat and Charlie on the opposite just as a latch clicked free.

Lil heard a hinge squeak and yawn. She steadied the curtain with her hand and made sure to tuck her feet snug against the wall.

Tap tap tap
—footsteps fell on stone, moving toward their side of the room. Lil held her breath, felt Sydney shaking at her side. She peered over to the other panel and could detect Kat and Charlie there in the shadows. Charlie was closest to her, just a few feet away, and she could see the reflection off her glasses as she looked up at Lil.

Lil's head snapped back up as a second pair of footsteps joined the first. Maybe others had come searching for their clue before morning?

“My concern is not with Atticus or Aestos,” a voice hissed. “What if the betrayal lies with one of the others? With one of us?”

Lil froze. It wasn't students. It couldn't be. She recognized the voice. Bente. A few steps more, and she could see she was right. The older woman stopped in front of the card catalog, her silver hair catching the moonlight.

“Where do you come by this suspicion, Bente?” a second voice asked. Lil inched slightly to her left and peered past the edge of the curtain. Athenia was with her. They each set their candles on top of the old card catalog.

“I have traced outgoing calls from the main phone. They go late at night. And they go to where I believe the Zephylite leader can be found.”

Lil swallowed hard. Zephylite? It was an unfamiliar word to Lil, and yet she could see that this had nothing to do with the future leaders' conference. This was a conversation no one was meant to overhear. She looked back to Charlie and Kat. Kat was just a distant smudge in the shadows, but Charlie's pale face was easily read, and Lil watched her put her hand up to her mouth to muffle her breathing.

“And if they come. Do you know when they will arrive?” Athenia said, pulling out a drawer of the card catalog.

“I do not know.”

Athenia nodded as Bente pulled out a second drawer. What were they doing? Lil wondered. Bente reached for two more and yanked them all the way out. A locking noise echoed throughout the stacks. Lil felt Sydney stop shaking next to her, and she leaned toward Lil. Lil shook her head, watching Sydney brush against the curtain as they both tried to see where the noise had come from. Athenia stopped. Looked over her shoulder. Lil grabbed Sydney's wrist, and they pressed themselves into the window. Had Athenia seen the movement? Lil pinched her eyes closed and waited. Waited for footsteps. Waited for the breeze of the curtain being pulled back. Waited to be caught. But nothing moved. Lil unglued her eyelids and eased back toward the edge of the curtain.

She watched as the card catalog unhinged from the wall. Bente reached to the side and swung it open like a door. There, embedded in the stonework, was a safe with what looked like the wheel of an ancient ship on the front of it. Lil stared, mesmerized, as Bente turned the wheel steadily one way and then the other. The turns and half turns worked to the right and to the left were impossible to count. Finally, with a
click
and a
zwooshpop,
the door slid free. Bente reached inside.

“You will secure the key in its secondary location,” Athenia said.

“Until then it stays by my side.” Bente raised her hands in the air, and Lil watched as a beam of moonlight caught the object. It twirled there momentarily hung on a thick cord, and Lil stifled a gasp, her heart making a new home in her throat. Surely she wasn't seeing it right. She leaned forward a bit more, her fingers curling around the edge of the curtain. The disk. One side a spiral with pictographs, the other a black labrys. It was about three times the size of Mom's. And not metallic. It looked old. Had Athenia called it a key? A key to what? Lil stood, stunned, as Bente lowered it around her neck and tucked it into her shirt so it was hidden.

Lil felt a pinch on her arm. She looked down to see Sydney grasping her wrist. She hadn't been aware of how far she had leaned in. She gave in to Sydney's pull, falling back into shadows.

“Try and get some sleep despite it,” Athenia's voice whispered.

“Right after I do rounds,” Bente said. Lil stared at the back of the curtain as the candle lights floated away, dulled. The footsteps retreated, then stopped. Had they made their way all the way back to the door? It hadn't seemed so. The candlelight was faded, but not gone.

“You were here earlier?” came Bente's voice.

“Yes, I was checking some facts in the special collection. Why do you ask?” Athenia said.

“Did you leave a book out?” Bente asked.

Lil's gaze darted to Charlie's and they stared at each other, not daring to breathe.

“I didn't.” There was a pause. “In fact, I was in here a mere thirty minutes ago and the book wasn't there.”

Lil heard Sydney's breathing pick up pace next to her and her heartbeat matched it, moving quickly and, she hoped, not as audibly as it seemed.

“Do you think someone was out of bed after curfew?”

“Perhaps.” The candlelight slipped into shadows and the
tap tap tap
of footsteps retreated toward the door. “We should make an announcement about that.”