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His creepy eyes fell on me. “I followed you.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Some of thecolor drained from my face. “M-me? Why me?”
Fox stared into the fire and shook his head. “I am having difficulty explaining it to myself, but I believe I sensed your aura and that was what led me here.”
I whipped my head up to Ben who stood close at hand. “Am I giving off some vibe I don’t know about?”
A ghost of a smile touched his otherwise worried face. “You do have a rather enticing persona.”
I winced and my eyes flickered to our rotten acquaintance. A few muttered words escaped me. “I’m not sure I like what it’s attracting. . .”
Ben kept his focus on me as he nodded his head in the direction of the doorway. “We will have more time to discuss this matter after we have visited the archives.”
“Good luck, my new companions,” Fox called from his chair as he shifted and his whole body groaned. “For all our sakes.”
Ben and I found Tully in the kitchen and through the window we could see Ferox hitched to the carriage. The master of the house clapped a hand on his servant’s shoulder and grinned at him. “I’m grateful for your habit of eavesdropping, old friend.”
Tully smiled and bowed his head to his master.
A few minutes later found us rushing down the streets of the darkening city. Our hourglass was the huge sun in the sky, though ever shrinking as the seconds ticked by. I recognized the direction we were heading as toward the cul-de-sac in which stood the House of Gaspar, though we turned off that thoroughfare before we reached those pristine buildings. Our path took us to other, less imposing but still marbled halls. These didn’t have the imperious porticos as the others, but their wide stairs were no less impressive and many of their doors were open and inviting to the public.
Ferox skidded to a stop before one of the widest and largest of the structures. The front wall was covered in painted frescoes depicting scenes of learning such as classrooms and students in field studies. The thirty-foot wide steps led up to a pair of open wooden doors, and as we journeyed up I could see countless shelves standing in a huge two-floor rotunda. The outer walls, too, were covered with shelves, as was the whole of the second-floor walls.
There was a large desk on our left as we entered, and a woman of forty with a bright smile looked up from a half dozen scrolls that were open in front of her. “Good evening and welcome to the archives. I’m afraid we’re about to close in a half hour, so please don’t hesitate to ask for help in finding what you need.”
Ben led me over to the desk. “We’re here to look at any of the archives pertaining to the graveyards, more specifically any information on those who were buried in them.”
Her eyes widened a little and she drew off a large set of keys which normally hung about her waist. “This must be its day to be popular,” the archivist teased as she scooted around the desk. “But that’s fortunate for you, as I know exactly where you might find them.”
Ben lifted an eyebrow as we followed her into the stacks. “What do you mean popular?”
“Why, another young man came here not more than a half hour ago and asked to see them,” she revealed as we wound our way through the forest of shelves.
“What did he look like?” I asked her.
The archivist stopped before a large locked glass bookcase and searched through her keys. “Oh, about your ages, and with a frightfully pale face. I thought perhaps he was one of those ghouls I’d heard were infesting the graveyards, but he spoke quite well and was very polite.” She unlocked the case and drew out a book some two feet wide with yellowed pages. “I believe this is what you’re looking for, but please do be careful. These are some of our oldest documents, and when you’re through I must return them to the case.”
Ben accepted them with a careful touch and bowed his head. “We’ll be very careful.”
The archivist left us alone and Ben hurried over to the nearest table. We both sat down and he opened the book. The pages were filled from end to end with drawings of the graveyards, and the margins were dotted with little notes highlighting some important detail of one of the more illustrious burials.
I tilted my head to one side and studied the thickness of the book. “How many graveyards does this city have?”
“There were more before the last great fire,” he told me as he studied the large cursive handwriting at the top of each page.
“When was that?”
“About four hundred years ago. Ah, here we are.” Ben had stopped his perusal at a map of the Meager. He drew his hand gently over the crinkled page until he found the plots around which we had our fight. “Just as we suspected. Those that have risen were members of the academy.”
I squinted at the little squares that indicated burial plots. “How can you tell?”
Ben tapped a finger against a tiny symbol above each name. “This is a tri-corner hat, the mark of anyone who attended the academy.”
“And all of them tried to take a bite out of us except Fox,” I mused as I counted up the number of hats. “That means whoever cursed them knew what they were doing, too.” A thought struck me and I glanced at Ben. “What’s the name of that small cemetery where those two sisters saw something? That’s where the problem first started.”
Ben flipped through the pages. “That is called the Totten and is one of the oldest in the whole of the city. Here it is.” He revealed the layout of the tiny graveyard with its even tinier stone shed.
