Page 119 of Prey It By Ear

Aubrey logs the page with his camera and draws his own version of the diagram on his pad and then waves for me to go on. I turn more pages. Now every other one has a new shape—a lattice of interlocking hexagons, a spiral made out of tiny dots, a set of concentric circles with notches at irregular points around the circumference. Some are so complicated that even looking at them for too long makes my eyes ache.

“This one looks anatomical,” I say, pointing to a page about two-thirds in. “But it’s not a human, or any animal I’ve ever seen.”

Renard lifts the book so we can all look closer. The drawing is a cutaway of a skull, but it’s got twice as many chambers as it should, and the jaws are joined in four places instead of two. It’s very odd, and I have no idea what it could be referencing in the slightest. We keep going, but the diagrams get stranger as we progress. One is a grid of perfect cubes, each with a tiny dot in the center; another is a set of what look like molecular models, but they’re labeled with the same script as the text. On one page, there’s a border of repeating triangles around a diagram of… something, and I realize the triangles are the same as on the cover.

“I want to try something,” I say, and use my gloved finger to trace the triangle. I half-expect to get a shock, or to suddenly see a hidden message, but nothing happens except that my hand tingles, and the sense of anticipation gets stronger.

Renard watches me, curious. “What did you expect?”

“A vision. A blood memory. Maybe a pop quiz from my Fae side. Something, you know?” I shake my head. “If there’s magic in this book, it’s doesn’t give a fuck about me.”

Aubrey grunts. “I think that is enough for tonight. It’s getting late, and we have other things to do. We can send the pictures and notes along before tomorrow morning.”

I close the book with a soft click, the covers making a low, final sound. Rennie takes it to wrap it up in the cloth again, his motions precise and almost gentle. I peel off both sets of gloves and drop them onto the table.

“Well,” I say, “we learned it’s very old, very weird, and possibly enchanted to bleed whoever tries to open it. Not a total loss, but not enough.”

Aubrey sets down his pad and rubs his eyes. “I was hoping for more. Maybe a clear threat, or at least something that points to Rockland’s endgame and from that, the Society’s. But this—” he gestures at the rewrapped book, “—is just a locked door.”

“Sometimes you spend all night on a puzzle and the answer is that you need to sleep on it,” Rennie says with a shrug. “Maybe it will come in a dream or maybe we will continue examining it tomorrow night and find more. It is not a waste; I am sure.”

I look at the boys and sigh, but it’s not a sad sigh, more… resigned. “Let’s go upstairs so we have time to eat with the others, guys.”

Renard gathers up the tools and wipes down the table one more time. Aubrey flicks off the lamp and pockets the key to the archive room. We exit together, the sense of anticlimax trailing behind u s like a scent, but also a sense of relief. At the top of the stairs, I pause, feeling the faint pulse of the book as if it’s in the crook of my arm.

“We’ll get it, you know,” I say, more to myself than anyone. “We always do.”

Renard smiles, faint but genuine. “Of course. That is the only reason we are still alive.”

Aubrey gives me a side-eye that says I’d better not have bled all over the notes, and I beam back at him, happier than I should be.

This will all make sense at some point and once it does, the Society had better watch out.

Romeo & Juliet Suite No. 2 Montagues and Capulets

Fionola (Unknown Fae Lady)

I’ve always preferred to perch on high. When you watch the world from above, everything snaps into context—your enemies, your allies, and even the endless petty dramas of the animals below. Tonight, I stand on a slab of shattered limestone high above l’Académie, my boots braced against the wind that tears over the saltwater lake and shoves campus lights into pinwheeling arcs across the valley. The stars are clear enough to make you wish you could wrap yourself in the sky like a blanket and absorb their ancient knowledge.

The small shockwave that rolled through the ley lines this afternoon still has my hands humming like they’re wrapped in power lines. I can taste it in my molars, feel it burning behind my ribs—a current that sizzled every hair on my arms and made my heart pound. The fact that it came twelve hours early means the hybrid’s progress is way ahead of schedule. I want to scream, or laugh, or sink my teeth into something soft and defenseless in victory. Instead, I pace the outcrop’s edge, feeling the fury inside me coil tightly.

They deserve everything I have planned and more… It is finally coming.

Below me, the stadium lamps still stutter on the arena, flickering like a Morse code distress call. Their dorms cluster in packs around the edge of campus, every window lit as if the shifters inside are afraid of what comes in the dark. My hybrid is fast asleep in her bed with her mates in the library annex, all none the wiser about my trap. I feel the ley lines here shudder every time she breathes. I count five, six, seven intersecting arteries, all feeding into the annex, vibrating at her frequency. My frequency, too, though the idiots on the Council would shit themselves if they ever drew the parallels.

I run a thumb along the old scar at my wrist, tracing the ridges I’ve had since my supposed death. Once upon a time, I was considered gone from this world, at least according to everyone who mattered. Buried for the sin of loving a shifter, for daring to cross the lines the predators drew with blood, I waited for the time to be right. They thought they could snuff out an entire species with one clever piece of paper back then. Joke’s on them—they knew so little about magicals that an entire army hid from their purge and lay in wait for the moment that I'd triggered.

Revenge is a hell of a second act, and it will taste sweeter than any wine.

Crouching low, press two fingers into the moss at my feet, murmuring the opening line of the next enchantment. This is the magic of the older, more dangerous Fae who held back when we were making peace with predators. It vibrates with dirt and rain, wielding the power of nature and beings powerful enough to hold her energy within. The syllables scrape the back of my throat raw, each one shedding a layer of polite civilization until all that’s left is grudge and appetite. The wind drops out, just for a second, and the entire world tilts toward me to listen.

I raise my hands, palms to the sky, while my fingers spread in the shape of an ancient oath. The moon is directly overhead now, a white coin stamped with the faces of every ancestor who is trapped beyond. Pulling their power into me, I feel it tighten along the ley lines that run under the mountain, and send it spinning down into the heart of l’Académie. As it hits, the lines ignite brightly—first a blinding gold, then a sappy green, an angry red, a hungry obsidian, a sneaky silver, a burning orange, and finally a slashing, obscene blue. For a moment, the entire campus glows as if it’s been hit by a rainbow. Even the lake shivers; the surface goes flat and mirror-black.

The call has gone out, and the night will be filled with the blood of our oppressors.

My breath is slow as I imagine every child of the Council, every fucked-up predator who ever called us abominations knowing they have absolutely zero control over what we have planned. The ley tremors ripple, each one setting off a chain reaction through the networks I’ve been seeding for months. I watch as the energy splits, divides, and then races toward the rotten log cabin at the edge of the woods. That’s where the vampires are holed up, their own little haven of rot and pain. They will happily take more power, and it will fuel their role in the coming event.

With my left hand, I twist the last piece of the work—a signature stamped in the old Fae colors. It is a purple so deep it eats the surrounding light. The signature splinters, sending little traceries of violet into every corner of campus and then beyond it. I picture it filling the stone, brick and grass under the soccer fields, in the walls of the administration building, and everywhere those monsters live in pretend peace.