Page 37 of Road To Runes

My face scrunched, the pulse in my neck hammering as his bony foot stomped down next to my hand, the breeze brushingmy fingers. I curled my fingers into my palm as he shuffled around on the spot.

“We’ve got rats,” he muttered. “Iknowwe’ve got rats. Don’t care what dad says.”

He strode off back to his room with only the smallest pause to look both ways down the corridor again before he shut the door.

I didn’t dare release my breath until several long seconds had passed, and even then when I scrambled onto my knees, Asher whispered, “Wait, will you?”

“Youcan wait. I’m getting out of here,” I muttered.

Although I couldn’t see him, I heard Asher get up beside me and Hecate slunk out from under a chaise lounge under the window. That had been a close enough call without hanging around.

But just as I dusted myself off, the bedroom door flew open again, and the man darted out. He caught sight of Hecate who hissed and batted a paw in his direction. A burst of magic shot from her claws and knocked him over onto his backside.

I opened my mouth to scold her but slapped a hand over it instead. But my attempt to keep silent did nothing as Hecate’s magic slammed into an electric candle fitting in the wall. It burst into real-life flames and the metal fitting toppled onto the floor with a clang that reverberated down the corridor and through my very bones.

The moment the magic touched the wall, tiny fragments of crystal lit up, rippling across the stones until the whole corridor was alight with magic. A wailing sound pulsated through the air and I covered one ear with my hand to block out the piercing noise. It scrambled my thoughts into an ungodly mess; we had to get out of here.

Before I could act, Asher tugged me down the corridor at a run, almost jolting my arm out of its socket. Hecate ran after usas we hurried back the way we had come, down the corridors and stairs to the ground floor.

"Slowly, slowly," Asher whispered, as we reached the bottom of the staircase.

Hecate jumped onto my shoulders again, making me flinch as we stepped onto the stone floor, on which anyone nearby would easily hear our less than careful footsteps. We picked our way across the floor toward the door that led into the corridor where our escape route lay. But two people, an older man and woman, dressed in fine red dressing gowns with initials emblazoned on the front, hurtled through them.

Asher pulled me underneath the stairs, where a door stood.

"We have to hide,"Hecate said, her paw brushing my cheek.

She jumped down from my shoulders and reached for the lock on the door, pressing her paw to the keyhole. With a click, it opened and the three of us dashed inside. I closed the door carefully behind us.

"Genius move, Hec." Asher released my hand and glared at her. "You couldn't have just pretended you were a rat, could you? You had to attack him."

Hecate hissed at him, swishing her tail indignantly.

I was going to tell Asher to shut up, even if he was technically right about Hecate's recklessness, but the contents of the room caught my eye. We stood in a circular room, the stone floor spiralling in on itself until it contorted in the very centre into an altar. A symbol carved out of red crystal stood atop it; the sigil of Sagittarius.

Apparently, the Franklins were religious to boot.

But the altar didn't hold my attention for long. Instead, I stepped further into the room to investigate what bathed us in a shimmery blue-white light. Ornate stone shelves embedded in the walls glowed under the light of the dozens of jars that sat atop them. What looked like fluid swirled around inside them,but every so often it jerked and stuttered as if it ran on lagging internet.

"Whatisall this?" I asked, craning my neck to search for the tops of the shelves, but they stretched on up so far that I couldn't see where they ended.

"Bea, I don't think this is our priority right now," Asher said, following me across the room to one of the shelves. "We need to think up a plan. Maybe we..."

But his suggestions turned into static in my ears as I leaned in to get a closer look at the jars.

When I looked closely, I realised the contents of the jars weren't liquid but like dark, shimmery clouds with bolts of lightning jutting through them. And with each jolt of lightning, an image appeared for a few seconds before fading back into its cloudy consistency.

I placed my fingers on the edge of the nearest shelf and leaned in even further, my nose almost to the glass, waiting for the next image to flash. Then it came; the perfectly clear image of one of Penny's professors. I had seen them talking once after a class and Penny only had good things to say about him. He was a portly man with formal fashion style, with one pair of glasses balanced on his red nose and another perched on his bald head.

But in this vision, the professor looked a far cry from his usual bouncy, jovial self. In fact, he had quite the startled look on his face when Troy Franklin punched it square on the nose before the vision vanished.

"Are you seeing this?" I asked, interrupting Asher mid-rant.

Hecate jumped up next to me and batted the jar with her paw. Electricity danced around against the glass inside where she pressed her toe beans.

"What?" Asher asked, leaning in next to me to get a look.

The press of his arm against mine made me feel safe, despite our precarious situation.

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