Page 29 of Road To Runes

Although, I would have to make sure I brought nothing flammable in here in the future if I was going to avoid getting tackled by this super serious librarian.

I made my way up one of the spiralling staircases to the emptiest floor I could find and set up my laptop with my back to the wall. Couldn't have anyone looking over my shoulder at an operation as important as this one.

The blueprints I had gotten hold of for the Franklin family home were admittedly a few years out of date, but after a quick look at public records, no significant work had taken place since. The centuries old mansion had been in the family for generations and like most magical families, housed a good chunk of them. If the Franklins were in the business of corruption as the fear of his fellow students at the university suggested, they would have to keep their circles tight-knit.

I scratched my jaw as I looked over the blueprints, looking for easy access points or long-forgotten passageways that could serve as my way in. Hecate could detect any enchantments and maybe even disable some of them, so whatever security systems they had in place didn't worry me as much as getting caught.

Given the family's reputation, I couldn't leave so much as a trace for them to follow up on once I had gotten out of there. Troy Franklin was a dumb egotist who waved his family's name around like a flag and there were no doubt more like him in his family. But no family earned their kind of reputation without having a few smart cookies among them. For the sake of thisexercise, I would have to pretend that every single one of the Franklin family were undiscovered geniuses.

"What are wedoingup here, Troy?" The feminine voice might have skated over my consciousness but the name 'Troy' shattered my concentration into a million pieces.

I looked over the top of my laptop at the figures moving behind the bookcases across from me. It couldn't be the Troy I was trying to rob. Surely. No way.

"I'll tell you in a minute, baby. Come on." Damn it. Itwasthe Troy I was trying to rob.

My jaw clenched and every muscle down my neck and shoulders followed suit. I had counted on him attending class with Penny. Hadn't I heard his family had all but threatened him with a booting if he didn't attend his classes?

The girl giggled. Did I pack up and hurry out of there? No, that would have looked suspicious. Instead, I hunkered down behind my laptop screen, in the hope they would have a quick make-out session and leave.

"I want to show you something," Troy said. "This is just for you."

Ugh. That had better not be what I thought it was.

A little of scuffling reached me from between the books.Pleasejust let them make out and nothing more, or I was going to have to run out of there screaming. Subtlety be damned.

A screamdidring out, shattering the sombre stillness, and the girl let out a series of choked sobs. Adrenaline pumping to every corner of my body, I scrambled out of my chair and dashed toward the bookcase. That sounded like a cry of agony, not your typical paper cut. I darted around the bookcase just in time to watch a mortified Troy dash out of sight, but all thoughts of his cowardice drained away when I caught sight of the girl.

Hunched over on her knees and rocking back and forth, the girl sobbed with her entire body. I crouched down to get a lookat what she held to her chest and almost choked on my spit when I caught sight of it. In the grasp of her youthful cream coloured hand lay a skeletal hand, fixed to her arm with aged flesh from elbow to wrist.

Chapter 16

"Holy..." Any desire to finish my exclamation died with the need to vomit arose, violently.

I slapped a hand to my mouth, just in case. What had Troydone?

The girl looked up at me through a pair of misty glasses, a strand of her black hair stuck to her lips.

"Please help me," she said, sobbing. "I...I don't know what...I..."

My mounting disgust urged me not to approach, but the poor girl was in such a bad way, I couldn't just leave her there especially when Troy had vanished.

"What happened?" I asked, edging nearer.

"He said he wanted to show me something." The girl took a breath so deep that it took her whole body to achieve it. "He gave me this flower to hold and next thing I knew..."

She jutted her elbow at a dried up rose on the floor next to her.

Oh joy. So Troy had shown off his powers again and not just aged the flower but her hand with it.

My jaw clicked and my teeth scraped against each other, uncomfortably.

"Okay, let's get you to a nurse," I said, holding out a hand to her.

My stomach lurched as the girl reached out with her skeletal hand, her right one. Her eyes widened at the sight of it again, and she parted her lips in another bone-chilling scream.

By the time Penny had finished her lectures and joined me in the cafe with Hecate, I was already three herbal teas deep and wishing they were something stronger.

I told her the entire story, including how I had taken the poor girl, whose name I had learned was Angela, down to the nurse's office. The nurse, an angel, or so the plaque on her door had said, had turned deathly pale at the sight of the girl's hand.

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