Page 155 of Let Us Prey

Felix and Fitz retreat as one, and the dragon steps aside, his wings folded in. Unobstructed moonlight streams through the gap nearthe ceiling. It hits the stone altar and suddenly, the entire chamber is filled with a prism of colorful light.

Not just on the Blood Moon, but in the Blood Moon’s light…

“Now what?” Felix says, looking at the designs on the walls in confusion. “It’s like they’re supposed to show us something, but all I see is these ugly murals.”

Renard grins. “Get your phones out. Everyone use the panoramic setting and spin around the room taking pictures. We’re all different heights and that might be important.”

“Huh?” I ask curiously. “Why?”

“Because I think Chess needs to do what he did to the maps Flames found under this paint. One is this campus and the others might be the locations of more artifacts or info about the Society. These designs will help us figure shit out about where that might be and what to look for.”

Felix tilts his head. “Why do you say that?”

“Because there are five major pred academies in the world, Baby Girl. If they stored some of this shit at Apex, what are the odds that the other maps are for Capital Prep, Académie des Crocs et des Griffes, Zhuanxíng U & M, and Bloodstone,” Fitz says as he rolls his eyes. “Duh, eggheads. All the languages correspond to that area, don’t they?”

Aubrey turns to me, looking like he’s been smacked with a smelly fish. “What in the name of Athena’s toga have you done to that tiger?”

Rolling my eyes, I stomp my foot. “You guys need to stop acting like I fixed Fitz. He’s always been fine, and he’s smart as hell. No one accommodated his neurodiversity before, so he stopped trying to prove himself. The next person to suggest I did anything but listen is getting my boot straight up their ass.”

“They might like it, Baby Girl. Who knows?” Fitz gives me a smirk, but I can see the flush on his cheeks at my fervent defense. He knows his friends don’t mean anything bad, but I’m damn tired of them doing what everyone used to do to me—talk like I’m too dumb to get shit when they didn’t give me the right info to understand.

It’s time they understand he’s a person, too, and they’re being assholes, even unintentionally.

Felix walks over and claps his hand on his twin’s shoulder. “Sorry we underestimated you, bro. I could blame it on how we were brought up, but that’s just an excuse. Every idiot in this room is smart enough to have made the connection if we’d paid attention better.”

“It’s all good,” my tiger says hoarsely. He looks over at me, his eyes shining a little. “Should we get this show on the road now?”

I nod, grabbing my phone and starting my circular spin around the room. Each one of them follows suit, getting their pictures at every angle possible, so we miss nothing. I’m eager to place the maps and symbols when we get back—it may mean we have to take trips.

Lucille and Bruno never let me travel with them.

A large set of five lines at the very top of one wall makes my brow furrow, and I walk over to it. Under the light, circles and staffs in the mural seem to perfectly fit on them and my eyes widen.

“Shit! It’s music!”

“What is bite size?” Aubrey rumbles, looking at me curiously.

Winking at him, I head to the wall, pushing up on my toes to zoom in on the snippet of music. “Find out if there are four more.”

Each of them walks to a different section of the moonlight, callingout when they locate their bars of melody. The one I saw was in the Apex portion, so it must be something…Oh!

“Follow me!” I yell as I dash away from the atrium to the locked Shirdal door. When I get there, I rap the pattern of notes on the door and it pops open like it was just waiting for me.

Holy shit, that worked.

“Let’s go on an adventure!” I grab Fitz’s hand, tugging him toward the gaping doorway that opened. The rest of them grin, following us into what turns out to be another fucking tunnel rather than a room.

Humming the jaunty dwarf song under my breath as we follow the dimly lit path, I hear Felix whisper ‘what the hell?’ from the back of the group. I shake my head, leading the group through the darkened passageway towards a faint light in the distance. Fitz’s hand is warm in mine, and my frustration from earlier fades as we get closer to unveiling the secrets of this place.

“Watch those wings, dragon,” I frown as someone growls into the darkness.

“It wasn’t me, Felix. Perhaps you ran into a sconce,” the dragon harrumphs, but I feel a slight breeze as he readjusts his wings, anyway.

When we get to the end of the tunnel, we emerge in a clearing surrounded by thick forest. I have a vague idea of how far we walked and in what direction, but the space we’re standing in is completely foreign to me.

Letting go of Fitz’s hand, I walk to the center of what appears to be a circle made of unfamiliar symbols burned into the grass. Before I can open my mouth to ask Aubrey about the markings on the ground, Fitz lets out a snarl.

“Did any of you see that? It looked like someone wearing a fucking cloak, hiding in the trees.”

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