Page 41 of The Exorcism of Faeries

The moment he saw her, he shifted toward her. His brows furrowed and he took a step forward. “Are you all right? Do you have a headache?”

Atta regarded him strangely. He must have noted how flushed she was. How anxious. “No, no headache. Do you think they’ll close college?”

“No, I don’t. It would be unwise and I advised against it.”

“Why?”

Murdoch shoved his hand through his hair which was already in disarray as if he’d done that many times since the morning’s broadcast. “That isn’t how this works. Everyone knows it’s not a virus, at least as far as we understand viruses. It doesn't move like one. Her roommate is completely healthy, as are all the other peers she associated with. It would only induce panic in the whole of Dublin to shut down college.”

Atta swallowed. Nodded. She was trying to remain calm, but his agitation was feeding hers. “I thought she’d been there so long ivy was growing.”

She watched Murdoch look away, consider. “She was a Botany student. Did you know her?”

Atta nodded, barely, her fingertips feeling numb.

“When was the last time you saw her in class?” he asked finally.

“Last week.”

“Ivy grows that quickly?”

“Under the right conditions, it can grow eight or nine feet a year.” To her own ears, it sounded ridiculous. It certainly didn’t grow that much in the span of a week.

“That seems aggressive, doesn’t it?”

She couldn’t deny that. “It does.” But she didn’t know where he was headed or what he knew as a consultant to HPSC. “Maybe she had ivy inside her dorm already.” She watched his movements. Considered how familiar she felt with his presence in this particular conversation. “What are you thinking?”

His eyes searched her face for a long moment. “Can I show you something?”

“We have class in ten minutes.”

“I’ll cancel.”

“Won’t that scare them, today of all days, like you said?”

“Sometimes fear cleanses the soul, Atta. It reminds us to look at the important things we took for granted while at peace.” He let his words sink in for a moment. “Come with me.”

There might be more magnificent libraries in existence, but none would ever compare to The Old Library. Not for Atta. From the moment she stepped inside, her breath was stolen each time by the sheer volume of 200,000 books, the polished floor, the long, arched ceiling and the busts of academic forefathers observing their children at study.

“What are we doing here?” she whispered to Murdoch as they walked past the busts of Homer, Aristotle, and Plato.

Without answering, he climbed the stairs and Atta followed. Abruptly, he turned into a row of books. Without hesitation, he stopped at a particular shelf and carefully removed a book. He laid it out on one of the narrow standing tables then stepped back and gestured to it.

“Page 419. Tell me what you make of it.”

Atta watched him for a moment. He was still so ill at ease that it had her nerves frayed. She’d never seen him appear any other way but brooding or stoic. She approached the desk cautiously, like something within the pages might bite her or release a changeling faerie to take over her body.

The parchment was old and yellowed, and Atta carefully flipped to Page 419. Her lips parted when she saw what he’d meant for her to look over.

It was a detailed diagram of how spores spread, followed by a description of how mushrooms communicate with the plant world around them, through electrical signals in their mycelium. All things Atta knew, but Murdoch . . .

She looked from the pages to Murdoch. “What made you think of this?”

“I’ve done some consulting on Plague cases. I don’t think—” He closed his mouth and ran his hand down his jaw. “I don’t think that ivy should have grown like that. And I think the best way to figure out what happened is this.” He pointed at the spore diagram. “With your knowledge of Botany, I thought perhaps this would make more sense to you. Why the spore in Patient Zero was so important.”

Atta licked her lips and leaned against the standing table, feeling like they took up the entire stall, the two of them and this conversation. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last six years. Since I first read about a spore in Patient Zero.” She licked her lips. “You asked me why I’m at Trinity?—”

“And that’s why, isn’t it? Why you blend Morbid Arts and Botany?”

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