Page 15 of The Shadows Beyond
“Who?” asked Cinn. “What’s special about today?”
No reply, only eyes firmly fixated ahead of them.Shock. Cinn turned to stare out of the window again. They’d driven a fair way out from the town now and had only passed fields and sheep for miles. Cinn fixated on the adorable, fuzzy creatures, wanting to stop to run his hands through their wool. London couldn’t have seemed further away.
Then they drove over a hill, and he saw it—what could only be the Institute. A collection of buildings sitting in a valley, an array of stonework and turrets and towers jam-packed together.
“The Aurelia Arcanum Institute of Esoteric Sciences,” announced Darcy dramatically, wiggling her fingers into jazz hands.
Cinn stared at it, almost mumbling something about the long, stupid name before catching himself.
“Us folks tend to call her Auri,” said Julien. “The Swiss locals think we’re down here torturing lab rats and generating artificial electrical discharges.”
Cinn risked being seen as stupid; Eleanor Sinclair had been through all this yesterday. Yet he had to ask, “But what… actually happens? What is it?”
Darcy’s face whipped towards him. “Auri? A collection of various departments all united in a shared space. It’s essentially a campus. The European hub for people like us.”
“Moteblessed? Like you guys?”
“Likeyou, Cinn.”
Darcy reached for his hand and squeezed.
Julien drove them into a small car park. Several other cars pulled up beside them, and to their right, two buses unloaded numerous passengers onto a cobbled pavement.
Three steps onto the campus, Cinn paused to absorb the majestic sprawl of this so-called ‘Aurelia Arcanum Institute of Esoteric Sciences’, where every monument and building seemed to reach for the heavens with an air of scholarly grace. Towering spires, adorned with curious golden symbols, punctuated the skyline, casting intricate shadows on manicured lawns. Beyond their current road, stone facades weathered by the passage of time enclosed a quaint courtyard between buildings.
With each new thing his eyes latched onto, his sense of awe grew and grew. He reached out into nothingness, running his hand through empty space. It seemed to Cinn even the very air crackled with unseen energy. Unseen power.
“I feel like I’ve… travelled to another world,” murmured Cinn, eventually. University had never been on the cards for him, but the grandeur of the buildings and the buzz of the people as they raced between buildings was what he imagined Oxford or Cambridge must be like.
You do not belong here.
Julien was studying him closely. Was that a hint of amusement on his lips? “Auri tends to have that effect on people. And, also, quite literally, some people have been transported here. Using the Displacement Baths.”
Darcy shook her head. “Julien, it’s far too soon to fry his brain with transdimensional travel.”
“I’m not on shift today, only training, so I should be good to go by four. You still going to that lecture, Julien?” asked Elliot. “By that famous motetech guy?”
Julien huffed and raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, Elliot, you’re the only person I’ve met that doesn’t know his name. Doctor Valerius Weaver is a world-renowned—”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Cinn coughed to remind them of his existence.
“I’ll walk you to Noir’s office, Cinn.” Julien gestured to a nearby path.
Elliot made to go with them, but Darcy dragged him off with a promise to find them later.
And so Cinn was alone with Julien again. Julien and his damn dimples.
His eyes slid sideways.
Why did the infuriatingly self-assured guy have to have that permanent just-stepped-out-of-a-glossy-magazine look? One of those annoying bright pink ones with boy bands on the cover. With his flawless skin and long blond glossy waves, he’d easily blend in with one. And those cheekbones. They framed his flinty grey eyes in such a way that added an intensity to every expression.
Cinn fell back a step to scowl at the back of his head. He wasn’t usually one to admire beauty in others. Rather, he picked his friends for their strengths. Their banter. Their loyalty.
Stupid rich-prick princeling, messing with his brain with his pretty face. Prettypunchableface.
They continued to stroll across the bustling campus, Cinn trailing a step behind, silent as Julien listed building names he couldn’t keep track of and what departments they housed.
