Lucy:
Lockwood was leaning against the kitchen counter as we had gathered to discuss strategy. "We need that book. It's obviously important."
"And we need to retaliate. We can't let them get away with this." I added.
"I propose we kill two birds with one stone."
"I just propose you kill. Period."
I agreed with the skull on this one, but I didn't voice it. That suggestion had already been vetoed.
Holly nodded. "What's the plan?"
"Well, one was in Greenwich, but do you remember where the other one was?" Lockwood looked around at us with a wide grin.
Quill rolled his eyes. "The Orpheus Society."
"Right in one," Lockwood winked. "Now, if I remember correctly, there's a rather tall apartment building connected to their house."
"And?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"It'll be easy. We've done rappelling hundreds of times before,"
Holly chuckled a bit hysterically. "I don't know about hundreds, Lockwood."
"Well, we've done it lots of times," he waved her off.
"This'll be great. You'll slip, I'll get to watch you get smashed to bits on the pavement and I'll be free when the jar cracks from the fall." The skull cheered.
I cleared my throat.
Lockwood squirmed. "Well, we've done it before."
"Once," I pointed out. "We've done it once and it was a complete disaster."
He scoffed. "I wouldn't say that –"
"You couldn't walk for a week."
"Not true!"
"You still have that weird limp sometimes in the morning."
And that's how I ended up shaking like a leaf on the side of a building, trying to scale down without injuring myself.
"I've got you!" I heard Holly whisper-yell from below before feeling her hands on my legs.
We all crouched on the roof when I had come down as the last one, all of us alert. We took a moment to take everything in, all of our senses open – all of our bodies primed and ready for action.
Lockwood took a look around at each of us before wedging his crowbar into the edge of the window. He moved it and the crunch it made sounded much louder than it should have in the silent night.
We all stilled and looked at each other. Waiting for someone to come to investigate.
No one came.
Lockwood used the crowbar again, but slower so the sound wasn't nearly as sudden.
Slow as it was going, it didn't take long before we were standing in something that felt far too boring to be any part of a secret society.
It was a conference room. There was a large white table that took up almost all the room and it was surrounded by twelve black boring office chairs.
In the middle of the table was a fruit bowl and a nearly empty napkin holder. In the corner of the room was a half-wilted potted plant.
"Yeesh. I know that they're plotting world dominance or whatever, but couldn't they at least have done it in style? I mean, talk about boring corporation décor. I'm disappointed at their lack of gothic creativity." the skull criticised.
I scoffed. "Maybe Fittes got a package deal for office furniture and didn't know what to the rest?"
The others turned their heads and I shrugged.
"Uh – right." Lockwood cleared his throat. "Tie a rope to the table so we can use it to climb out the window for a quick escape but keep an eye out for other escape options as we go along. It never hurts to have several options."
Quill tied the rope to the table and left the rest of it on the floor. He tested it a few times before giving Lockwood thumbs up.
Holly opened the door slightly to peek out before giving us signalling us to follow.
We moved in a single file, as quietly as possible. I immediately felt guilty for having the thought, but in a way it was good that we didn't have George with us for the night. We certainly wouldn't be able to move as silently as we did, the four of us.
Granted, he was stealthier than one would imagine, but he still had that edge of clumsiness that means hammering shoulders into doorframes or forgetting the size of your rucksack as you turn around. Not that I was much better, but that wasn't my point.
He was well on the way to recovery. The couple of weeks of planning had done wonders for him, but he still wasn't entirely ready for the field.
As we went, we took turns listening to the many doors we passed before opening them in hopes of finding a library. We knew that there was one on the first floor but that was semi-public. Neither of us believed that they would keep anything remotely controversial down there.
I opened a door to reveal what appeared to be a guest room, when Holly's startled yelp interrupted my thoughts.
She had her rapier out and everything in an impressive display of the fast reflexes she hides.
"Sorry," she mumbled, "I just for a moment I thought they were people…" she trailed off, her eyes still locked at whatever was behind the door she had just opened.
We all came closer, and she took a few steps inside. It was a cramped room with shelves along one wall. Across from where we stood was a rack with coat hangers, holding something that glittered gently in the light from our small torches.
"Look at this, Lockwood," I breathed as I reached the hangers. "Do they remind you of anything?"
I reached out to touch one of them. It made a small tinkling sound as I lifted it up to study.
"Eew. There's far too much silver here for me. Don't call me if you need me," the skull remarked and went silent.
Lockwood came up behind me. He moved his torch closer and ran a finger over the material still in my hand. It was a fine mesh of small silver links with tiny silver scales interwoven.
"Curious," Lockwood murmured right next to my ear. "Our spirit capes have feathers but these… they're so similar…" he trailed off.
…
I took stock of the room we were in. And that was exactly what it was. A stock or a wardrobe I suppose.
I slowly moved through the boxes on the shelves.
"They have goggles like mine," I noted when I found a box full of them.
"Well, that's not surprising. We already knew they were from the Orpheus Society," Lucy remarked.
I shrugged.
There were boots and gloves as well.
"You know what?" I heard Tony murmuring. "I know we have the spirit capes, but maybe it isn't a bad idea to have something extra," he mused.
I figured he had a point and didn't hesitate to stuff two extra pair of goggles into my rucksack. I don't know how many capes they took. Judging by their bulging bags, it had to be quite a few.
"Do you think they might have an armoury too?" I wondered out loud. By the way Lucy's eyes formed crescents in amusement, I hadn't quite managed to keep the hopeful tone out of my voice.
"You sound like a child asking if Santa's on his way," she chuckled.
I was thankful that the balaclava at least hid the blush I could feel on my cheeks.
"I'm just saying that this is cool stuff. Meaning that whatever weaponry they might have could also be cool," I tried to defend.
Tony snorted.
"Let's move on," Holly whispered. "We don't know how much time we have,"
"Right," I conceded her point. We had a specific goal to achieve. No point in dawdling.
Tony and Lucy also seemed to straighten at the reminder.
We slowly made our way back out into the hall.
Tony went first and I made up the back.
Eventually, after opening doors to bathrooms and broom cupboards, we found what we were looking for.
It was a small library. Well, probably medium sized but after walking around the vast halls of the archive, anything else seemed tiny in comparison. Regardless, this was my territory.
Any decent library has a filing system, and this was no different. I tore through it, easily. It was almost familiar, the way my fingers skated across the index and across the spines of books with practiced ease.
"Any time now, Quill," Tony mumbled nervously.
"I'm going as fast as I can," I hissed back.
I tuned out the others as they started bickering and I vaguely registered the sound of footsteps through my concentration.
I needed to find that book. For fucking Cubbins.
I was finally victorious.
"Hah!" I turned around, but when I did, I noticed something my eyes had skirted past before.
The book was small. More like a magazine than anything, but it had been crafted with utmost care. It was bound in dark green leather with the title embossed in gold on the front. But that wasn't what caught my eye.
I ran my thumb over the small silhouette of a starling on the bottom of the front cover before turning it around and running my fingers down the spine where another starling was proudly glittering in the light from the torch.
My body felt numb and my mind was racing and frozen at the same time.
I lifted my head and it wasn't until now I noticed that we had company.
I saw them without really looking at them. Tony was saying something but I didn't hear what it was. He had his rapier out.
The others started attacking us and I knew I should fight. I was a good fighter, damnit, but no matter how much my brain screamed at my limbs to bloody move, I was frozen as the fight broke out around me.
I was too busy to take care of that because now I noticed what I should have seen as soon as I entered the room. It wasn't just the book I held in my hand.
Hundreds of starlings were staring at me, from their places on the shelves.
The entire room, from floor to ceiling was full of golden, glittering starlings, winking in the torchlight, mocking me.
My shoulder hurt as someone violently pulled my arm, dragging me down with them behind a table someone had flipped over.
I landed clumsily on my knees.
I think it was Holly. She was yelling something at me, but I didn't hear it.
The slap she tried to give me didn't hurt because my cheek was protected by the balaclava.
I did try to snap out of it, but wasn't particularly successful.
She was pulling my arm again and I followed her in a daze. We ran down a set of stairs and it was a miracle that I didn't trip and fall.
Then we were out in the fresh air. We were still running. The cobblestones were slippery but we kept running.
The book was still in my hand.
That was good.
I don't know how far we ran but eventually we stopped in a small alley.
I promptly and violently lost the contents of my stomach, supporting myself against the side of the building we were hiding behind.
I felt a hand on my back and reality finally caught up with me.
I vomited again, only to come up with bile.
I took several fortifying breaths before turning around.
"Where are the others? Are they alright?" I asked when I noticed that it was just Holly and me.
"I don't know," she whispered. "Are you alright?"
I huffed a small hysterical laugh which turned into a bit of a sob.
Was I alright?
What was alright even at this point?
It seemed that no matter how much I tried to distance myself from these bastards, they kept finding ways to drag me back in.
Even if it seemed as though I had never really had a choice in the matter because I knew those starlings. I knew them because I had grown up with them. I knew them because they were on my stationary, on my pens, on my damn cufflinks and even engraved on the hilt of my rapier.
I knew them because I had stared at them every day from the moment I was born.
I knew them because they were part of my family.
They were my family.
The family business I stood to inherit, and the logo was on every single bloody publication in that godforsaken library.
That's why I had navigated their filing system so easily. It was because I navigated that same system every single day.
I turned around and threw up again.
…
Sorry for the long wait.
As I've said before, I've had to slow the update speed down a bit. Our studio has re-opened, and my workload has tripled. Add in two children and I've got maybe five minutes to write on my phone when I'm in the bathroom before being interrupted because my son's toy car is in an argument with his dinosaur, and they need a mediator.
On a positive note, half of chapter 56 is already written so it shouldn't take too long before it's up as well.
Don't forget to leave a review after reading - it always puts me in a good mood.