Which I do.
Professor Waldman stands so close, I swear I can feel her breath on the back of my neck.
“Is this what I think it is?” Sawyer asks, awe in his voice as he pushes up to peek in beside me.
The room is
empty except for a table in the center, on which stands some sort of urn. It’s metal and carved with intricate patterns, the largest of which is at the top—a deep oval with lines tracing gently from the bottom, looking somewhat like a closed eye. Sawyer pushes closer to me to get a better look until our cheeks are touching.
“This,” Waldman says, her voice drifting from behind us, “is the school’s most prized possession. It is our responsibility to guard and protect.”
“It’s a phylactery,” Sawyer whispers, his breath tickling my ear. “The phylactery.”
I stand up, pulling away from Sawyer so he doesn’t feel how warm my face is getting. I turn to Waldman.
“Phylactery?”
She nods. “It’s the only one of its kind. A phylactery containing one of the most dangerous monsters known to man—a djinn. A high demon, incredibly dangerous, captured and brought to us by a powerful monster hunter.”
“Piers’ dad, Mason Dagher,” Sawyer says, stepping away from the door. He looks at me. “I’ve heard about this thing before, but never got to see it.”
Professor Waldman smiles indulgently at Sawyer. “You know quite a lot, don’t you, Mr. Alman?”
“I try.” He smiles sheepishly. “I’ve loved monster hunters ever since I was a kid.”
I turn back to the door to look at the phylactery as they strike up a conversation about different hunters. There’s something about this ‘phylactery’ … it’s pretty, in a weird, dangerous kind of way. I wonder how many monsters Piers’ father captured and killed. I wonder how many monsters my own parents captured and killed.
I wonder if they’d been able to capture a djinn like this, if they would have ended up dead in the first place.
Sawyer’s excited chatter fades away behind me as I continue to gaze at the phylactery in the empty room. There’s something about it. I want to touch it, to pick it up, to feel its weight in my hands. My hand drifts toward the doorknob, half of its own accord and half out of a burning curiosity.
“Avery?”
Startled, I whirl quickly away from the door. Sawyer and Professor Waldman are both staring at me with concerned expressions.
“You okay?” Sawyer asks.
“Yeah,” I say, only now realizing my breath has become labored. “I thought I’d …” I trail off. What, exactly, had I been doing?
“You both had better get to dinner,” Professor Waldman says, her eyes still on me. “This thing has a peculiar effect on people. It’s never a good idea to stick around it too long.”
I try to avoid her gaze, but she’s studying me. My skin is prickling. I follow Sawyer down the hallway, away from Professor Waldman, away from the phylactery.
I’m so glad we made it out of earshot before she remembered to ask me about the party tomorrow night, that I don’t even realize where we’re headed until we actually get there. We’ve wandered down into a trophy room, a proper trophy room this time.
But it’s not just for trophies; there are articles from monster hunter newspapers, photographs, mementos; these ones much older than the gleaming ones in the hall. Sawyer gleefully heads off in one direction, but my attention is immediately caught by a cluster of photographs in the first case.
It’s my parents.
Well, not just my parents. It’s their entire class. They aren’t standing together, but each of them is unmistakable. There are other faces I recognize too. Mason Dagher, and, even more surprisingly, a young Professor Helsing. He must be a lot younger than I thought. The years haven’t been kind to him.
“Avery?” Sawyer asks.
I wipe my eyes. I hadn’t realized tears have started to collect on the ends of my lashes, and I don’t want him to see now.
“Come look at this.”
He’s standing in front of another display case, this one lined with row upon row of weapons. A plaque above it indicates that these have been donated to the school by their owners. Sawyer’s pointing at a pair of daggers; they’re black, and the blades have a sinful curve. I don’t have to ask who they once belonged to. I know, instinctively and without any labels, that these once belonged to the woman who bore me.