The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

What Professor Samuel was hiding is not obvious when Winnie and Erica reach his office on the third floor. Like all the other Sunday offices, there is no door—and therefore no lock. It’s as if the Sundays wanted to make an open floor plan inside a building that was not designed for it.

Or maybe their swan hearts just don’t like privacy.

Samuel has… no, had a corner space, giving him two windows: one which overlooks the parking lot and another which stares off toward the Monday estate. The brick campus is just visible over a stretch of trees. And somehow, despite the morning sun muscling in, his office is colorless and cold. There are no decorations on the wall, no photographs of family, and when Winnie opens Samuel’s filing cabinet, she finds nothing except tests, papers, and grade sheets.

Obviously Winnie knew they weren’t going to find blatant Diana paraphernalia, like rowan-wood medallions or a hound-shaped mask… And no, she wasn’t expecting a directory labeled Who’s Who: Dianas of Hemlock Falls . But still, this whole space is more barren than a desert in a drought. The only thing of interest in the entire wooden, un-carpeted space is a small telescope facing the northern window—and even that looks lonely and sad.

A worn book called Shooting Stars: Identifying Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors sits on the windowsill, but a quick flip through reveals no dog-eared pages or highlighted passages. As far as she can tell, Samuel just liked shooting stars. And now he’ll never see one again. Because of me.

“Find anything?” Winnie makes herself ask, shoving the book back onto the sill.

“Nope.” Erica offers this in a way that also declares, Just like I told you we wouldn’t last night. Which is true: she had said, Only a fool would keep their Diana stuff in their office.

“Think outside the box,” Winnie says. “What’s some inconspicuous stuff a Diana might have? What are some things you have?”

Erica’s mouth seams shut. Her arms fold over her in a physical manifestation of a castle portcullis lowering.

“A box of Band-Aids?” Winnie means this as a joke.

Erica doesn’t laugh.

“Look.” Winnie yanks off her glasses. Erica blurs away, her castle eroding to wind and weather. “I don’t really care what you can do or did do, E. What I want is to find your sister’s source before were-creatures, when in their animal form, are almost unkillable. Oh my god .” Winnie clenches her teeth so hard, her eardrums hurt. Then, with the same care she would apply to crossing a rope bridge over a ravine, she adds: “I… want to find Jenna’s source. But more than that, I want to know who in Hemlock Falls is a Diana.” Anyone could be a Diana. A Diana could be anyone. “So help me out here. Does anything look weird in this room?”

“I don’t know. ” Erica says this with siege engine force. “I was taught early on to keep my stuff in separate, unexpected places. Spots with no obvious connection to me in case—” She breaks off as a rumble vibrates into the room.

Winnie and Erica spring toward the eastern window. “Shit,” Winnie says at the same time Erica murmurs, “Well, this is bad.”

The this to which Erica refers are the five Tuesday Hummers now parking outside. Uniformed scorpions scuttle from each vehicle, carrying flattened cardboard boxes—although only three scorpions per vehicle because apparently Tuesdays can’t carpool.

Exiting the nearest Hummer—and the only scorpion without a box—is Jeremiah Tuesday. He glances up to Samuel’s office. His eyes meet Winnie’s.

“Shit,” she repeats, dropping to the ground beside Erica, whose reflexes were a split second faster.

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“It’s darker in here than out there.” Erica’s tone is more hopeful than convinced. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” Winnie’s eyes leap around the office while her mind leaps through every drawer she just opened. Erica doesn’t know the Tuesdays are in cahoots (still a funny word) with Dianas. She doesn’t know that the Lead Liaison to Italy is a Diana cornīx with Jeremiah Tuesday in her pocket.

That means Erica can’t solve for the same y that Winnie can. Erica likely thinks Jeremiah is here to find evidence, while Winnie is 99 percent sure he’s here to destroy it.

“Keep looking,” she commands.

Erica coughs. “Are you off your rocker? There’s nothing here, Winnie, except Tuesdays who would love to lock us up for a very long time.”

Except there is something here. There has to be. Winnie crawls on her hands toward the desk. They have only minutes before the Lambda scorpions get up here, but she refuses to leave. She’s like a horse who’s just had blinders slotted on: there’s nowhere she can look but ahead, and ahead is Samuel’s desk with three drawers.

Stapler. Scotch tape. Another stapler (unnecessary). Package of black dry erase markers (opened). Package of colored markers (untouched). Post-its. While Winnie digs through, cataloguing everything mentally, Erica launches toward the cabinets. The metal drawers clang open. Clang shut.

“Nothing,” Winnie says, shooting to her feet. “There’s nothing in his desk.”

“And there’s nothing in his files. I mean, there might be.” Erica’s voice is rising—not in volume, but in pitch. As if she’s sucking back helium from a balloon. “But I can’t go through every single paper or grade sheet in the one minute we have left before Tuesdays show up. We’re stuck here now, Winnie!”

“Not yet, we aren’t.” Winnie zips toward Erica, barely avoiding a collision with the telescope. “Maybe if we camp out in another office we can see what they grab.”

Erica pales. “Uh, they’re going to grab everything because they must have finally figured out Samuel was the dead guy in the forest. All of this is evidence.”

At those words, they simultaneously realize the office is in disarray around them—and they simultaneously burst into action to clean up. By the time the last drawer is closed, there’s a vibration quavering into Winnie’s feet, so she hooks Erica by the arm and propels them both into the hall. They cut diagonally into a different office. Curtains blanket a window that would otherwise stare at the obstacle course and training lake. Without discussion, both girls hurtle behind the desk and crouch there.

It smells like chai latte, which Winnie recognizes as L’eau de Professor Il-Hwa. And unlike Professor Samuel’s room, there are plenty of portraits of family. People would mourn her if she died, while Professor Samuel has no one.

Winnie shakes off that thought. She likes her spite blinders; she wants to hang on to those as long as she can.

“Last office on the right.” Jeremiah speaks with the same voice he always uses, and somehow, the fact that he sounds so appealing, so smooth, only makes him that much more terrifying. Like this is just one more task on his to-do list: Get milk; drop off mail; destroy Diana evidence.

Boots tramp faster. Louder. Then stop at Samuel’s office, which audibly fills up like a can of sardines. Grunts take over the soundtrack. Fabric rustles. Cardboard scrapes as boxes are assembled.

None of the scorpions speak. And Winnie and Erica definitely don’t either.

Entire galaxies are birthed and collapsed during the time they huddle there behind Il-Hwa’s desk. Winnie’s brain, of course, wants to latch on to its usual refrain of Nightmare Compendium factoids. Changeling: These daywalkers can perfectly mimic any human they see, though claws give them away.

Except now she hates the Compendium. She hates that it’s always going inside her brain and that a spell has hijacked it. Worse, Diana trivia sneaks in there too. Sagitta aurea: These spells are used to kill or maim a target. Famēs: These spells are self-feeding and sustain themselves in the forest.

On and on it goes, until at last, the sound of scraping cardboard ceases. Drawers stop slamming. And one by one, people stamp past Il-Hwa’s office, their steps more labored now, as if they carry heavy loads.

After a full minute of quiet, Erica shifts to rise. But Winnie grips her sleeve, head shaking. She can’t say why she’s certain they’ll be seen… but she is. There’s a coil of cool air in the office when there should only be heat. Like a scorpion waits at the door.

More nebulae form into stars. Then become red giants. Then supernova. Then lastly, black holes.

A creak. A squeak. Another coil of air that doesn’t mingle with the rest.

Erica’s eyes are enormous and white. Winnie’s lungs, meanwhile, have become two balloons she can’t deflate.

The footsteps patter away. Only after a full three minutes of real silence—counted in one hundred and eighty Mississippis—does Winnie finally nod. Finally breathe normally again. “Come on,” she whispers.

“Where?”

Winnie doesn’t answer. Instead, she runs tippy-toed to the door, pokes her head out, finds the hall beautifully, deliciously empty, and darts right back into Samuel’s office. Everything looks as it did before, since Samuel had nothing on display to be confiscated. Nothing but the telescope and the shooting-stars book, both now gone.

And why take them, unless…

Winnie slithers to the parking lot window, slotting herself just out of sight so she can peer through the glass. Sure enough, there’s Jeremiah Tuesday with the telescope stretched over his shoulder. “Gotcha.” Winnie grins and finds Erica’s eyes across the tiny room. “Did you happen to see where the telescope was aimed?”

“The… sky?”

“That’s helpful.”

“Well, did you see where it was aimed?”

“Fair point.” Winnie sidles to the northern window, but there’s nothing to observe beyond trees and, as Erica said, blue sky. “Could he have hidden something inside the telescope?”

Erica is biting furiously at her lip, a frown pinched on her brow. “I guess he could have. Anything’s possible.”

This time, Winnie doesn’t reply with a sarcastic That’s helpful . Instead she asks, “I don’t suppose Isaac has texted you? Maybe he can find out why they took the telescope.”

“If he had texted, I would have said something.”

“Fine. And… Jay?”

Erica snaps her head. “Nada.”

Winnie frowns. She doesn’t like that—not merely because of her guilt over missing Jay’s show. But because it really isn’t like him to go this long without contact. “Well, can you tell him to meet me at Sunday training? If he can’t make it to the Floating Carnival before noon, I mean?”

“You should really just get your own phone.” Erica glares. But she also obediently types out a message while Winnie’s thoughts vortex inward. Trillium flowers form across her brain. Whisperer. Sources. Dianas. Dad. Jenna. Lockets. Silencing spells. It’s all feeling disconnected and meaningless. Like there’s no longer a Pure Heart at the center she can rely on. All the connective tissue has been frayed by a crow-shaped razor.

Neither girl speaks again while they navigate through the Sunday estate. A cold morning greets them outside the locker room. Wind rattles down from the forest.