“History?” he laughed, a low rumbling sound under his breath that felt like it came from all sides of me. “Don’t you see, little one? It is all coming together.”

“What is?” I inquired.

“The cultists in New York,” Riley reminded me. “I could not help but wonder why they would ambush us. Yet if this woman speaks of my family—of the Great Old Ones—and the Alignment approaches… No, it is too much for simple coincidence. She may not be a mere scholar.”

“What are you saying?” I knew he was right on the money about Ms. Epistola possibly having nefarious connections, but I wasn’t sure what to think of what that implied about Vik.

Riley shook his head. “It is too soon to say anything definitive about her. Perhaps… yes, that would be our best option.” Riley grasped my hand. “We must go to my uncle at once. He will have means to unveil answers.”

The tone in Riley’s voice bothered me. Did I detect a quiver of uncertainty? But with him holding my hand, I felt as though nothing could go wrong. That was, until Mr. Dunleavy stepped out into the hall and chastised us with a sharp, “Children? Will you be joining us any time before the next ice age sets in?”

Riley’s hand tightened painfully around mine, but I shot him a pleading look. “We can go after school,” I muttered under my breath.

Everyone was staring at me as we trudged into the classroom. At first I flushed with embarrassment, assuming they were doing it simply because we were late, but then I realized it was because Riley was still holding my hand. What did they all think had kept the two of us so long after the bell rang? I flushed with something else then—a feeling entirely new to me.

Joyful pride.

Chapter Eighteen: Crystal

Two of the shelves in The Crawling Chaos had been shoved to the walls to make room for a set of folding tables and chairs. Neil had produced an old-fashioned reel projector from the briefcase Riley and I got in New York. It sat on the end of the table, directed at a white sheet tacked to the wall. The Queen of Sheba was curled beside it as if she thought the projector needed her protection, the tip of her tail flicking warningly.

Riley and Neil hunched over the counter, murmuring to each other in their strange language. I presumed they were talking about cultists and the Alignment and stuff that an insignificant mortal like me couldn’t understand. But I didn’t care, my mind was elsewhere.