“There are common spaces and private residents’ rooms on the second floor,” Felicity is saying. Her red curls sway behind her as she walks backward up the stairs with ease. “We’ve also got a theater room with enough seating for twelve and a wet bar.” While Felicity leads us across the balcony and down the hall, I study the other initiates.

All told there are five new Pages: Greer, Whitty, me, and two other boys named Vaughn and Lewis. Vaughn, Fitz’s Page, is as tall as Nick, but so broad across the chest and biceps that the buttons of his pale blue dress shirt look liable to pop. Lewis, Felicity’s Page, is the opposite: small-framed, thin, and a little green around the gills.

When we reach the end of the hallway, Felicity shoves open a pair of heavy doors. “And here’s the library.”

Rows of bookshelves are filled with great tomes bound in worn browns and blues and green leather. Solemn, heavy crimson curtains drape windows that stretch up into a Gothic arch. One side of the room holds rectangular study tables with green-shaded banker’s lamps. On the other side, three leather couches face a fireplace and tall mantel.

I float against the back wall alongside Greer, half listening to Felicity, who is now listing the many perks that Order of the Round Table members receive on campus. She’s so bubbly and welcoming that I can’t quite imagine her hunting a demon. There are portraits here, too. A floor-length oil painting of a knight on horseback hangs between two windows. Green-and-black gore runs down the center of the blade he brandishes, and his bright, cyan-blue eyes glitter beneath a medieval helmet.

A waist-high glass display case sits on a table in the back corner. It holds tattered, delicate-looking journals and small artifacts made of stone and silver. Nothing seems particularly remarkable about the objects until I see— “What the hell are those?” I blurt. Beside me, Greer gasps.

Felicity and the others walk over to the case to examine what I’ve found: a chained pair of dented, silver bands resting on a black velvet stand. The info card beneath them reads: MERLIN JACKSON’S MANACLES. SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. 1692.

“Oh,” Felicity says, her bright demeanor faltering. “Those are, er, handcuffs. That Merlins can enchant with aether to restrain individuals.”

“You mean aether users from outside the Order,” Vaughn says with a nonchalant shrug. “Witches, looks like. From the Trials.”

“Merlins use handcuffs?” Lewis breathes at the same time that I say, “The Salem Witch Trials?”

Vaughn rolls his eyes at us both. “Only weak Merlins need material tools and weapons. The powerful ones can make aether constructs that are hard as diamond.”