No one argued when Fleur and I gave Poppy and Chill the keys to Doug’s suite. Amber, Julio, and Marie were happy to knock out a few walls between a couple of dorm rooms, which they’ve converted into a two-bedroom apartment. Fleur and I offered to help Kai do the same, but she was content to move quietly into her old dorm room. With the exception of a few classes she teaches for Julio, she spends most of her time looking into the future, identifying humans who will eventually choose to become Seasons. Poppy uses the information to organize Fleur’s travel itinerary, making sure she arrives at the precise moment of the human’s untimely demise, and then arranging for the new Season to be escorted safely home.

Fleur and I settled into Gaia’s old apartment; Fleur couldn’t bring herself to move into Doug’s. She doesn’t talk much about what happened between them, but occasionally, when she needs to share the burden of things that are too difficult to say out loud, she’ll show me flickers of her memories. One in particular haunts her more than the others—the face of a boy Doug killed who Fleur had tried to save by turning him into a Season. We managed to find his stasis chamber, buried below the rubble. Abandoned during the evacuation, the chamber had lost power. The boy hadn’t survived, and his magic escaped through a crack in the dome.

The walls around me narrow to torchlit tunnels as I descend them into the ancient passages below the west wing. The hum of a generator grows louder ahead, until I’m standing in front of the doors to the Hall of Records. The security panel beside it is dark. The key card system was disabled—the second demolition project after we dismantled the gates in the Crux.

I pull open the Tree of Knowledge and am greeted by a rush of musty memories. Motion sensors trigger the lights. They roll on, room by room, letting me know I’m alone as I walk by the glass display cases of ancient scrolls and leather-bound tomes. I pause in front of a heavy steel door.

The iron clanks quietly as I slide Lyon’s key into the lock. The hinges creak, and a chain of lights flickers on as I push the door open. I draw in a surprised breath at the size of this room. The restricted section, containing the history books Michael forbid us to read, was off-limits to Seasons when I lived here before. There doesn’t seem to be an end to the rows of dust-coated manuals and texts. No end to the shelves and display cases containing antique machines and ancient inventions.