Dusty sunlight came through the small circular window made her room look like a haunting dream. Two boxes sat on the made bed, clearly damaged from being squashed and forgotten in a cupboard for the past year. Bethan prayed to the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone that its items were safe.

Kellan flipped the lid on one of them and rummaged through; she took the other.

They worked in silence, flipping through the papers, eagerly hoping something useful would emerge. Most were copies of maps of where she located the Pele Amulet; Bethan had already seen those in the research at Dana’s old apartment. Kellan found copies of old research papers of her. Nothing looked promising until Kellan drew in a sharp breath, breaking the silence.

She tilted her head, waiting.

‘It’s Lenovik’s papers.’

She snatched them from him, scanning each and every word. In the front were at least five pages of an essay on the Antiphonus, clearly unpublished.

This was it.

Shit.

Lenovik was in deep shit.

‘Kurai suggests his family were part of a secret organisation of Krete’s silent elite, seeking true power and the end of the human species. He insinuates that the Rennigan family, particularly his father Kai, was somehow responsible for the Blood Plague.’ Bethan read through the paper. ‘He claimed that this organisation worked on behalf of an unknown figure called the Unseen.’

That name again.

‘They worked for the Unseen.’ He said.

Bethan shrugged. ‘I don’t think the Rennigans are still like that. Elnora wouldn’t be. Besides this is all-known knowledge from the Antiphonus.’

‘This is the third time we’ve heard of the Unseen. That organisation mentioned has to be the Adelian.’

‘Our job is to find the grimoire. Not going after the Adelian.’

Feeling Kellan’s disapproval, Bethan rubbed her eyes, hiding from him slightly.

‘That time, when they attacked us, they said they wanted you.’

‘Because I could find the Grimoire.’ She picked up Lenovik’s and held them up. ‘This told us nothing about its whereabouts.’

She kept rummaging through her box of Dana’s stuff and setting the papers back down. A bubbling tension brewed between them, and Bethan worried for what was next.’

‘It might not have new information, but she was interested in it; we’re going down the right path with the Antiphonus,’ he told her.

The box she was searching through toppled over. Papers spilt from it, the documents fell like snow, and something hard hit her knee.

She blinked down and spotted a leather-bound book.

It was black, with Dana in gold foiling.

Her graduation present, she thought, sitting up. Bethan had bought it for her and had it monogrammed in gold with her name. She brushed a finger down its spine. All the secrets this journal might have.