That night all of us "third round" Lion Hall pre-rushers gathered in the large assembly room where the Hall ran most of its official meetings. Aside from us, only two other groups had made it to the third round so far, first by stealing a book from the library's restricted section then willingly braving a night inside the labyrinth with whatever idiots the initial would-be Lion Haller gathered up. Shockingly, few people were actually stupid enough to chance either of those perils, let alone both, and survive.
I was already looking forward to whatever nightmarish task they'd put on. If the last two were any sign it'd probably involve milking a manticore or visiting that charming, magical talking dog who tried to eat me, and playing tiddlywinks with the wretched thing.
"So," Cecil said, clasping his hands together in front of him. "You all are the only ones to make it to round three so far."
There was a shuffling of feet as we freshmen gave each other sideways glances. We'd divided into groups based on whoever had initially invited us to pre-rush. I attributed that to us all feeling a sense of camaraderie with the people we'd been shoved into the labyrinth with and being forced to survive a normally unsurvivable situation.
My group was actually pretty unscathed, all things considered. The only major injury any of us took was the slash across Sylas's back and that had been mostly mended thanks to Rosamund, who evidently had some affinity for healing.
By contrast, one of the girls in Felicity Harlow's group had lost an eye during their labyrinth excursion, and Adam Burgoyne sported a prosthetic leg that appeared to be made of segmented enchanted bronze after his own group's night below the school.
Neither Felicity nor Adam had spoken two words to me, and I only knew their names because Sylas had pointed them out when we'd started occasionally sitting with the Lion Hallers to wait on them as part of our pre-rush duties.
Then again, neither had Cecil.
He'd made a rather active point to only speak to Sylas and generally ignored the rest of our group with an overall air of disdainful snobbery he couldn't pull off nearly as well as he thought he did. Most nobles were, in my experience, either excellent or terrible at hiding their true feelings with very little middle ground.
Sylas also fell into the latter camp, as he shifted nervously on his feet next to me.
"Calm down," I whispered. "You're going to wear a hole in the floor with all that shuffling."
Sylas gave me a look, but stopped shifting.
"So," Cecil repeated. "Third challenge is: steal something interesting from somewhere on campus and bring it to our party."
The gathered freshmen met the proclamation with silence. Presumably because most of us wondered if it was a strange joke, or just a lazy rehash of round one's library break in.
Cecil seemed a bit perturbed by our reaction. "Anything we don't deem as being interesting or hard enough to steal means you've failed this part of pre-rush and you'll have to wait until we have another party to try again," Cecil warned.
"So we'll just have to wait a few days?" I muttered under my breath, before an elbow to the gut and a glare, both administered by Rosamund, quickly silenced me.
Really though, based on the looks everyone gave each other, we were all thinking it.
Each group of freshmen broke off to whisper among each other, pitching ideas for potentially elaborate heists they could attempt before that night's celebrations.
"So," Sylas said. "We need to steal something, and something good. Any ideas?"
"Okay," I said. "Am I the only one who thinks this whole thing seems a bit too easy? I mean we had to be in the labyrinth for a night."
Iroha nodded. "We did almost die down there," she said. "Multiple times even."
That felt like a bit of an understatement, and I couldn't help but give Iroha a look that I felt conveyed my feelings on that in depth. Of course, she ignored it.
"What exactly do they expect us to do?" Rosamund said. "What do they mean by something good?"
Mason had a thoughtful expression on his face that could mean anything from him contemplating what the Lion Hallers could be impressed by or just him considering what dinner had been like.
"What do you suppose…" Mason trailed off, continuing to stare off in contemplation of some far-off ancient truth.
Not in the mood to deal with much hemming and hawing, I pushed the conversation forward. "They probably just want something that looks impressive, like a founder's portrait from one of the other halls or something."
The others, save Mason, still lost in his own world, glanced at each other. According to school lore, each of the seven halls of Angitia was created in honor of one of the mages who founded the school. For example, the founder associated with Lion Hall was Bridget Cleary, an Irish witch who'd burned her null husband alive, a year after marrying him, on that faithful Walpurgis Night in 1888. Cleary's portrait hung in a place of honor in Lion Hall's foyer and in it she wore a gossamer fairy silk gown that shimmered in fiery golds that made your eyes hurt to stare at too long. The painting also had the unfortunate habit of seeming to look directly at you if you looked at the thing for too long. Cleary's lips ticked ever upward and stretched across her face up until it almost seemed as if the portrait's face would split in two to reveal a maw of smiling pearly white teeth.
Eerie fucking thing.
"I'm not sure if going for a founder's portrait is the best idea," Rosamund noted. "I'm sort of friends with a few girls in several of the other Halls and I'd rather not do anything untoward."
So Rosamund had friends outside of us. Shocking.
"What about something from the library, then?" I offered half-heartedly. Word was that the librarians had cranked up the security spells on the restricted section by several notches since the last few Lion Hall related break-ins. Well, mostly mine and Sylas's little escapade because evidently we were the last ones to do it successfully and the first ones to accidentally wake the sentinels and make a whole pageant of it.
The librarians had responded to our break in by increasing the number of stone owl sentinels three-fold, and had even laid a series of wards around the library at night that would freeze would-be burglars in a block of ice if they weren't too careful.
I swear that some of the other Lion Hall pre-rushers who had yet to complete that challenge had given Sylas death glares ever since they announced the new library security measures.
Mason finally seemed to zero in on our conversation. "Better not," he said. "I'd rather not give the librarians another reason to dislike me."
I chose not to engage with that. "What then?" I said, already feeling exhausted by the entire thing. "Because I'm plumb out of ideas."
"Well, what if we took something from the headmistress' office?" Sylas suggested. "I'm sure no one else would think to do that."
There was a moment of silence in response to that.
Headmistress Griffin… well, she hadn't exactly made herself scarce since the first day of school. She'd still occasionally stalk the different halls of the school and wandered around the cafeteria or library at times. But she wasn't exactly the sort of person you'd relish spending time with, with everything from the look on her face to how she continuously clenched and unclenched her hands seeming to say, "Stay away from me and be quiet otherwise I'm liable to rip your heart out through your throat."
Some of the upperclassmen had stories about people being called in to visit Headmistress Griffin's office, which was by all accounts hidden by some sort of eldritch construction work and couldn't be found unless she invited you, it didn't sound like something I'd be keen on doing. Ever.
"It might work," Iroha said slowly. "Assuming we could find it, and if we knew she wouldn't be there when we did."
"I'm fairly certain she's actually off campus the next few days," Rosamund offered. "Her Majesty's Royal Coven has a yearly gala for retired members this time of year. A few of my aunts and uncles go every year to do odd spell work at the event."
"That's the worst possible thing we could do," I hissed. "Breaking into the headmistress' office? The woman looks like she eats mice."
No one disputed me on that point. Well, I suppose Mason did, in a way.
"But it certainly would be cool, wouldn't it?" Mason said in that thoughtful way of his, and just like that, they outvoted me. Bastards the lot of them.
***
"So we need to take something from Griffin's office," Rosamund said, as we all sat around me and Sylas's room. "I rather think this might be outside our skill set."
We'd wound up in our room because Mason and Iroha both had roommates, neither of whom they were friendly with, and Rosamund had flatly refused to let us use her room.
So we'd all crammed into mine and Sylas's room and Mason and Rosamund were both sitting on my bed, because of course they were, and Iroha was standing off to the side looking thoughtful.
"Outside our skill set?" I said dryly. "Because braving a night in the Labyrinth is definitely something most freshmen manage in their first few months of school."
"I'm not sure I'm fond of this new attitude of yours, Theo," Rosamund muttered. "Sarcasm is, after all, the lowest form of humor."
Mason frowned. "How do you suppose they figured that out?" Mason mused. "Do you think someone made a list of all the kinds of jokes in the world and decided that—"
"Something large would be impressive, I think," Iroha said, interrupting Mason. "An item with a degree of significance."
"And what would that be?" Rosamund asked, giving a putout Mason a reassuring pat on his arm. "What does she have in her office? I've never been in it."
"None of us have," I said. "Look, I'm fairly confident none of us have a prayer of even finding it this late in the day."
"Oh, it's at the top floor of the clock tower," Mason said nonchalantly. "Some sort of spell keeps it locked, I think? She always waves her hands in some elaborate way when she's trying to open it."
The lot of us looked at him. "Mason," Sylas said carefully. "How exactly do you know that?"
"Oh, I'm a student clerk at the administration office," Mason said. "It's also in the clock tower, along with the faculty offices and some club rooms. I sometimes get sent on errands to file things for the headmistress. She's always rather cross to see me, though." He frowned at us. "Didn't you all know? I feel like I talk about it all the time."
"No," Iroha said. "I've never heard you speak a word of it."
"Really?" Mason's frown deepened. "I could swear I talked to someone about it."
I ploughed through before Mason could get lost in whatever fog his mind was perpetually lost in.
"Can you get us into her office?" I asked.
Mason blinked at me. "I just told you, old man, Headmistress Griffon locks her door with some sort of spell."
I wanted to shake Mason violently, but Sylas stepped in first.
"Can you lead us to the door inside the clock tower at least?" Sylas asked.
"Well," Mason hesitated. "I'm not sure if that's allowed. They didn't say I could give chaps tours of administration when I they hired me on as a student clerk, but it was strongly implied."
"Mason," Rosamund said, leaning forward and smiling at him. "Please, it's our best shot at getting into Lion Hall. Don't you want us to all be in the same Hall?"
Mason blinked, considering it. "Well," he said, uncertainty filled the word.
"Mason," I snapped. "Come. On."
"Give me a moment. I'm thinking."
I wanted to wring his neck.
As if sensing my impulse, Sylas and Iroha both gave me a look.
"Mason," Rosamund said, reaching forward and giving him one of her most winning smiles. "Please, for me."
For us? I almost said, but Iroha gave me another sideways look and I held my tongue.
Mason remained frowning like he was trying to work out a complex equation in his head, then Sylas suddenly perked up.
"Hey, what if you told us where we wouldn't find the entrance to the clock tower?"
"What?" I said.
"What?" Mason said.
"Sylas, what are you—" Rosamund began.
"No, no hear me out," Sylas raised a hand in placation. "What if you told us every single place on campus where the entrance to the clock tower wasn't? That way you'd never actually tell us where the office actually was specifically, right? I'm sure that's allowed."
"That is the stupidest—" I began, but Mason interrupted me.
"You know, I think that would be alright," Mason said, nodding vigorously. "I'd need a map though to point out all the places."
"What?" I said.
"I should have one in my bag," Iroha said and promptly turned her bag over onto the floor, spilling out a mess of books and papers which she sorted through.
"Thank you, Sylas," Mason said, giving him a smile. "That was a real head scratcher, wasn't it?"
"Well, I'm just glad to be of help," Sylas said. "I certainly wouldn't want to make you do anything that made you feel uncomfortable, Mason."
"What?" I repeated, looking around the room to see if anyone else was having trouble with how ridiculous it was. Iroha had found her map somewhere in the mess she'd scattered on my floor and had taken it and a pen over to Mason, who started crossing out buildings with a contented look on his face.
Rosamund had gone over to see what he was marking, and Sylas just gave me a smile.
"This is ridiculous," I said to the room, but all that earned me were more looks from everyone, Mason included.