With a few issues of The Daily Bird tucked under my arm, I returned to my quiet table, typed in the password for my laptop, and opened up a Web browser. A cursory search for Waverly’s forgotten daily turned up no significant results, so I accessed Waverly’s own scholastic database and brushed up on my Boolean abilities. This heeded more success. Still, only two articles within the database mentioned The Daily Bird. The first was entitled “America’s Oldest College Newspaper.”
For several years, it has been debated as to which of America’s universities boasts the oldest student-run paper. Yale, Princeton, and Harvard have all attempted to claim the title, but a recent revelation came to light with the discovery of an issue of The Daily Bird, Waverly University’s original student paper. The issue was dated 1789, decades before the other Ivies rolled the dice in the game of collegiate journalism. Unfortunately, Waverly can’t claim the ultimate prize of Longest Running College Daily as the publication of The Daily Bird came to a mysterious halt in 1910, and the university’s current paper wasn’t instituted until 1934. So the question remains: what happened to The Daily Bird?
For whatever reason, The Daily Bird had dropped off the map of college papers. I skimmed the rest of the article, but whoever wrote it hadn’t discovered any further information on the Bird’s disappearance. The second article, “Waverly Brothership Continues On,” was from a few years back and wasn’t about the Bird at all. Instead, it detailed the “long-standing partnership” between two of Waverly’s finest families and their continual success beyond education. Before I even read on, instinct told me which two families the article undoubtedly referred to. Sure enough: “The Lockwoods and the Davenports have worked side by side ever since the two families first arrived at Waverly. Orson’s and William’s great-great-grandfathers ran Waverly’s original student paper, The Daily Bird, together.”
As I continued to read the article, a crease of confusion etched itself into the skin between my brows. The Lockwoods and the Davenports went back as far as the school itself. Why Donovan would deny that relationship was beyond me, especially when the evidence was so easily accessible.
A murmur of conversation and the soft fall of footsteps on the library carpet permeated the fortress of books that I had constructed atop my table. I ignored it at first, too absorbed in the baffling existence of The Daily Bird, but the tail end of one sentence caused my head to snap up at attention.
“—asked me to schedule a meeting with the Morrigan.”
Another voice responded. “Good. It’s about time we straightened this disaster out. Pluto won’t admit it, but he’s definitely worried. I think there’s something going on that he isn’t telling the rest of us.”
The library swallowed the voices as the footfalls faded from my little corner of the building. I hesitated, but after a split second of decision making, I tucked away the old issues of the Bird and shot to my feet. Hurrying between the shelves, I followed the voices, but as I approached the entrance to the Rapere Wing, the conversation abruptly cut off. I peeked around my side of the shelf and let out a groan. Between the pillars that flanked the adjacent wing of the library, there was no one in sight.
Dejected, I returned to my table and reopened my laptop. I searched “Pluto” and “Waverly University” with no luck. The only information on Pluto that I could find referred to either the dubiously classified planet, Mickey’s pet dog, or the alternate name for Hades. The Morrigan I was even less familiar with, but with the help of a few informative Web pages, I began to understand the reference. The Morrigan was a character from Irish mythology, a “phantom queen” that took the shape of a crow and decided who lived and died on the battlefield. Like the origin of Pluto’s name, this meant little to me, and I slammed the laptop shut, ready to give up on the nicknames and return to my poorly attended thesis research, before an image popped into my mind: that of a black crow sculpture sitting on Catherine Flynn’s office bookshelf.
5
For the first time in a while, Wes beat me home that night. The front door banged against the wall behind it as I powered through, dumping my bag and shedding my jacket in record time. Franklin rushed over, tail wagging, and I said hello to him via a distracted pat to the top of his head. In the kitchen, Wes was busy adding noodles to a stir fry. The apartment smelled delicious, but as I slid onto one of the barstools and took out my laptop to continue my research, the scent of soy sauce and ginger faded from my focus.
“Wow,” Wes commented, turning the stir fry with a wooden spoon. “Not even a hello kiss. Must have been an interesting day.”
I leaned over the counter to press my lips briefly to Wes’s. “I have news,” I announced.
“So do I.”
That was a surprise. Wes almost always let me blather on about my day before filling me in on his. “You first.”
He lowered the heat on the stove and left the food to simmer. “I asked Officer Wilson about those cases you found.”
A rush of love for Wes pulsed through me. In all honesty, I hadn’t expected Wes to actually ask about the cases. The fact that he did was a small reminder of how much he cared for me. “You did?”
“Yup. And guess what? He hemmed and hawed. Wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”
“No way.”
“Yup.” He nodded grimly. “So I asked Brad instead—you know Brad. He’s not quite as bright—and he let slip that cases involving high-profile students are thrown out at the request of university officials.”
“Who exactly qualifies as a high-profile student?”
“My guess is any one of
