“Hm.”
“It’s in the library.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Wes!” I prodded his side, ignoring his grumble of protest. “The secret room that the riddle talks about is in the library.”
He opened one heavily lidded eye. “How do you know?”
“The pillars outside the Rapere Wing are modeled after the Pillars of Hercules,” I explained. My pulse quickened as I realized the significance of this breakthrough. “And this group, whatever they are, their motto is nec plus ultra. Wes, I’ll bet you anything that this secret room is under the Rapere Wing.”
“Good job, Nic,” he muttered. He patted my butt, unaware of where he was placing his congratulatory gesture. “You can check it out tomorrow.”
“I want to go tonight.”
Wes perched himself up on his elbows to address me. “Nicole. It is two o’clock in the morning. I haven’t stayed up this late since your twenty-first birthday bender. Please, I beg of you, do not make me get up and follow you out into the frozen tundra of Waverly’s wasteland to unearth a secret, underground room like I’m Tracer Bullet, private eye.”
“For the record, I’m the clever detective in this situation.”
“I’ll entertain any of your chosen alter egos,” conceded Wes, “as long as you stay in tonight. Don’t go overboard with this, Nic. We still don’t know what happened to O’Connor, and I’d sure as hell hate to wake up tomorrow morning and find you missing like him.”
I considered his heavy eyelids and the faint imprint of the quilt pattern across his left cheek. “Fine,” I said at last. “I’ll go tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed my forehead before sinking beneath the blankets once more. I flipped over, staring at the ceiling where the moonlight painted shadows across the stucco, wide awake. Within minutes, a light snore emanated from Wes’s side of the bed. I waited a moment longer, listening to Wes’s long, even breaths. Then, when I was sure that he was a goner, I inched out from under the quilt, puzzle box in hand, and went to fetch my snow jacket.
6
Much to my bewilderment, the main doors to the library were unlocked. Though Waverly didn’t boast any state-of-the-art security measures, I’d at least expected the night guards to lock up the buildings after the last of the students had gone home. The open door was a godsend really. I slipped inside, grateful to escape the frigid flurries that flirted with the black night. My footsteps echoed across the marble floor as I crossed the lobby and passed through the second set of doors. The library was a curious place to be so late at night. There were no students bent over the desks, religiously studying the classics. No hawk-eyed librarians organized the shelves or scolded those who were being too noisy. Even the whirring of the computers behind the checkout desk was absent. Without the bustle of daytime, the building felt vastly bigger. Colder, even. I ignored the prickling at the back of my neck. If Waverly had ghosts, they would certainly feel at home in the old library, and though I didn’t believe in the supernatural, I crept through the towering shelves with the foreboding sense that someone was watching me.
The Rapere Wing was at the back of the main building. As I approached it, I craned my neck to fully appreciate the sight of the soaring stone pillars. How many times had I passed by that archway and never challenged its existence at all? Now, as I pressed my palms to the burnished mahogany doors and coaxed them open, my heart thundered in my chest.
It had been several months since I’d had to enter the Rapere Wing for O’Connor, and since then, I’d forgotten how extensive it was. Even the shelves were arranged to reflect the pretentious minds of those who had constructed this part of the library. They coiled inward, and when viewed from above, the layout of the shelves was meant to mimic a Fibonacci spiral within the rectangular room. With the wooden puzzle box in one gloved hand and a flashlight in the other, I followed along the outer edge of the spiral, keeping away from the faded spines of the books lest I accidentally damage something. No part of the brick walls had been left exposed. Even the far corners were obscured by the statuesque shelves. If there really was a secret trapdoor that led to an underground clubhouse, its creators had concealed it well. I shined the flashlight over every inch of the floor, but there were no hints of interruptions in the burgundy carpet. The whorled shelves wound tighter and tighter, leading me farther into the depths of the library until I reached the center of the spiral. Here, it was hard to believe that the rest of the university even existed, ensconced as I was within the illusory citadel of books. I glanced up at the stained-glass dome above me. Dark as its artwork was without the sunlight to illuminate the glass, it reminded me that there was a sleeping world beyond the labyrinthine shelves. I returned my attention to the task at hand, sweeping the flashlight back and forth in a pattern of wide arcs. Even here, at the epicenter of the room, there was no indication that the books had ever been disturbed by members of an elite society.
I huffed. At a dead end, my weariness had finally caught up with me. I closed my eyes for a moment, mentally preparing myself for the long walk out of the library and back to the apartment. As I pivoted away from the inner coil of shelves, the blue glow of my LED light reflected off
