THEY’VE BEEN KEEPING THEM DOWN here this whole time?” Jia said, walking over to the glass cases slowly, almost reverently. “Look at those wings!”
Fort followed her over, not sure if he should feel terror or awe. The dragon skeletons were immense, and even with their wings tucked behind them, they still barely fit in the cases. They weren’t the only items on display, though. Next to the two enormous dragon skeletons were four human ones, and Fort got a chill just looking at them.
“These are the magicians they found on Discovery Day,” he said softly. “The ones with the books of magic. I saw one of them in Dr. Opps’s memory.”
Two of the magician skeletons were displayed next to a dragon, while a third hung to the left of an enormous felinelike skeleton, almost like a sabertooth tiger or something. The fourth, though, was alone. Maybe that magician didn’t have a ride?
“I can’t tell if they’re male or female,” Rachel said. “Either of you healers have a guess?”
“Two of them were women,” Jia said, looking closely. “There are a few indicators that tell us based on bone shape and size. This one here, and there.” She pointed at one of the skeletons next to a dragon, and the one next to the feline monster. “The other two are male.”
“Nice,” Rachel said, giving the dragon-riding female magician an approving nod. “Too bad they didn’t dig up any dragon eggs or something.”
“I wish we knew the history,” Jia said. “Where the books actually came from. Who wrote them? Why were they in the hands of these magicians at the end? Why did we find them all on the same day? So many important questions—”
“Look! Dwarves!” Cyrus said, a little ways to the left. The others turned to where he stood before two half-sized skeletons, these broader than a normal human, and much more stout.
“Are you sure they’re not just children?” Rachel asked.
“The bones are too dense,” Jia said after giving Cyrus a dirty look for interrupting her. “Whatever they are, I don’t think they’re human.”
“Okay, but dwarves aren’t real,” Rachel said.
The others all stared at her for a moment, before she realized what she’d said and then laughed. “Right, okay, I just heard it myself. Yeah, yeah.” She pointed at some taller, thinner skeletons next to the half-sized ones. “So, what, those are elves?”
“Look at how narrow and thin the bones are,” Jia said, pointing at the tall creatures’ arms. “They would have been so delicate.”
Fort stared up at the skulls of the taller creatures, which were more elongated than the magicians’ skulls. What would they have looked like before they died? “Don’t elves have pointy ears?”
“Ears aren’t bones,” Jia pointed out. “They’re made of cartilage, which decomposes. You really do need to study, don’t you?”
“Hey, I just got here, like, two days ago,” he said, touching the glass in front of the elves. “So do you think they dug all of these up on the same day as the dragons and books?”
Rachel shook her head, pointing at a plaque. “Not according to the date here. See? This is later the same year as Discovery Day.”
“And these they found almost two years later,” Cyrus said, pointing at two slightly thinner half-sized skeletons. He leaned in, squinting at the plaque. “In Europe.”
“The elves were dug up there, too, looks like,” Jia said.
“Look at this,” Cyrus said, pointing at a smaller case that had been covered in a thick black cloth, which he held up so the others could see. “Is that a sword?”
Fort peered in closer, feeling a weird chill as he did, like this area of the room was ten degrees cooler. It did look like some kind of sword, but it wasn’t made of metal. Instead, it seemed almost like it was made of crystal, a foggy quartz or something. Next to it were an armored glove and a jaggedly sharp crown both made of the same material. The crown looked like it’d been broken in half, while the glove looked relatively intact.
Not that Fort even considered putting it on. All three items gave him a weird feeling in the base of his spine, like watching someone in a horror movie walking into a dark basement.
“Does the sword light on fire or something?” Rachel asked. “ ’Cause otherwise, there’s better stuff in here.”
Cyrus leaned down to read the plaque on the case. “These were found in the middle of some kind of battlefield,” he said. “Surrounded by hundreds of skeletons. Wow. Who do you think wore the crown?”
Fort frowned, knowing he’d seen that crystal somewhere before. The odd sense of fear he felt from the items made it hard to concentrate, though. Where would he ever have. . .
And then it hit him. The officers’ mess. The creature had been wearing armor made of that same material.
His eyes widened, and he quickly pulled the black cloth back down over the case. “Let’s not play with that,” he told Cyrus, his heart racing.
Cyrus gave him a smile and nodded, thankfully not asking any questions, because Fort wasn’t sure he could answer them anyway. Had those things left the sword and crown on this world when they went . . . wherever they were now? And more importantly, how could they use a glove that looked like it fit a normal human hand? Had the items belonged to a human in their service?
Or what if the Old Ones had once looked . . . human?
Just to calm himself down, Fort paced along the displays to stand before the dragon-riding female magician. He stared at her for a moment as his heart slowed to a normal speed.
The skeleton almost seemed to stare back at him, but unlike with the crown and sword, he didn’t feel any creepy feelings coming from the bones. He slowly put a hand up to the glass and looked at the empty eye sockets in her skull. The things she could have told them about magic. Jia was right, asking all of her questions. Why had the books all shown up on the same day? Why now? Where had they come from? And why had magic disappeared to begin with?
“I wish we could talk to them,” he said quietly.
Jia moved closer to Fort, staring up at the same skeleton he was. “There’s a Healing spell that can do that, actually. I’ve seen it, farther in the book, but never even thought about learning it.”
“How does that work?” Rachel said, looking confused. “You heal their voice box or something?”
“No, it’s called Communicate with the Dead,” Jia said. “I think you talk to their spirit.” She shivered. “Definitely creepy, and nothing we’re going to be messing with.”
“I don’t know, it could be useful,” Fort said.
Jia glared at him. “Don’t even think about it.”
“So what’s in these crates?” Rachel asked. “More things they dug up?”
Fort’s eyes widened. “All of this? There must be thousands of crates in here. And some of them are huge!”
“If these dates are true, they’ve been digging things up for over a decade,” Jia said, looking at the boxes as well. “Who knows what other sorts of things they’ve unearthed?” She sighed, shaking her head. “This is why we should never have come down here.”
“We still haven’t found Sierra,” Fort said. And the more time they wasted here, the sooner Dr. Opps would find them. “This is fascinating, but we need to keep moving.”
“You said one more floor,” Jia told him. “We can’t keep searching all night.”
“But look what we found!” Fort said. “This is probably where Dr. Opps is hiding all of his secret things. She’s probably just waiting on the next floor!”
Rachel frowned. “I don’t know, Fort. Jia might be right. I don’t want someone hitting the bathroom and noticing I’m gone.”
Fort gave Cyrus a quick glance, then sighed. “I’ll just look ahead. If there’s another empty floor, then you can all head back.”
“We can?” Jia said as Fort dropped to his knees and pushed his head through to the next floor.
Like the storage area they were in, the floor below held only one large room as well. But instead of a warehouse, this one looked just like the Viewing Room on the ground floor, including a podium right in the middle of circular descending stadium seats.
And on the podium were two books, both wrapped in chains as thick as Fort’s wrist.
He slowly pulled his head back up, his eyes wide. “You’re going to want to see this.”
“See what?” Jia said.
Fort swallowed, taking a moment. “Um, two more books of magic.”
The others all exchanged looks. “This is a really bad idea,” Jia said, shaking her head. “We can’t go down there.”
“Too late!” Rachel shouted, and dove through the floor. Jia cursed, then followed right behind.
“Little help?” Fort asked, and Cyrus quickly pulled him through the floor to follow the two girls.
Rachel and Jia were already examining the books as the boys arrived. “Don’t touch them,” Jia warned as Rachel reached a hand out to the chains. “There’s probably a ton of alarms on these things.”
Rachel snorted, then ran her hand through the podium below the books. “What alarm are we going to set off?”
“This explains the blurriness,” Cyrus told Fort quietly. “The books always disrupt my magic, and our future led right to them.”
“Can you see what they say?” Fort asked, moving closer.
Jia glanced at him quickly, then turned away. Rachel gave her a confused look, then nodded. “Yeah, sort of,” she said, pointing at the first. “This one’s The Magic of Extrasensory Perception, and the Art of Mind Reading, but the other one’s title is kind of burned off.” She moved in closer, squinting at the text. “It’s definitely The Magic of Sum . . . something.”
“Some something?”
“Like what you get when you add two things, S-U-M,” she said, leaning in. “The Magic of Sum—”
A blaring alarm filled the room, cutting off whatever else she was going to say.
They all stared at Rachel, who quickly held up both her hands. “Not me!” she said. “I never touched it!”
“I’m guessing Dr. Opps found out where we went,” Cyrus said to Fort, then turned to the girls, who were staring at him incredulously. “Sebastian saw us leave and turned us in. So, should we go, or . . . ?”