WHAT DO WE DO?”

At the sight of the Master of All, Cas and Warrior leapt back from the keyholes and shrank down against the door. They waited for a second, wondering whether by some unfortunate miracle the Master had seen them, before slowly pressing their eyes against the openings once more.

They could see and hear everything that was going on inside the room.

“We have to get help,” whispered Cas urgently, his heart stuttering a jackrabbit beat in his chest.

But as he spoke, the Master of All turned back to face a cornered Mrs Crane. Cas and Warrior pressed themselves harder against the door to listen.

“You know what I seek. Where is it?” the Master of All demanded. His voice was much smoother and deeper – more human – than Cas expected.

He didn’t know why, but for some reason the Master had always been a hulking great ugly monster in Cas’s head. Instead, the villain he saw standing before him was nothing more than a man, an Other like anyone else in the Balance Lands.

Or at least, for a second, so he thought.

Without warning, the Master of All let out a roar and punched out his clenched fist. With a mighty invisible force, he upended an entire bookcase, ripping it free from the wall and flinging it across the room. It smashed into pieces above Mrs Crane’s head.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Mrs Crane wept, trembling on all fours.

“He’s looking for me,” hissed Cas, leaping up to enter the library. He had to surrender himself to save Mrs Crane. But Warrior tugged him back down.

“No, listen,” she said in a hushed tone.

“WHERE IS IT?” the Master of All bellowed.

Mrs Crane shook like a leaf. “Please, I don’t know,” she wailed, clutching the desk for support. “I truly don’t.”

The Master of All used his unnatural power to shatter another bookcase, before hovering his hand over Mrs Crane’s heart. His body relaxed into a deep sag of concentration. Gut-twisting dread flooded through Cas; he knew that look.

“We can do this the easy way,” said the Master, smirking horribly. “Or the hard way.” He narrowed his eyes, using his Deathmaker powers to gently squeeze Mrs Crane’s heart. Mrs Crane covered her chest protectively, cringing in pain.

“Do your worst,” she blubbered, her face defiant and brave even though she was snivelling. “But I’ll never give up the Foretold. I’ll never give you the boy you seek.” Her tear-streaked visage was the most courageous face Cas had ever seen.

The Master of All’s eyes bulged. He let out an irate cry and slammed his hands together. Mrs Crane toppled over sideways. Her head hit the floor with an ear-splitting crack. For a split second, Cas’s own heart stopped.

Was Mrs Crane dead?

But as she lay on the floor, her body faintly quivered as the Master howled. He strode across the library, tearing apart everything in his path.

“The Foretold, the Foretold,” he raged, upturning chairs and desks with a single swipe, toppling carts stacked high with tomes and tearing yet more bookshelves free from the walls. “THE FORETOLD! As if I still seek that worthless boy, when my informant tells me that Wayward School hides something much more valuable.”

He slammed his fist against an old woven tapestry hanging on the wall, knocking it loose. A corner curled back, revealing a concealed entrance. Eyes alight, the Master of All yanked the tapestry down. Hidden behind it was a heavy, solid metal door. It looked like some kind of vault.

Or an escape route.

“The Abominable Archives,” the Master of All snarled.

Cas barely heard him.

He had already leapt to his feet and was rattling the library door. He had to get to Mrs Crane. He couldn’t let the Master of All go free.

“Help!” Cas yelled when the door refused to budge. Before he could worry if the Master of All had heard the noise, he was sprinting away to find the nearest wardsman. “HELP!”

Cas barrelled haphazardly around one corner and then the next. Blinded by panic, he ran slap-bang into a solid mass of black. It was Dr Bane. Bane was pressed up against the corridor’s wall, his ashen face illuminated by the moonlight, whilst the rest of his body melted into the shadows as if he was one with them. He looked stunned that Cas had discovered him.

“Dr Bane—” Cas began.

But Dr Bane gripped Cas firmly and levelled his gaze. “Where is the Master?”

Cas spluttered out the words. “Library,” he said. “He’s got Mrs Crane. He’s looking for something.”

“Andromeda,” Dr Bane murmured quietly, his features turning even paler in despair. “Get to safety, Cas!” he commanded as he took off running towards the scene of the crime.

Just then, an entire patrol of orange wardsmen thundered past Cas, their boots slapping against the marble floor as they followed in Dr Bane’s footsteps.

Despite Bane’s strict instructions, Cas dashed after them. But when they all reached the library, the doors had been blown off their hinges and the Master of All was gone.

Only Mrs Crane remained, shaken, tearful and barely conscious, in a curled-up ball by the vault-like door. Warrior was crouched at her side. The sole waygate mirror in the library lay smashed about her feet, brightly reflecting the Abominable Archives’ once-concealed entrance, now exposed for everyone to see.

“What are the Abominable Archives?” wondered Cas, as he and the Abnormies sat huddled in the dining hall the next morning.

Cas and company had to keep their voices down as they spoke; no one was talking much over breakfast.

“No idea,” said Warrior, munching on her cornflakes. “I didn’t even know there was a secret room in the library.”

The feud over their fight with the Du Villaines had seemingly been pushed aside in light of more pressing matters. Paws and Fenix were equally clueless.

Whatever the Abominable Archives were, or held, nobody knew.

The mystery of the Archives wasn’t the only thing making the air in the dining hall charged with apprehension. Since the attack last night, it was like the world inside Wayward School had gone even more topsy-turvy. More wardsmen than ever patrolled the halls now, and some had even taken to tailing anyone they thought looked remotely suspicious between classes. The Du Villaines and their cronies were actively avoiding the Abnormies, not – as Warrior believed – because she and Cas had beaten them in the Scuffle, but more likely because Cas had discovered Lucille’s secret. And the only reason most parents hadn’t removed their children from the school was because the Grand Council had decided to keep the whole incident hushed up.

Nobody except the Abnormies knew the real reason why everyone was suddenly being escorted to and from their lessons by a teacher. But the students at Wayward School weren’t daft.

They could tell something was wrong.

Madame Aster had just arrived to take them to their first class of the day when Warrior said, “What I would like to know is how the Master of All even got into Wayward without setting off the wards in the first place? He might’ve left through the library’s waygate mirror, but you can only journey here through its twin in the Grand Council Chambers. And I highly doubt he came from there.”

Cas, Paws and Fenix puzzled over this for a moment, pushing their scrambled eggs around their plates, dithering for as long as they could.

“Are you sure nobody with evil intentions can get through the school’s wards?” said Cas, shovelling a forkful of lukewarm eggy gloop into his mouth.

“Positive,” affirmed Fenix, nudging his crooked glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Cas levelled his gaze at the Firetamer as an idea took hold. “How about under them?”

It took a moment, but then Fenix’s eyes widened in understanding.

“The leishis,” they chorused together.

“Leishis?” mimicked Warrior, completely perplexed.

“Oh, leishis are terribly misunderstood,” piped up Paws. “They’re a little tricky at times, but—”

“That day we went into Wayward Town at Christmas, Mrs Crane said the school had been having problems with leishis burying under the wards,” said Fenix, uncharacteristically butting in.

“Which means the Master could have got in,” said Cas, “if he went under the wards instead of through them.”

Warrior tutted. “I doubt the Master of All brought a little spade and dug himself a tunnel last night.”

“Maybe not, but where does the toilet waste go?”

Warrior looked at Cas, revolted, and Paws appeared very concerned.

“Well, I’m guessing it doesn’t just go into the Wavebreaker lake.”

“It goes out of the school via the pipes, and empties somewhere west of the town… OH, BY THE THREADS!” Warrior exclaimed, slapping her forehead as the thought occurred to her too. “The Master of All got in via the sewers.”

Paws slowly spat out the mouthful she was chewing. “That’s gross,” she said, cereal milk dribbling down her chin.

“Someone must still be helping him, though,” said Fenix. “How else would the Master know where the sewers are to get in?”

“Well, he was a student here,” suggested Paws.

“But the sewers are like a never-ending labyrinth under Wayward Town. You’d get lost down there unless you knew the way in and out,” said Warrior. “Can you remember what he said in the library, Cas? He has an informant. It must be someone with access to Wayward School’s plans. Again, I can’t imagine the Master waltzing up to the Grand Council and asking for the blueprints himself.”

“The Du Villaines have family in the Grand Council,” Cas offered.

Warrior shook her head. “Too proud. The Du Villaine family would never help someone who could rob them of their precious powers. But Madame Aster has ties to the Grand Council too.”

“Unless it’s Hopeless Higgles. He would be privy to such information,” speculated Fenix worriedly.

Cas pondered this. He wouldn’t put it past Hapless Higgles to have unwittingly left a plan of the school grounds lying around for the Master of All to find. Or even handed it directly to one of the Heretics themselves, if they’d come knocking on Wayward School’s front door claiming to be the Balance Lands’ Most Magical Map Collector or something equally ridiculous. However, that wasn’t the question currently buzzing around his brain.

“I’m less interested in who,” said Cas, “and more interested in what. Now that we know how the Master got in, we need to figure out what he’s looking for. It doesn’t matter who’s helping him if he gets whatever it is. It isn’t me. The Master of All kept asking Mrs Crane where it is, not he.”

Cas had tried to tell the Grand Council as much last night. They had arrived shortly after the wardsmen to take in the scene, but for all the good Cas’s words did, he may as well have been talking to a brick wall.

“Nonsense,” High Councillor Brooks had said, twiddling his plaited beard so hard his fingers chafed. “The Foretold is the only thing the Master is after.”

“Yes,” said High Councillor Aster, his ears growing redder by the minute. “He’s been seeking you relentlessly since before you came to Wayward.”

“But maybe he’s not any more,” Cas had insisted. “Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. The Master said there was something more valuable than me at the school. Whatever it is, it’s hidden inside the Abominable Archives.”

Mrs Crane had been out cold at the time, so she couldn’t vouch for Cas’s story, and even if she had heard or seen anything, she wasn’t in a fit state to tell.

“Abominable Archives? We don’t know what you mean,” said Aster.

“There’s no such thing,” supported Brooks.

“Wretched, silly boy,” High Councillor Du Villaine had snarked, “making up stories because he’s unhappy with the new rules we’re bringing in to try and keep him safe. I say we should leave your ungrateful hide to the Master.”

“It’s for your own good, Casander,” High Councillor Hephaestus had told him gently.

Silly boy. Making up stories.

The words made Cas bristle even now. Not only did they not believe him, but he had a funny feeling they were playing dumb about the Abominable Archives too.

“Cover for me in Order Studies,” he said, turning to Warrior. She had grown silent once more. Even though they had been talking only moments ago, something still felt off between them. “I need to pay Dr Bane a visit.”

Despite the new security measures, it was surprisingly easy for Cas to sneak away from class.

He had one secret weapon nobody was counting on: Warrior Bane.

While Warrior distracted Madame Aster by leaping out from behind various columns and statues on the way to their lesson, scaring the other students by pretending to be the Master, Cas quickly slipped away and headed up to the first floor.

He was surprised to find Bane’s office vacant and locked. After last night’s attack, Dr Bane had made it clear to Cas that his door would always be open if Cas wanted to come to him with any fears or concerns.

Figuring that Dr Bane must have momentarily popped out, Cas changed direction and headed towards the Nurse’s Quarters instead. Bane had said that Mrs Crane needed rest and wouldn’t be accepting visitors, but Cas needed to get out of the open in case anyone spotted him wandering around unsupervised. Besides, he figured he could still wave through the window or slip a get-well-soon note under the door.

The Nurse’s Quarters were located in a glass-roofed wing at the rear of the school and Cas had to take the long route around the outside of the building to avoid detection. He had just slipped back inside and was walking down the final corridor, scribbling a heartfelt message on the back of his History of the Balance Lands homework, when the sound of raised voices floated down the hall to meet him.

“For you to think that I could have possibly – unimaginably – had anything to do with that break-in last night is absurd, Dromeda…”

Cas dropped his homework sheet and stilled.

He had found Dr Bane.

“Do you really doubt me, sister?” Cas heard Bane ask, as he pressed himself flat against the corridor’s wall, listening keenly.

“Do I have a reason to, Claudius?” shot back Mrs Crane.

At odds with how broken and bruised she had looked last night, Mrs Crane’s voice sounded strong, resilient … and, most worryingly, accusing.

“We both know what will happen if the Master gets hold of what he seeks,” she said.

“Chaos. Catastrophes. Calamities—” Bane listed off.

“And just about every other terrible thing that doesn’t begin with the letter C,” remarked Mrs Crane, thoroughly agitated. “If the Master succeeds and acquires all the powers, the balance of nature will be disrupted beyond repair. It will be ruined, ripped apart and destroyed. The very threads that hold our world and the Normie one together will unravel. You can’t blame me for asking, brother. We both know your personal ties to him.”

A loud bang echoed out as Dr Bane slammed his fist against something. “Ties I mistakenly made,” said Dr Bane. “Ties I have tried to sever. Ties I have lived to regret.”

“Oh, please—”

“Let’s not forget the part you’ve played in all of this, Andromeda,” said Dr Bane, cutting Mrs Crane off. A moment’s silence passed between them. Cas imagined them both catching their breath. “Remember, I keep your secrets and you keep mine.”

Before Cas could hide or run, the sound of footsteps stormed closer and the doors to the Nurse’s Quarters flew open. Cas stood, looking as innocent as possible, in front of a very tense and flustered Dr Bane.

“Casander,” said Bane, looking as startled as Cas felt, before rapidly regaining his composure. The concerned crinkles around his fox-like eyes smoothed and he pulled his tight lips into a wavering, welcoming smile. “I thought I might be seeing you today.”

Dr Bane moved forward, letting the doors swing shut behind him. Cas managed to sneak a quick peek at a dishevelled Mrs Crane, sitting on one of the many empty hospital beds in a frilly tweed dressing-gown, before the doors closed.

“I was just coming to give Mrs Crane this,” he said, scrambling around on the floor for his get-well-soon homework sheet. “But I was actually hoping to talk to you, Dr Bane.”

“Of course,” said Dr Bane, “though I suspect I know why you’re here.”

The Deathmaker tutor wrapped his arm around Cas’s shoulders, steering him back along the corridor in the direction of his office. Dr Bane didn’t elaborate until he and Cas were safely back in his quarters, with the door firmly shut and Cas cajoled into a seat. Bane himself didn’t sit down, forgoing his high-backed chair and instead leaning casually against the desk on the same side as Cas, as if they were equals.

“I can assure you, Mrs Crane is perfectly all right,” Dr Bane said. “A little shaken and bruised, but that’s to be expected – she’s simply confined herself to the Nurse’s Quarters to avoid any unnecessary attention. If anyone knows how to look after herself, she does.”

“I know,” Cas told him, shuffling to get comfy in his chair. “She used to be a Lifemaker.”

The corner of Dr Bane’s lips twitched. “And I know you know,” he confessed, gesturing to Cas’s outfit. “Don’t think I don’t know who gave you that cloak.”

Cas hugged the purple-and-white cloak tighter around himself, holding the small tweed heart sewn on the inside close to his own. He had started wearing the cloak openly after the attack last night. Everyone else at Wayward was too preoccupied with the new security measures to pay much attention.

“Dr Bane,” said Cas, choosing his words delicately. He picked at a chip in the wooden arm of his chair. “Why were you hiding from the Master of All last night?”

Cas suspected this was what Mrs Crane had been questioning Bane about in the hospital. If it had been anyone else, the answer would have been obvious. But as someone who had been tracking the Master for over a decade – and the last Deathmaker alive with any of his powers still intact – Cas would’ve thought Bane was the most qualified person to take on the Master of All. Even more so than Cas himself.

Dr Bane raked his fingers through his shaggy mane of silver-threaded hair, his pewter rings catching the light thrown from the glowing cabinets. “There are many complicated things in this world that you don’t understand yet, Cas. That you may never understand.”

“But there’s a reason, isn’t there?” said Cas boldly, undeterred. “A reason you keep leaving to find him, so the Grand Council can catch him. A reason why you sent Warrior to the Normie world to find me, but don’t want to face the Master yourself.”

Dr Bane let out a deep, sorrowful exhale. “Yes,” he said, although his words cracked, as if it pained him to speak them. “Last night, I was hiding from the Master of All because I thought that if he hadn’t come to Wayward for you, then he had come for me.”

“You knew him when he was a student here, didn’t you, sir?”

“Aeurdan Darkbloom.” Dr Bane said the Master’s old name heavily. “I didn’t just know him as a student here. I was the one who brought him here. I discovered him in the Normie world a mere seventeen years ago, shortly after he had killed his mother and taken her Lifemaker powers. I … I did it anyway, knowing what he had done.”

Out of nowhere, Cas felt very cold. Goose pimples rippled over his skin and his muscles froze with rigor.

“When I found Aeurdan in the Normie world,” said Dr Bane, pacing the length of his office, “I thought I could help him, shape and change him. For a while, it worked. He was a talented and diligent student, but nobody could know what he was. A Lifemaker and Deathmaker was unheard of. A violation of the balance of nature. I persuaded Headmaster Higgles to hire Mrs Crane as the school nurse and librarian to help keep an eye on Aeurdan, and she secretly used her own Lifemaker abilities to help him master his. Aeurdan’s Deathmaker teaching, the power he was born with, fell to me. That was where I let everyone down. I should have spotted that he was growing too curious, too ambitious, for his own good. He always wanted to push the boundaries of magic to unnatural lengths. But alas, I did not.

“At sixteen, he left school early and began his quest to obtain the four remaining powers. He declared his intention for all to know. Of course, that became a necessity once the terror and kidnappings started. Someone had to claim responsibility for them. I’m not sure he ever showed remorse for a single act.”

“But in the last twelve years, he hasn’t found anything, has he?” pried Cas, turning around in his chair. “I mean to say, he still only has Lifemaker and Deathmaker powers, like me.”

“Only Lifemaker and Deathmaker powers.” Dr Bane laughed softly, a hollow sound. “Yes, Cas, that is all he has for now. But with every death, every kidnapping, as time went on and the Grand Council failed to find the Foretold, his followers grew. Fear and greed are powerful motivators. Even though you’re here now, many still stand with him. They’re enthralled by his vision. Amazed by his powers and how he’s yet to be caught.”

Is that why the Master of All broke into the school last night? Cas wondered. Is he trying to find a way to get the other powers? Do the Abominable Archives hold a book, a device or something else that can help him take them?

It was the only explanation that made sense.

If the Master of All was no longer seeking Cas – the one person who could stop him – it had to be because he didn’t need to worry about being stopped if there was something which could help him succeed first.

Dr Bane shot Cas a piercing look.

“What do you know, Cas?”

“Nothing,” Cas replied honestly. “That’s why I came here to see you.” He paused, then took a deep breath and finally dived in with the truth. “You heard what I told the Grand Council yesterday. I saw the Master of All trying to get into that secret room in the library – the Abominable Archives or whatever it’s called. I want to know what’s inside.”

“Do you?” said Dr Bane thoughtfully.

Unlike the Grand Council, he wasn’t denying that the Archives existed.

“You’re a curious lad,” Bane said. “I almost admire your brazen nature. Very well. As you may remember from your first visit here, Wayward School is home to some very unusual and potentially dangerous objects.” He walked over to the locked, glowing cabinets in his office and tapped each of them in turn. “These are the shrivelled heads of five-hundred-year-old dead Oracles, perfectly preserved should the residues of power lingering inside them ever be needed.” He moved away from the green glowing cabinet to the silver one. “This is the Orbialius, a one-of-a-kind object linked to the powers of life and death. Some say it can contact spirits on the other side. You may recognize it from the Oracle’s ceremony.”

“And that?” asked Cas, pointing to the bronze-tinged cabinet. The one housing the small glowing orb surrounded by spinning metal rings, which had always intrigued him.

“Oh, that,” said Dr Bane, flicking the cabinet’s glass and not deigning it worthy of a second glance. “That’s the cupboard Mrs Crane decorates with odd clutter. I never keep anything important in there.”

He strode back over to Cas. “The point I was trying to make is that Wayward School has been entrusted by the Grand Council to be home to many strange and powerful things. The Abominable Archives is a secret vault in the library where the ones that could wreak the most havoc in the wrong hands are contained.”

Cas knitted his eyebrows together. “If it’s secret, why are you telling me about it?”

Dr Bane gave him a one-sided smile and winked, before sweeping over to his desk and pulling something out of his drawer. “Because,” he said, smothering his wrinkled, papery hands in lotion, “I know that if I didn’t tell you, you would try to find out anyway.”

Cas shrugged. He couldn’t deny this was true.

“But I think that’s enough for now,” said Dr Bane, as he glided towards him in his dusky purple cloak, hand outstretched. “You’re beginning to look quite peaky…”

Cas leant forward to squeeze in one more question, ready to insist he felt nothing of the sort, when a wave of wooziness washed over him. The edges of his vision grew faint and cloudy, as everything in the room became covered in a misty haze. The walls raced closer. His head felt light, lighter than air.

“Dr Bane…” Cas croaked. But it was pointless.

The last thing he saw was the Deathmaker tutor reaching out to steady him. Then just like that, no matter how hard he tried to fight it, he slipped into the growing abyss…