Legacy's Prince

Chapter Thirty-Six: Detention Discovery

It's a depressingly glum lot that Ol' Gil takes into the record rooms rather than class the next day. All but Mariona who looks disgustingly proud of herself. I can't help but glare at her as we pass by various shelves stacked to the brim with newly returned books. This was all her idea to begin with! It's her fault we're stuck in detention and she doesn't seem to care one bit!

Ol' Gil stops in front of a set of weather-worn doors, holding his hand up for us to wait. Taking a fingerprint stained key from his belt, he removed the lock and throws the doors ope to reveals wall-to-wall lines of dust covered shelves packed to the brim in aging books.

"These are the school records," he says in a disappointed voice. "Every student and their familiar has had their names written and recorded here for safe keeping since the school's inception. As luck would have it today is cleaning day, so you all will spend the entire cleaning, repairing, and rebounding these records under my close supervision."

    A uniform groan erupts from everyone except Seana, the only one to appear even mildly interested, and Feiya, who hasn't looked up at her grandfather once.

Clicking his tongue in disappointment once more, Ol'Gil says: "Alright, hop to it then."

My head is already aching as I trudge into the records room after everyone else. This sounds horribly dull. I can't help but shudder at the thought of sewing, gluing, and rebinding all day.

I thought having detention in the library meant I'd at least be able to do some research! It was my one ray of hope for making it through the day with my sanity intact! But now I can't and I'm probably going to die of boredom.

"I'll take this shelf!" Mariona calls as she slaps her hand on a line of books near the top of the wall.

"Oh, no you won't," Tarron snaps at her.

"And why not?"

"Those are the newest records, which means they'll be less dirty and broken and require less work!"

"Exactly!"

"It was your idea that we go to that beach in the first place, so you should take the oldest books!" Tarron insists.

"I agree," I mutter.

"It's not like I forced in if you to go," Mariona grumbles.

"Uh, actually, you kind of did," I remind her. "You threaten to turn us in for sneaking out if we didn't go with you."

"It's true," Dezden shrugs, though the easy tone of his voice tells us he's not taking either side in this argument. Instead he claims a shelf near the middle of the wall, not too old to be dreadful work, but not so new that it'll be too easy for him either.

I watch him take an armful of books and glance up at the stacks of record books towering above my head. As Mariona and Tarron continue bickering back and for, an idea strikes me. If Dezden's translations are true, and dragon holders were a part of the academy at one point, then they should have been recorded. Of course, the fact that no one knows they existed means they were probably wiped from the records.

However, there's still a chance something was left behind, right? Even the pages torn from Hadrian's chapters left tattered edges within the binding. Maybe, just maybe, if I look hard enough, I can find a trace of the tampering and pinpoint when all of this happened.

"Mr. and Ms. Grimore! That's enough! Do I need to call your mother down here?" Ol'Gil scolds as I make my way to the shelves and take a look at the labels.

"No sir," both Grimore siblings grumble as I read the label of one of the shelves near the lower middle of the wall: "Student and Familiar Registries: 450 K.A. - 650 K.A."