^^Above, top: Solly McLeod (pictured in Tom Jones) as Tobin Seaton; Bottom: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (pictured in Sing Street) as Richard Isham.^^
A Lockpicker's Field Guide
By Samuel Darling
Dear Son— Read this book. Don't write in it. Blank journals exist for a reason.
—Father.
3 April, Midnight. — The school's bell tower is tolling the stroke of midnight when we reach the Institute's front gates. I know how to get through almost all the locks around the campus, having spent so much time sneaking around with my mates in tow. The lock on the gate is fairly simple, and all it takes is a little wriggling of the tie pin I'd remembered putting in at the last minute. At least someone had thought to oil it recently, or we would have had to be much more careful — or find another way in.
"You're sure you know what you're doing?" Wells hisses as we sneak through the gate and into the courtyard. "No one even makes rounds?"
I shake my head. For all the security the Institute claims to have, it's remarkably thin at night.
"Which way now?" Naomi whispers once we're inside the gate.
"In there." I nod to the building across the grassy quad, the only one with a bell tower and columns at its entrance. That had been Father's idea, apparently, to put all the important offices in the most showy building.
We flit across the quad, one after the other. The moon's not quite full, but it will be in a couple more days, casting a silvery sheen over everything and lighting us up almost as bright as daylight. Once we reach the front doors, I pick that lock too, a little more sticky than the first one.
"Well, this is a bit intimidating, isn't it?" Naomi says, looking around us. The front hall looks like the nave of a church — with a high vaulted ceiling, tall narrow lancet windows set with stained glass panes, and thin fluted columns that curve seamlessly into the stone floor. In front of us is an impressively carved staircase that boasts heavily detailed panels instead of banisters. Once it reaches the landing, it curls upward and disappears into the dimness above our heads.
"We here to admire the scenery?" Wells growls from behind us.
"Will you just relax?" Naomi hisses.
"Come on," I say, breaking up what looks like a potential argument. "We should go before Crowder makes his rounds."
"Crowder?" Wells says as we climb the stairs. "Who on earth is that?"
"Groundskeeper," I answer. "But he looks in on the buildings too most nights."
"When does he usually come through here?" Naomi asks.
"Not sure. I've never been here at night before."
We reach the gallery, which allows access to the rest of the building. I see corridors branching off in different directions, just barely illuminated by the glass skylight above us. Father's office is straight ahead of us, and I nod them in that direction.
Down at the end of the hallway is a set of double doors with a buffed metal plate nailed to them that reads Headmaster. I go about picking the lock, the stickiest of the three so far. I can hear Wells's raspy breathing behind me, and the quiet rustle of Naomi's cloak as she shifts from foot to foot nervously.
"There. Got it." The click of the door unlocking is satisfying, but also loud enough for Crowder to hear if he's anywhere in our proximity. "Let's make this fast, shall we?"
YOU ARE READING
Thrill of the Chase (Hunters & Heartbreakers 1)
Historical Fiction(✔️) Langdon Wilkes is a reluctant - and somewhat bumbling - hunter. But because his father is the headmaster of the Institute of Paranormal Study and Prevention, just as every Wilkes before him, he hardly has a choice. That is, until he runs into...
