The Phoenix Stone

Chapter Sixteen

I rose to my feet and turned to face the speaker. "No! Well...maybe?"

She shook her head at me. "You know perfectly well that you're not supposed to be listening to the interrogation, don't you?"

I hung my head. "Sorry, Avyanna. I didn't mean to—" I stopped myself, thinking about what I'd just said. "Actually, I did mean to, it's just that—"

Avyanna laughed. "It's fine. I know you're a curious girl. To be quite honest, I'm just as curious as you to see what kinds of information that girl has for us!"

"Actually, she doesn't have as much information for us as we'd hoped," I said seriously. "She offered us the little information she does have in exchange for her freedom and free will to live here as a rebel."

"Is that so?" Avyanna nodded thoughtfully. She smiled softly at me. "I'm assuming that's what you overheard while you were eavesdropping?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So," she said as she started walking down the hallway. "Are classes still running today?"

I sighed deeply. I hadn't wanted to be reminded of that tiny insignificant detail I was trying to forget about. "Unfortunately, yes."

She chuckled softly. "I remember when I was your age wishing with all my heart that my classes would be canceled so I could go and spend time hanging out with my friends. What would you like to do today if classes were suddenly canceled?"

"Go back to my hut and practice spells or something like that. Actually, I'd probably just read. I got a new book out from the library and I haven't been able to put it down!"

"Well, I'll let you get on with it then," Avyanna said as she walked away. "Catch you later, Nyx!"

I turned and walked back the way I'd come with Avyanna, towards the interrogation room. When I got back to the interrogation room it was empty and for some reason I was disappointed by that. Of course, I knew that I shouldn't have gone back, especially after getting told off for eavesdropping by Avyanna but I just couldn't help myself. My thirst for knowledge of things I didn't know was almost overpowering me to do things I shouldn't.

As the room was empty, I began walking towards my first class of the day. The hallway was lined with interrogation rooms and as I wandered down the hall I peered into every room. I stopped to squint into a particularly out of the way hallway with a room at the end of it. Faint noises that sounded suspiciously like someone was creeping around in places they shouldn't be came from under the door.

I knocked on the door sharply and asked, "Who's in there? Show yourself."

Immediately the noises stopped and everything was silent. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my own breathing.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" I knocked again. Still no answer. Not another sound came from under the door. I pushed the door open slowly, a little surprised that it wasn't locked, and looked around the dark, dusty room. It was a storage room of some sort so boxes were piled high up to the ceiling on large metal racks. There was a vent in the corner that was shadowed by a rack full of boxes. The vent's grate was lying on the ground underneath it. Someone had just gone through it.

Glancing around to check if there was anybody nearby, I stuck my head into the vent and started crawling down it. I could see a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel but just as I got to the end a shadow fell across the opening and a pair of girl's boots appeared. Whoever was standing at the end of the opening definitely didn't know that I was in the vent. They started to lift the grate back onto the vent. With a loud squeak I launched myself through the rest of the tunnel and into the room on the other side, knocking into the girl's legs and bowling her over along with me.