Unfamiliar (Unfamiliar Series #1)

Chapter 44

The sun has yet to rise as I start across campus early the next morning with Astrid, Tessa, and Indigo in tow. The world around us is a dusky blue as the sky slowly lightens into faint shades of gray. The air is cool and crisp and there is a thick layer of frost coating everything. It makes the world glitter in a way that almost makes it look like it has snowed as the frost collects on my shoes.

At this point, I don't care if I'm caught. I have something that I need to figure out for myself. 

No one is going to get in my way now.

I make it to a side door on the lecture hall and try the handle, only to find that it's locked. Astrid steps past me without a word, her hand hovering over the lock. There's a rattling click and I reach forward to tug the door open with ease. The hallways are abandoned and cold, only the light from the outside streaming in through the windows to light the way. I walk for the gallery, the door on it being unlocked as I nudge my way inside.

I've yet to visit the gallery for myself. Though I only pause for a moment to look around before I spot a glass case toward the back of the room. I can almost feel that the wand is there before I even see it as I pause next to the case and look up.

On the wall above the case is a massive oil painting of Lilith sitting in a red, upholstered chair. Her hands are folded in her lap, her eyes gleaming in such a way that it almost looks like she's alive as she looks out of the painting, her posture regal yet relaxed. I could almost imagine that if I watch the painting long enough, she would blink. 

What was her true demise? 

The ending we've been told in our history classes is that she passed suddenly from an illness, a suspected case of pneumonia. But after the vision? 

They killed you, didn't they? 

I look down at the case and shake my head, not quite wanting to believe it.

Inside of the case behind a thick pane of glass is a wooden wand that has been carved in such a way that it is coiled like a horn. The wand is a reddish shade, like cherry wood and it instantly feels familiar even though I've never seen it. There is a burning within my veins, a visceral reaction that I feel instantly in tune with. Like humming a note and harmonizing with it. 

I touch the glass and, to my surprise, the lock on the case clicks as it unlocks itself. I glance at the others, who are now staring at me in shock. Astrid is paler than a sheet, her lips parting as her eyes flick from me to the wand. 

"Did you-?" Indigo starts to say, but I interrupt her.

"No," I shake my head a few times as her face pales.

"Well...touch it then," Astrid says in a low voice and Indigo shoots her an irritated glance.

I ignore them and open the case before I hesitate for a second longer and grab for the wand.

Though I don't even think that I feel the wood before everything abruptly disappears.

 ****

I can smell smoke, the heavy, overbearing odor filling my lungs to the point that I feel suffocated. I would cough, but at the same time, the smoke doesn't feel like it's quite there either. I open my eyes to find myself in the alchemy lab once again, like I hadn't even left the memory from before. The cauldron continues to billow smoke, the book still burning as embers flicker out of it like fireflies during a summer night.

Lilith is still standing by her cauldron, the flames greedily rising from it as she turns and looks directly at me. The fire backlights her, casting strange shadows across her face that sends a shiver down my back.