Chapter 48: Bookmark (Part 3)

Outside the office, chatter intensified within seconds. Footsteps streamed down to the dining hall.

"It’s nothing personal, James," Mr. Thwaite asserted from the workroom. "We’re asking everyone to do it." The kettle whirred on. "Tea, anyone?"

"I-I’ll take one, please," Grace said, typing her own words into the record. "A black one."

Mr. Cald scoffed before reaching for his pockets. First emerged a set of keys, though Milo didn’t notice anything peculiar about them until the man tossed out a ring.

Its band was scored like brickwork, with uneven rectangles staggered around it.

The ring threaded through the keys had the same pattern, though it was smaller; Cald wouldn’t force it past a knuckle. Perhaps that was why he used it as a keyring.

A relic?

What if the rings were the relics he truly carried with him at all times, and the seal-burning stick was merely masking them?

He knew almost nothing about the man beyond what it was like to be pursued by him. A few matching rectangles were a poor reason to gamble, though, and Mr. Cald was already drawing the main relic from his belt.

Turning as though to look at Layla, Milo brushed the stick with his hand.

Bookmark!

The sheet snapped open.

[ Bookmark set ] 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

[ Marked: Infirmary Cautery Rod. ] 𓂃🖋

Everyone looked at the Appraisal.

Returning with the two mugs, Mr. Thwaite sat behind the desk and raised an eyebrow at the stares.

"What is it now?" he asked. "Continue."

"Milo brushed it," said Mr. Cald.

Nothing on the page said who’d triggered it. The instructor ought to know his own relic, but if he wanted to explain why its appearance surprised him, Milo could leave that to him.

"It appeared when Mr. Cald took it out."

The rod joined the keys and rings on the desk. "And why is it facing you?"

"Maybe you held it at an angle. I wouldn’t know, Mr. Cald; I never used it."

Once the man’s belongings were scattered on the desk, he received the green light to pocket them again without any further inspection.

Mr. Thwaite, meanwhile, explained the plan to him.

"The second floor as well?" Cald asked when Thwaite reached the search of the rooms.

"Every floor."

Henry’s hand returned to his pocket. "Will we have to stay until that’s finished?"

They had their priorities. Or maybe they just wanted to run away, incapable of bearing the guilt over Seb’s death. It was their fault, and they knew it.

Like so, the janitors were called back from the second floor, and Milo followed the others to the dining hall.

The hall was one dead widow away from chaos. Since she mattered, someone should notice her absence within the first few checks.

Everything was going well.

Milo went first for the inspection, Mr. Cald patted him down, and someone to the left coughed.

Off.

His feet went numb.

The crowd in front of him dimmed, and he collapsed.

...

Light flooded Milo’s eyelids. From the blur of large circles, the ceiling slowly sharpened into plaster.

Trying to make out what had happened, he clutched the cushions next to him. Oxblood leather.

"Bro, what are you living on?"

Tipping his head back brought Ollie into view, upside down on the armrest.

"Ollie? What happened?" He blinked until the vague circles down Ollie’s front sharpened into buttons, gaze wandering up to the boy’s face to check if he really had the right person. "Why are you wearing a suit?"

"You fainted. They say you don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t so much as drink enough. I was talking about that new RPG when you went down." A yawn interrupted him. "Didn’t even get to finish the argument."

Milo rubbed his eyes. The hall was crowded with suits.

"Are they still searching everyone?"

"Yeah. You’ve been out ten minutes max. I got them to clear me so I could sit with you."

"Where’s—"

No. As far as Cald and the rest were concerned, Milo was out cold on the couch. The perfect alibi now would be to get lost, except the widow needed to be found. Now.

Eyes on the stick’s outline, he sat up.

"Where’s Mr. Cald? Layla? Mr. Thwaite? The ones I was with."

All Ollie had to remember was being asked.

"Most of them are back there, behind the crowd. Cald’s working along the right wall."

"So they’re searching several people at once?"

"They better be. Otherwise we’ll be sleeping here."

"Thanks, Ollie." Milo got to his feet. "I had something important to tell them."

"You okay? Sure you don’t want me to walk you?"

"I’ll be fine."

Fine might’ve been synonymous with terrible at this point.

Milo set off to the left.

"Hold on!" Ollie slid off the armrest and followed him between the guests. "Cald’s to the right. Are you not looking for him?"

"Yes, I heard you."

"I’m just checking, cause you’re going left."

Milo looked toward the wall Ollie had indicated.

"Some water might help, actually. Would you get me a glass?"

"Sure, but stay here. I’ll come with you when I get back."

Once Ollie disappeared among the suits, Milo shuffled toward the wall.

Someone must have noticed Ollie beside the couch. If he’d asked to be searched so he could sit there, a staff member might even remember why he’d come over!

Already, he could see it: the flail safely under his sweater, Ollie insisting one hundred percent the dude got lost, I’m telling you, he mistook right for left, and Mr. Cald getting yelled at for even speaking.

Milo froze at the sight of six officers talking.

"...they said she was getting some rest."

"This long?"

"You know how close they were."

Of course the poorer regions had police departments.

A Warden’s death would bring them out to the hills, where Milo had done more than touch the body. Had he even considered fingerprints? He had spat blood out.

Mr. Cald wasn’t the only one of his kind. Questions about the missing flail could already be circulating among the experts, who’d be debating the likelihood of it disappearing into thin air.

Every passing minute bred new ways for his life to collapse, and he had just spent ten of them unconscious on a couch.

Maybe the next time he fainted, he wouldn’t get to resume what he’d been doing before.

For the moment, though, the navy blue coats with silver badges on their shoulders discussed how long to leave Miss Rolt alone.

A missed call or two might settle the question for them.

Milo edged closer, a taller guest between himself and the group. Pressing a finger to his ear, he raised his voice over the hum.

"Miss Rolt still isn’t answering? Has somebody knocked?"

He peeked around the tall suit’s shoulder.

The officers’ brows lowered as they angled toward him.

"She was devastated," he insisted to his imaginary caller. "We don’t want another... never mind. Sorry. I’m just worried."

When he next looked where the six had stood, they were gone.

Distress spread from the right before the first shriek came.

"Aah!!"

"W-What happened?!"

"M-Miss Rolt, she, she..."

"Loui..."

Milo crushed his ears with the heels of his palms and raced against the current of bodies. Just like before, no one yet knew what had happened.

He blasted into the corridor and leapt up the staircase three steps at a time, slamming his body into each door in his way.

At last, beyond the confiscation closet, the dead end’s door surfaced.

Stepping over the scattered letters, he approached the threshold.

If a trap had been prepared, he had no way of knowing it. But he had orchestrated this himself, every step of it, down to a faint he would happily have left out.

Below him, Cald’s infirmary rod was outlined near the widow’s room.

The flail had stayed in place right under the man’s nose.

No one could’ve wandered upstairs in the window between Bookmarking the stick and getting here.

The door opened, and the Nimble Flanged Flail did not fall out.

The dead end, being a dead end, gave Milo nothing but brick.

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Bookmark (Part 4: Finale)" ... ⤵︎ [!]