Samantha Sutton and the Winter of the Warrior Queen by Jordan Jacobs

Author:Jordan Jacobs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2013-10-28T22:00:00+00:00

She would share the coin with the professors, Samantha promised herself. But she would have to educate herself first, secretly, after hours. She would have to come prepared.

There was little reason for locked doors during the Winter Holiday—at least from the College’s point of view. Tom maintained strict control of the only entrance, and other than the bedders and a few college staff, traffic in and out was light. Evan had noted with some glee that Trinity Hall’s own tiny chapel was left unlocked and bragged that he had even played “Chopsticks” on its organ. If this was true, Samantha figured, there was a chance that the college’s Old Library was left open as well, and that she could sneak in some research unobserved.

On Christmas night, Evan’s call to Annie went longer than usual, and his pleas were not having their usual effect.

“Just wait until I get back,” he was begging, when Samantha listened at her door. “Don’t go out with Keith again until at least we’ve had a chance to talk.”

It wasn’t clear if Annie relented or Evan just gave up, but it was after midnight when he finally went to bed. Looping the string of her notebook over her head, Samantha crept from their room in total darkness and in the closest to silence the building allowed. But for every creak of her footsteps on the sagging floorboards, other noises sounded from rooms that were supposed to be empty—squeaks, bumps, and the groans of ancient wood.

Her thoughts turned to what had happened some days before on the River Cam—that prank, if it was a prank and not attempted murder.

Cálmate, she told herself.

The Old Library was reached up a steep staircase from the North Court, then through a short corridor lined with the bare stone of the college’s original construction. To guide her, Samantha had only the soft green glow of the EXIT signs and the shiny sparkle of a disco ball from the nearby Junior Common Room—left over, she figured, from a party at the end of term.

The shimmering lights danced across the ancient oak door, but it took a while for Samantha to see how to open it. It was unlocked, she quickly realized, but could only be entered by folding back a metal panel and releasing a hidden pin. At last the aged door swung inward, and Samantha slipped inside.

She dared not risk the overhead lights, or even her flashlight right away, opting instead for the thin moonlight that streamed through the many delicately paned windows. The floor creaked mercilessly here—the boards long and arced like the deck of a galleon. Before her, along both walls, were rows of age-old bookcases, alternating tall and short, and capped by decorative finials.

Across from the entrance, a glass case threw back the reflection of the moon. Peering close, she noticed a jumble of bones inside—a human skeleton—and the glint of metal chains. She could just make out a faded label that explained how the bones were discovered shackled to two wooden stakes.

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