Ravenfire

“I can’t believe we left empty handed. There has to be a way to get to those cipher devices,” Salamander said in an annoyed tone as we walked to class together the next day.

“We’d also need to get that wolf out of the way,” I added.

The mist finally thinned enough for classes to resume again. It was still hard to see things at a distance, but there was enough visibility to get to the classrooms without any accidents. Although I would have wanted more time to sleep, I was also thankful that I didn’t have to be stuck all day in a room with Emma who was deliberately ignoring me.

News of Cy’s death spread quickly and another batch of new rumours already began to circulate. With the Days of Madness fast approaching, people were starting to believe that these deaths were just a precursor to something big and terrible that would take place during the event. Perhaps their belief wasn’t at all irrational.

Lysander was hit particularly hard by the loss of his good friend. That morning, I noticed him sitting alone on a stone bench in the courtyard looking both dazed and dejected. Hopefully, the sight of his much admired Meister Leu’s statue slightly lifted his spirits, but we all know that no stonework could ever fill that void.

“I hope Ancient Languages class isn’t as bad as Herbalism and Healing,” I spoke my mind, risking ridicule from my definitely-not-dear companion.

“I’ve never seen anyone fail badly at preparing remedies until you came along,” remarked Salamander as expected.

“Shut up, Salamander.”

We finally reached the door to the classroom. He and I immediately froze in place the moment we stepped inside and laid eyes on our instructor for Ancient Languages. It was the crazy man who chased us in the academy’s storage room! He, of course, recognised both of us immediately, giving us a friendly wave.

“Prof. Renfield!” Emma also entered the classroom and ran to him when she saw him.

Prof. Renfield was just as happy to see her. “Dearest Emma! What a surprise. I heard about your father. I’m terribly sorry. How is your mother doing?”

“She’s doing well.”

“Good, good.”

After exchanging pleasantries, Emma excused herself and went to her seat. It was subtle, but I saw her take a quick glance at me before sitting down.

Salamander and I sat cautiously at a table without taking our eyes off the professor. We were both terrified, like two gazelles trapped in the same room as a lion. Our doom was to be expected, but we didn’t know when it would take place.

“Do you think he’s going to report us to Scheep?” I whispered.

“Chances are he already did,” the snake boy whispered back.

Elliot suddenly sat on the empty seat at our table, oblivious about the situation as usual. He noticed the expressions on our faces and asked out of concern, “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“It may as well be a ghost, Elliot,” I replied, still vigilantly staring at the professor.

Prof. Renfield soon began his first lesson. He stood in front of the class all relaxed and said, “Why do we need to learn ancient languages? Words are powerful. Incantations are part of rituals. We might be living in a new reality, but a part of our magic still depends on the secrets discovered by the ancient civilizations of the old world. Like it or not, the past shapes us. And it is there where you’ll discover information to supplement your own theories, ideas, and inventions.”

A long lecture on basic Sumerian grammar followed. I did my best to take down notes and listen like a good student. Afterwards, the professor cheerfully announced, “We’ll be doing a group activity. I want students at each table to work together and translate these passages from ancient text following the grammatical guidelines and the dictionary I’ve provided for you.”

“Ugh. Group activities. And I’m stuck with you.” Salamander groaned.

“You’re the one who sat here in the first place. I’ll be glad to trade you for another classmate,” I responded unenthusiastically.

“No thank you. Socialising with others is equally tiring anyway.”

“Or perhaps you’re just terrible at it.”

“I am not,” he insisted. “Not any more than you at least.”

“Oh yeah? Has Elliot talked to you even?” I smiled victoriously.

Salamander glared. “Don’t look so smug, Remina Ravenfire. Just because you did better at making friends with Elliot doesn’t mean you’re any better than me in general.”

“Are you guys… fighting about me?” Elliot was confused.

Despite my usual squabble with Salamander, the three of us managed to get our work done in time before the class ended. We were the last to turn in our paper.

“Class dismissed. You may leave… except for you two.” Prof. Renfield pointed specifically at me and Salamander.

Uh oh.

We stepped forward and awkwardly stood in front of him as he sat comfortably behind his desk. He didn’t start speaking until our other classmates left the room.

“Quite an adventure you two had the other day. I hope I didn’t frighten you too much. I do love to play around with misbehaving students,” Prof. Renfield said rather casually. “Now, will you tell me why you snuck into the academy’s storage room and ignored instructions to stay in your rooms during the mist, effectively breaking two school rules?”

Salamander and I looked at each other. By communicating through facial expressions, we came to an agreement to reveal our purpose to him.

“We’re looking for a cipher device,” I said.

Prof. Renfield was amused. “A cipher device! Now that is unexpected. What on earth do you need it for?”

“There is this text we must translate,” Salamander replied.

“A text, you say?” He looked intrigued. “May I have a look?”

I reached into my bag and pulled out a piece of paper containing samples of the symbols we found in Emrys Blackthorn’s diary.

The professor looked over the symbols, nodding as he examined them. “Intriguing. I believe what you’re looking at is a masonic cipher.”

“A masonic cipher?” I repeated.

“Yes. A system of encryption used long ago among the Freemasons of the old world. Should you wish for my help in cracking the code, give me more samples of these symbols you wish to translate.”

“We’ll try to figure it out on our own first. Thank you, Professor.”

“I do admire your effort in uncovering secret messages locked behind a code. I’ll let you off lightly for now, but if I catch you breaking into the storeroom again, the headmaster will hear of it. Now, off you go.”

We bid him goodbye and walked out of the classroom.

“I don’t trust him,” Salamander said the moment we were out of earshot.

“Me neither, but we need his help,” I pointed out.

“He could have reported us to the headmaster, but he didn’t. Don’t you find that odd?”

“I do. I can’t tell whether it’s mercy or self-interest.” Frankly, it bothered me.

“We need to know more about him before we agree to his help. Your roommate Emma seems to know him. Try asking her. In the meantime, I will scour the library for more information about this masonic cipher.”

“Yeah. Uhh… About that…” I awkwardly looked sideways.

He raised his brow and waited for me to continue.

“Emma currently hates me right now and does not wish to speak to me,” I revealed.

He stared in disbelief. “How the hell do you manage to piss off a person like Emma Sweetblossom? She’s the most patient girl in the whole school for goodness’ sake!”

“I might have attempted to search her memories while she was asleep.”

He placed his hands on his hips. “Why would you search her memories?”

I pulled out the metal ankh from my pocket. “Remember this? I found one in her closet along with a suspicious looking cloak.”

“Ok. What did you find out?” He folded his arms.

“She was the one who buried Rose’s body. Her mother specifically instructed her to be a good girl so no one would suspect anything. And she brewed a poison made of oleander.”

“Damn.” He was surprised by what he was hearing. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“With Emma close by? I only found out last night.”

He gave a nod. “Understandable.”

“Why don’t you ask her, Salamander? I’m sure she’ll gladly tell you,” I suggested.

“I doubt she’ll tell me anything. I barely know her.”

“Trust me. She will tell you.”

He paused for a moment before agreeing. “If you insist. I’ll ask her later. But there’s something I don’t understand: What would Emma gain from killing Rose or the other students?”

“I don’t know. I assume it has something to do with their families.” I thought about it. “But I don’t think Emma killed the others. She was in the dormitory the entire time when Cy died.”

“Then we have to find the other culprit, who I fear is a much more dangerous adversary.”

I was on my way to Prof. Ariston’s office to give him an update on everything that happened so far. Despite Salamander’s reluctance to involve the professors, having one on our side would definitely help. Unfortunately, what I witnessed only gave me reason to heed Salamander’s words.

The headmaster Marcurius Scheep was in a conversation with Prof. Ariston right in front of his office.

Headmaster Scheep wore a scowl on his face as he said in an annoyed tone, “Emrys Blackthorn is a literal thorn on my side. I’ll be glad to be rid of his legacy. You will do what I asked of you, right?”

“Of course, Headmaster,” replied Prof. Ariston.

I didn’t know the context of it, but it was enough to tell me that the headmaster was no friend to Emrys Blackthorn. Unfortunately, even the professor.

I quickly turned around and walked away, soon bumping into Salamander in the hallway. He looked like he fared better than I did and had news to share.

He pulled me aside and spoke in a low voice, “Apparently, Prof. Renfield was a good friend of Emma’s father. They both attended the academy together when they were younger.”

“What do you think? Can we trust him?” I asked.

“Not completely, but it should be alright for us to ask for his help without fully disclosing the diary’s content. Not beyond a few word samples at least. It will be a lot faster than figuring it out on our own.”

“Alright. Let’s go talk to him.”

Salamander and I returned to the Ancient Languages classroom where Prof. Renfield was correcting some student papers on his desk.

“Had a change of heart?” he asked with a smirk.

I dropped a paper with more word samples from the diary on the table. “We need your help, Professor.”

He gladly took the paper and went over it. “Since we’re being honest with each other, I don’t suppose you’re the same students who stole a certain artefact from the storeroom the other week?

“What artefact was stolen?” Salamander asked out of concern.

“A soul trapping device.” He examined our faces and soon deemed us to be innocent because of our surprised reactions.

“Those things exist?” I was amazed by the academy’s impressive knack for collecting life-ruining magical devices.

Prof. Renfield shuddered. “Frightening little things! Imagine being trapped in them. Why would anyone even invent such a horrid thing?”

“Did it have a soul inside?”

“It did. Nobody knows whose soul it is though. No mark. No labels. We haven’t figured out how to release it either. I can’t imagine why students would take it. I mean, if it were me, I’d take the high speed concentrated magic ejector. It’s much more interesting than some boring old soul.”

“Who invented the soul trapping device anyway?” I continued asking questions.

“Ah. Of course, it is Emrys Blackthorn. That darn overachiever.”

“I hear his name way too often. It’s getting tiring.”

“I’m glad somebody agrees with me.” He paused. “Anyway, we aren’t here to hold a profound discussion about magical inventions. We have a puzzle to solve.”

Salamander and I watched as Prof. Renfield pulled out a timer and set it to five minutes. In that span of time, he hurriedly scribbled down about five versions of a guide to translating the symbols. It was as if it was all a challenging game to him.

The timer rang.

“There we go!” He spread out the papers in front of us. “Now, let’s try translating this word. If we use version one, we get the word ‘akshbn’, which makes absolutely no sense! So let’s carry on…”

Salamander and I exchanged blank looks.

“With version two, it is… also no good. No. Version three makes no sense either. Oh dear.”

We waited patiently for the professor to finish.

“Aha! If we follow this last version, we get a name.” He showed us the translation. “Huh. Lucien. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Lucien Blackthorn. The older brother of Emrys. They never did get along. Here. Try using this guide. See if it gets you anywhere.”

I received the fifth version of the guide. “Thank you, Professor. Why are you helping us?”

He looked at each one of us and smiled with delight. “You remind me of myself when I was still a student here. I’ll have you know that I, too, broke into the academy storage room myself to search for secret texts to translate. It was exciting! I dare not take that excitement away from my own students.”

After bidding Prof. Renfield goodbye, Salamander and I moved to an isolated area.

“Alright. Now that we have the guide, let’s split the work and translate it at the same time,” he said.

I folded my arms. “We need a safe place to work on it together though. Any suggestions?”

He thought about it for a moment. “I might have an idea.”