Chapter 25

KATHERINE

I couldn’t help but see a connection here.

Hunter was a member of the CMES club – one of the presidents at that –, he was an artist and based on the way he addressed me the day we met, he was chivalrous. And here I was in the building where the keys were hidden, staring at a painting that was hung behind a knight so I couldn’t help but wonder. ‘Chivalry was tied to knighthood, right?’

I walked over to the painting while Zac began to throw his body against the door and after checking the sides of the painting and concluding that the key wasn’t hidden there, I moved to the knight.

The light coming from the windows in the roof was limited and the flashlight with Josie wasn’t bright enough to light up the entire room, so I had to squint to see what looked like a box in the knight’s helmet. ‘Please be a key, please be a key,’ I thought as I gingerly lifted the helmet off the statue and placed it on the floor.

When I rose to my full height one more, I grabbed the box and a smile that threatened to split my face in half as my gaze landed on the ‘B’ carved into the top of the box in the same font the ‘B’ in the golden coin was. I then opened the box to see a golden key with something attached to it just as a loud noise filled the room and I jerked my head to the right to see Zac already got the door open.

“It’s open!” he yelled at the same time Josie yelled, “I found a key!”

She was holding a golden key that had a piece of cloth attached to it and as I held the box I had found up too, the door we had all come through suddenly swung open and the shadow figure with the rasping sound walked in.

“That’s it. Everyone, out!” Zac yelled and we all rushed out of the building.

****

“You’re such a scaredy-cat,” Josie said to Zac with a grin on her face after we finally stopped in a clearing not too far away from Renfield Hall to catch our breaths and he gave her a small frown.

“You don’t value your life enough.”

“Do you really think Theo, Blake and Hunter would send us to somewhere we’d die in?”

He looked like he wanted to say ‘no’ to that, but didn’t want to tell her she was right. “I don’t know them as well as you do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered half-heartedly while I opened the box I’d found once more. Now that we were out in the sun, I could see that what was attached to the key was a piece of cloth, just like Josie’s key, and I pulled it out to inspect it.

The first thing I noticed was that the head of the key was a skull attached to crossbones and as I hoped the door the key opened wasn’t in Renfield Hall because I didn’t want to enter that building again anytime soon, I read the message on the cloth attached to it.

“With their hearts full of gold, with their eyes on the prize, and the sea as their guide,” was what was written on it and I drew my brows together.

“Now what the fuck does this mean?” Josie voiced my thoughts out loud and I looked up to see her and Zac reading the message attached to their keys too.

“What does yours say?” I asked and she lifted her gaze to mine.

“Through the blue with the grace of a bird in flight,” she replied with a frown. “Yours?” she asked and when I told her mine, her frown deepened. “Does that mean you have to go to the beach?”

“Where’s the beach?”

“You can’t go there without permission so that’s not what it means,” Zac answered and I tilted my head at him.

“What does it mean then?” According to my watch, I had less than seven hours to find what this key unlocked and seeing as it took me more than that to find out ‘by the third day’ meant Renfield Hall, I definitely needed all the help I could get.

“I don’t know,” he replied and my shoulders instantly deflated.

“What does yours say?” Josie asked him and he glanced down at his key before returning his attention to us, determination in his eyes.

“That I should stay away from both of you.”

“Come on, man,” Josie muttered and as they kept talking, I returned my attention to the key and read the message again.

‘Is Josie right or is Zac right?’ The beach was farther from campus than Renfield Hall was though so I was leaning towards the latter being right but I couldn’t cancel out any options right now, especially the only one I had.

“Who do I need to get permission from to go to the beach?” I cut in and they both glanced at me before Josie responded.

“Bryman. The boys ‘hate’ her though so Zac is right. That’s not what your hint means.”

‘Damn it.’ I let out a harsh breath and got to my feet before I thought of another option – Lenore. All the times Josie and I had asked her for hints last night, she had told us ‘no’ because she couldn’t play favorites but since we had already found a key, she should be more willing to give us a hint… Right?

“Whatever. You suck,” Josie responded to something Zac said and he rolled his eyes before it fully dawned on me that he was one of the applicants for the CMES club. He was smart since he’d also figured out the keys were in Renfield Hall and he had a key so he would most likely become a member of the club.

There was a chance he could end up being my mate.

“Annabel really pulled the short stick and got beaten by it by having you as a mate,” Josie added and my thoughts immediately fizzled out.

‘He already has a mate, huh?’ So I was down to Blake, Hunter and Theo once more.

“Whatever,” Zac muttered and began to walk down the path.

“Hey, wait up. Kath and I can’t walk all the way back,” Josie called out before gesturing for me to follow her as she went after him.

“Run then. You have super speed. Use it.”

“And run into a tree?”

“You guys didn’t walk here?” I asked and a line appeared between Josie’s brows as she glanced at me.

“No. Did you?”

I nodded and she pressed her lips together, obviously holding back a laugh.

“You poor thing,” she said before snorting and I smacked her arm.

“How did you get here then?”

“A UTV. You can rent different kinds of vehicles from Blackwood’s rental except a car and vehicles bigger than a car. Those are not allowed in Blackwood.”

“Ah…” No wonder they got here before me even though I started heading here before them and I didn’t see the UTV because they must have taken the longer and wider way here.

The cool metal in my hand drew my attention once more and I pursed my lips as I repeated the message in my head. I had to figure this out as soon as possible.