(15) The Prince Sent Ravens

I can't remember the last time I read for fun.

That's a lie. I can't remember the time I actually picked up a book myself and sat down somewhere to read it voluntarily, not hovered over someone else's shoulder with the impression that I'm just loitering. I've been damn near allergic to books over the last few years. It's no coincidence. My father doubled down on trying to fix whatever makes the words dance on the page like someone's rubbed paprika in their underwear whenever I try to read them. I can still listen fine, when someone bothers to narrate for me. And I can still bushwhack through a book—it just takes longer, and tires me faster than the five-story walk to my father's office on the wharf back home. That's not energy I relish spending on anything demanded of me.

When it's my choice, though, it's worth it for the stories.

I drop my satchel in the window alcove and crawl up after it. I haven't had a chance to dust the place yet, but the window's sat open for most of four days now, and it's nearly cleaned itself. The stone is about as comfy as bareback riding with ass bruises, but the quiet of the room and its complimentary birdsong are comfort enough for me. I dig out the bible. It's heavy. Dense—the kind of density my father calls "the weight of knowledge" when it's latinate treatises he's referring to, but I always found those insubstantial the way one might call a brick nutritious. It's stories that hold gravity for me. This book is laden with them.

I run a hand over the cover, then crack it open. The Miranda Bible. Someone, somewhere, named this book. I don't know much about them. Can't, really, when we're separated by at least a hundred years. But I know they spoke English. They had access to an older version of this religious anthology—also in English, an anomaly in its day and age. Nobody else here transcribed the bible into laypeople's languages until the House of Heymair stormed this area. Which means whoever printed, bound, or read this book likely did so undercover to avoid an accusation of sacrilege that could spiral all too quickly into a witch trial. A convenient excuse to stamp out the irreverent.

A flip a couple pages and find myself in Genesis. I like the rhythm of Genesis. It's the kind of story that begs to be vocalized; reading silently just can't recreate that musicality. Or maybe that's a privilege reserved for people who aren't me. I delve into the verses with their tiny, pirouetting text. Memory helps me read, as does rapt attention. I let myself lose myself in the creation of the planet and its living things, and wonder only idly whether the angels were created, too, or whether they were always there.

There's nothing unusual about this bible. I finish my favorite part of Genesis, then flip back to the index for a page map to my other go-to bible stories. Something seizes my attention almost immediately.

I've never heard of the Book of Jubilees before.

I stare at the name for a long moment to make sure I'm not misreading. Then I search the rest. I find two more anomalies: 1 and 2 Enoch are set next to one another not long after Jubilees. The rest of the index is in the order I'm familiar with. Clarice was right: this book is thicker than a normal bible. I get a page number and flip to Jubilees 1:1. Once again, I begin to read.

I know this story.

I frown down at the page. This isn't new material. It's just a retelling of Exodus, abridged and lacking many of the juicy details the full version boasts between its pages. I flip ahead, then back. The more I read, the more cheated I feel. What's the point of including this? It's the biblical equivalent of a student rehashing a text in their "original" essay, hoping their teacher won't catch the blatant similarities.

There must have been a reason. I grit my teeth and return to the intro verses. It takes a minute or two to regain my flow; disinterest saps my mental energy, and it's hard to track a story when it's less narrative than summary. My eyes glaze over by chapter three. For a summary, Jubilees is a chunky sucker, rivaling Genesis and some of its next-door neighbors, the famously stout Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. It's not until chapter seventeen that my skimming snags on something like a thorn-caught stocking.

And the prince MSTM came and said before God, "Behold, Abraham loves Isaac his son, and he delights in him above all things else; bid him offer him as a burnt-offering on the altar, and Thou wilt see if he will do this command, and Thou wilt know if he is faithful in everything wherein Thou dost try him."

That's not in Exodus.

I reread the passage, sure my eyes are insulting me. I know this story, but nobody told God to test the faith of Abraham. Certainly nobody named MSTM. But there's more. Just a chapter later, our mysterious collection of initials is put to shame when God stays Abraham's hand. I fumble back and resume my proper reading. The references only start in chapter ten, but the book proves full of MSTM. And it's not precious about particulars.

And the chief of the spirits, MSTM, came and said: "Lord, Creator, let some of them remain before me, and let them harken to my voice, and do all that I shall say unto them; for if some of them are not left to me, I shall not be able to execute the power of my will on the sons of men; for these are for corruption and leading astray before my judgment, for great is the wickedness of the sons of men."

My finger trembles where it sits against the page. The chief of spirits. We're dealing with an angel here, and a judgemental one at that. His portrait, it seems, was aptly painted.

And the prince MSTM exerted himself to do all this, and he sent forth other spirits, those which were put under his hand, to do all manner of wrong and sin, and all manner of transgression, to corrupt and destroy, and to shed blood upon the earth.

I take that back. This guy's not just judgemental. He sounds like he'd crash Revelation's party and start a competition for who can sack the most impious villages before the wine runs out. I wasn't far off with my that-one-cousin analogy. Over the ensuing chapters, MSTM sends ravens to devour farmers' seed, destroys the land, robs humanity of its labors, desires to cast someone into the hands of a Pharaoh, helps Egyptian sorcerers, and more. I can respect that vindictive energy.

Even God seems annoyed. When Jacob-brother-of-Esau receives the kind of blessing that will drive his twin to fratricide, he's promised that the Book of Jubilees' most notorious party-crasher will never rule over him again. Pity that didn't save him from his brother.

But we've got an angel on our hands. A cruel one, which shouldn't surprise anyone with working eyes who's been to Melliford Academy's in-house chapel. And just like that, something clicks.

Justice for the Fallen.

I bolt upright so fast, I crack my skull on the curving stone above me. The Miranda Bible tumbles from my hands. I grip my head, cussing like a sailor with a blue thumb. The necklace should have tipped me off. If the bible and the rest of this are connected, this wasn't just a cult of angels. It was a cult of very specific angels—those who tyrannized humanity to such a degree that even the God of Revelation rejected them.

I've won me and Exie's bet now. Won the right to throw whatever I want even in offense of Exie's sensibilities. I look around for something to avail myself of that with, and am disappointed. There's nothing to throw except the bible, and I'm not about to part ways with that. Not until I can pitch it into a vat of holy water, fire, or both.

A cult of fallen angels. Just normal boarding-school things. Nothing at all to worry about.

I've still got two new bible-books I haven't inspected yet. 1 Enoch greets me with angelic judgment in its very first line. I get only six chapters this time before another name slows reality around me to a standstill.

Samyaza.

Two chapters later, Azazel.

Satanail.

Samael.

I lower the book again. Then I pack it back into my satchel, get up, and nearly suffer a heart attack as a bell's toll vibrates the school to its foundations. It's dinnertime. I make my way to the dining hall in a daze. Exie looks up as I join her and Clarice at a corner table.

"You look awful," she whispers, not kindly.

"We need to get out of this school."

Both give me blank looks.

"I can't explain here." My eyes find Colson II of their own accord, sitting at a table no more inhabited than the room I just vacated. "It's all connected."

Exie snorts. "We knew that."

"You don't understand. It's..."

I don't know what I'm saying anymore. My desire to throw something has morphed into an urge to grab my stuff and run—to find a way over the school's wall somehow, and escape the mind-numbing mundanity of the students all around us. They eat and laugh and pull out cards, making wagers of their dessert rations. For a school of problem children, there's been remarkably little animosity. Only a little fire. If anyone was spooked by Colson II's graveyard comeback, they're over it already, and to be honest, I can hardly blame them. Out the corner of my eye, I see Clarice spirit a second spoon into her blazer. No one here is normal. The Colson who hoarded bones just metamorphosed into a different kind of creepy, and of course he's still alive.

"Sit down," says Exie. "You'll draw attention."

"We need to leave," I repeat in a smaller voice than before.

"Suit yourself. Just tell me what you found first, and then give me the bible before you go."

"You're not coming?"

"No, Des." Exie's tone is that of a parent talking their a toddler through a half-dozenth midnight scare. "I knew the risks before I came here. I'm not going anywhere."

Her brother. The thought of leaving wilts beneath me, as mental images of hijacking a carriage and riding off into the sunset with Exie are struck down to images of me riding alone. I don't know where to go from here.

"Tell us what you found," says Exie, "and then we'll talk."

"We're already talking.".

She gives me a look.

Pointless contradiction holds no appeal against that disapproval. I sink into a seat beside Clarice, and startle as she puts the back of one hand to my forehead.

"Are you well?" she asks, in a tone far too pleasant for the gravity of the situation. "You look like death."

I shudder at the memory of stepping on a body.

"And you have chills," states Clarice. "Are you ill?"

"Leave her alone, Clare," says Exie.

The unexpected help is near enough to distract me from the memories that seem plastered to my skin. Sense and sensibility continue to play hooky on me, but a few bits of them have remembered they have homework due and started to return.

"The bible's connected to the school," I say. "I confirmed it. And I know what they're worshiping."

I fill them in on what I found as the world around me continues to resolidify. By the time I list the final angel name, I think I've reestablished my grip on reality. I think.

"That's one lead down, then," says Exie, and produces a notebook to jot it down. "Fallen angels. Current cult likely."

"Oh," says Clarice. "I got the necklace Des mentioned from one of the teachers. Does that help?"

Exie closes her eyes, then opens them again and makes another note. "Current cult confirmed."

"We need to know who printed the bible," I say. "Did you find anything in your search?"

Exie shakes her head. "Just other maps."

"All blank?"

"In this spot, yes."

"Any older ones?"

"No." She groans. "And I don't know where else to check."

A memory pokes me from the side. It's a mental snapshot of a map on a wall, moon-cast and ghostly. It's not my father's, which means I don't know where it's from. I haven't seen anything decorating the walls of this academy.

Except I have. And as I turn to Exie, the memory flashes night-dark for a moment, offering her silhouette in an office only seconds before Colson screamed. An office with bookshelves and tall windows, and maps on its walls.

"Mrs. Hardwick's office," I say. "She has some. We need to see what they are."

Like this chapter if you guessed the fallen angels!

If these three locate a map, comment what you think they'll find  👀