What the Founders Buried

Marcus was waiting by the fountain when Wren finally made it back down, which meant he'd either been watching the tower the whole time or he already knew exactly where she'd been.

"You found the hallway," he said. Not a question.

"You could have warned me it existed."

"Would you have believed me?" He fell into step beside her, hands in his pockets, the picture of someone with nowhere else to be. "Some things you have to see for yourself, or you spend the next four years thinking everyone's exaggerating."

"Evelyn wouldn't tell me what's behind the door."

Something shifted in his expression — quick, gone before she could name it. "Evelyn's protecting you. Whether or not you want her to."

"From what?"

Marcus stopped walking. In the moonlight, the old scar along his jaw looked less like an accident and more like a warning that someone had failed to heed. "From the reason the founding families built this school somewhere no map agrees on. It wasn't for the education, Wren."