Page 31 of Eat. Prey. Love.
Pulling the delicate map out of the pile carefully, I spread it out on the table still in the protective covering. If I don’t open it, we won’t have to get out all his archivist shit. I enjoy having a bit of roleplay with the nerdy librarian at times, but having to take a thousand steps to view something is tedious. I’m surprised Dolly can bear it, except that she seems to have infinite patience for all of our hyper-fixations.
“See that?” Aubrey points to a section of the map beyond the main campus. “This isn’t on our maps; they’re designed to only show the main area. But I think this forest, these mountains, the graveyard, and this other lake are all part of the campus. They’d only stop making additions to avoid those places if there was no reason.”
I frown, looking at the map, then tapping my lips to think about it. “We need to check property records to make certain they belong toAcademie. If so, I fear you may be correct. All of those locations would be good for hiding things like secret vaults or vampires or whatever the fuck else they have up their sleeves.”
Aubrey groans, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “You want the Smackbook.”
“I do,mon amour. I don’t know why you pretend to be so allergic to technology when you love what it can do for you.”
He pushes back from the table, not answering as he huffs off to grab the laptop. I shake my head fondly as I go back to studying the sections of the map that we’ve identified. Much like the ritual space and vaults at Apex, they comprise the borders of the school. At Cappie, the secret shit was right underneath—though that could be because of their location and proximity to the tunnels in the Capital. I wish we’d gotten to explore that part of the city while we were living there, but we simply did not have the time.
Fucking Fae and asshole Council ruined a lovely tour through history; I’ll suggest we go back when this is over.
“Merde,’ I whisper to myself. “I cannot allow Dolly to miss the sights and rich beauty of Paris while we’re here. Shadowy enemies be damned, we will visit the city I adore before we leave.”
An idea forms and I grin broadly as the picture weaves in my head. I know exactly how to make sure that doesn’t happen—I’ll ask her on a date. We can go to the city and see the sights together on a starry night, as it should be experienced. None of us were able to take Dolly off campus last year and I think this is the perfect time to remedy that.
“Why are you smiling like a Cheshire Cat?” my mate says as he lumbers back in the room with his poor laptop. “No pranks in my library, Renard Laveaux.”
“I wouldn’t dare, Flames.” Crossing my finger over my heart, I give him a solemn look. “At least, not in the archive room. I’m not Fitzgerald.”
That distracts him as he hands me the computer while ranting about the tiger’s ass and balls being rubbed all over his clean room at Apex. I knew it would, and as I click through the web to find where we can access property ownership rolls, my mind wanders to a perfect date set-up. It will have to be a long weekend, perhaps,or maybe the spring break time so we aren’t constrained by activities so much.
“Rennie… Rennie…”
Whoops.
“Oui?” I ask innocently as I tune back into him. “I’m waiting for results.”
“They appear to be ready,” he replies, his brow arching as he studies me. “Though you were a million miles away for a moment.”
Sighing, I click the link to pull up the map surveys of the area. “Fine. I had the brilliant idea to takema petiteon a date to Paris. It’s one of my homes, and I’d love to see her experience it. Plus, none of us got to do a lot of wooing last year, and she deserves more than underground fights and vault thieving.”
He ponders for a moment, then gives me a stern look. “Dolly enjoyed the hell out of her date to the fights with Felix, I believe. She also liked visiting my horde nearby, but I agree that we were limited in our ability to do such things once we were locked down. I think Fitz and Chess were disappointed as well. You should continue your plan, love. Your romantic aspirations will certainly appeal to her soft side.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course not. I want to take her on a hunt with us again, as that is our little thing together. I’m sure Chess and Fitz will have plans for her together and separately. Even the grumpy Raj might plot activities with everyone and privately. Our mate is always excited to do anything with any of us—even when it’s Felix’s blasted cardio runs.”
I chuckle softly. Shehatesto run, but she goes with the surly tiger without much more than a few snarky barbs. “You’re right, Flames. I was being silly by hiding it. Your input was valuable last time, if I remember correctly.”
Aubrey beams and bumps my shoulder with his. “Now get to work. The map is almost downloaded.”
The WiFi speed in this part of the library is almost untenable since it’s underground, so I tap my fingers on the table as we wait for the last bit to hit our screen. When the map is revealed, I zoom in, checking the property lines and the borders carefully. Aubrey was correct—while the current maps don’t list those areas as part of campus, they definitely belong to the school.
“Ten dollars says the fucking vampires are hiding in the?—”
“Graveyard?” he smirks.
I roll my eyes at him. “No, don’t be ridiculous. That’s a human myth. Why the hell would they stay in the dirt? They’re probably living on the lake edge. They don’t like water, but there’s ample room for structures on the far side, and they could build cool underground caves for their newly turned childer to cross over in.”
The dragon scratches his chin. “They don’t have sun issues once they’ve been turned for over a century, right?”
“Right, but they need places for the younger ones to hunker down until they age out. Depending on how large the horde is, they’ll have normal looking houses where smaller sub-groups live together above ground.”
“I’d think the forest is better for that,” he says as he grabs the mouse and pans the map. “It’s very dense, by the look of the drawings.”
Swallowing hard, I shake my head. “It’s not them I worry about inhabiting the forest,mon ami.”