It was the morning of the History trip. Russel was excited, I wasn't though. I was more ambivalent about it. But I was not interested in bringing Russel's good mood down.

Our Tower, however, apparently had a different agenda than me.

"The door's not opening," Russel announced.

Not again.

I sighed as my foot hit the last step into the main floor. I was coming up from the lower level after getting ready for my day. We weren't going to our other classes as the trip was going to take up almost the entire day.

I pulled on the doorknob. Yep, it wasn't opening.

This door was terribly finicky. Or Dragon Tower liked to pull pranks on us.

But would it be Dragon Tower if it didn't?

"That's annoying. We have places to be today. I don't suppose it's told you what it wants?"

Russel was frowning. "I don't hear anything."

Helpful.

"Could you give us a hint please?" I asked the door while crossing my arms.

There was a loud creaking from down the hall. The workroom?

Russel and I shrugged at each other and headed in that direction.

It wasn't the workroom. There was a new door. One that looked different from the rest of the doors. The wood was a lighter color, and there were runes and markings carved into it. The door was opened just enough that I could push the door open.

I hesitated for a moment, but then pushed on the door with an open palm.

Inside was a man. He had a large tankard in front of him as he toyed with a knife in his hand.

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His mouth moved like he was talking, but I couldn't hear it.

"Wait a minute…" Russel muttered next to me. "That's…that's Jantres."

What?

After a moment of looking closer, he did look familiar. Right, of course. The presentation we were given in History.

The knife he was toying with was glowing brighter than the rest of the Echo, as well as any of the other Echoes I had seen.

Jantres the Feared took a drink form his tankard and then was gone.

Russel and I exchanged a look. Why did Dragon Tower want to show us this?

"We good?" I asked the Tower.

I, of course, didn't hear anything. Russel nodded after a few seconds.

And sure enough when we went back to the door it did open.

What an odd Tower we live in.

(*********)

The Gallery Hall of Bones was not technically a part of the Towers of Nine School of Magic Study and Practice. However, that didn't mean the two places weren't connected.

It made sense that the school got along with a museum less than an hour ride on the eight-wheeled Oktos carts. Being open to the air they were pretty different from school buses. They had less capacity for one. And magic meant no fossil fuels or beasts of burden.

According to Mom, a trip here was a bit of a tradition.

From the outside the building was barely remarkable. The outside walls were a plain color. Somewhere between dark grey and green. Local soapstone I think. It was one floor and had a few windows scattered around.

The doors were simple brown wood, they were open with a man who looked to be in his thirties standing in the doorway.

"Welcome students!" He greeted us.

I was in a group with the rest of my history class. We were all forced to wear our uniforms. I had seen Jarec, the red was a little hard to miss amongst brown and blue, but I had no idea where Fethris and Celica were. But they were both in Advanced History and I had no idea if they had different plans than us in the normal class.

Our class was being led by Dellik. Either because we had the Pixies and he was the Tower head or something else. I neither knew nor cared about the specifics.

The person at the doors continued, "My name is Saga Makiros, I'm the assistant curator here at the Gallery Hall of Bones. I'm here to assist and guide you through our collection of pieces of history."

Russel rolled his eyes.

Angelina had looked worried all day.

Right. We were standing above a crypt and she did have a vision about a moving stone coffin. There was probably a connection of some kind.

I would probably be worried to.

"I don't think any of the bones we're going to see are going to attack us," I whispered to her.

I couldn't promise that they wouldn't move or come to life. Which said a lot about where we were.

"Now, I've made itineraries for your professors to guide you through our exhibits. So stay together and if you get separated just find one of our guiding runes and activate them with the words; 'I'm lost'."

Too bad I can't use runes. But that was fine. Just don't get separated from the others.

I could handle that.

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