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Both boys looked at each other and shrugged.

“No idea,” Bear said. “That’s just the library for you.”

Alex didn’t bother to point out that his reasoning made absolutely no sense. It was hardly the craziest thing she’d heard since arriving in Medora.

“Let’s go see these Archives, yeah?” Jordan said, walking over to the sealed wooden door and motioning for Alex to come closer. “Open your book to page seventy-four and press it against the door.”

Alex did as he instructed and waited for the door to open. As the seconds ticked by, she wondered why it was taking so long. Maybe she’d opened the wrong page? She double-checked and tried again.

Still nothing. No movement. No noise. No indication whatsoever that the door was preparing to open.

Alex looked up to see a purple-faced Jordan who, at that moment, finally released the laughter that he’d been holding in. Bear quickly joined him. They’d tricked her—again.

“What did you expect to happen?” Jordan asked once his laughter died down.

She kept her tone flat when she answered, “I expected the door to open, obviously.”

“Did you think to try knocking?”

Alex wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. She didn’t want to fall for another prank, but before she even had the chance to decide what to do, Bear reached around her and rapped his knuckles three times on the wooden surface. The latch clicked softly and the door opened wide enough for her to see into the room beyond.

“Wow.”

In all honesty, the room itself wasn’t that impressive. It was just like stepping into a computer lab, with independent cubicles and comfortable-looking chairs facing touch-screen panels. The space was large, but certainly not as large as the entire level of the Tower they were under.

The reason Alex was so shocked was due to the number ofpeoplein the room. She took in the faces—most of them adults—and asked the obvious question: “If this place is so secret, how do so many people know about it?”

“Like Jordan said before, ‘secret’ is a bit of an overstatement,” Bear said. “We’re not really sure what the secret is—whether it’s how to get down here, or the fact that there’s ahereto get down to. Either way, most people know about the Archives, and if they don’t, it’s a good bet that someone they know can tell them.”

“It just seems weird that the librarian acted so strangely about the ‘legend’ of the library if everyone knows about it,” Alex murmured.

“Truth is, not many people know about the entrance we took, as far as I’m aware,” Jordan said. “That’s another reason we wanted to get rid of Connor and Mel—just in case they didn’t actually know. It’s not something we’re supposed to share, strictly speaking.”

Alex looked around the room in confusion. “Then how did all these people get in here?”

“There are other entrances to the Archives all around Medora,” Bear said, “but they’re access points only. Bubbledoors transport people directly here from wherever they start. But, like us, they can only ever get back out the way they came in.”

“Very few people would know that the Archives are actually a part of Akarnae’s library,” Jordan said. “Any other students who have used the entrance we took would most likely believe the encyclopedia acts just like the other access points. But we know differently—we’re still underneath the Tower.”

“How do you know?” Alex asked.

“We’ll show you later,” Bear promised.

“Come on,” Jordan said, stopping her from questioning them further. “Let’s get this search for your disappearing stranger out of the way.”

Alex dutifully listened as Bear explained how to use the touch-screen panels, and after making sure she understood what she was doing, he and Jordan took off to give her some quiet research time. Once they were gone, she brought up a page listing Akarnae’s yearbooks from the past fifteen years and touched the ‘search’ tab. She then eased back into her seat and waited for the new screen to open.

She almost fell out of her chair when the results appeared. Not only were past students listed, but so was everything else about them, including their relatives, friends, neighbours—everything.Each individual’s entire history was listed and available for public perusal. There was just too much information for her to look through, so she found the task bar and typed in ‘Aven’, hoping to refine her search. The page loaded instantly:

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