Page 35 of Messenger of Death (Ouroboros Academy #2)

W e didn’t know if these Forsaken Ones had names that we would have known about, but someone tried to bury it, anyway.

Someone had to remember them for them to be reincarnated.

So, we were in the library after class digging into snake gods while Lucian sat at our table and did his thing with his phone.

There were a lot of beings associated with snakes—gods, monsters, demons, you name it.

“I hope we aren’t dealing with Apophis,” Khalid moaned.

“Sounds like you’d need antibiotics. Who the fuck is that?” Liam said.

“A demon associated with darkness and he also turns into a snake. There are conflicting stories if he’s a demon or he was a previous sun god who kept trying to steal the sun back from Ra, but he was worse than Set.”

“Yeah, but would it be Apophis if he’s so famous that you know about him?” I asked.

“Apophis is a character in several video games based on a cursory internet search. Not exactly buried by anyone so he didn’t come back. I doubt the familiars couldn’t speak his name when it’s plastered all over the internet,” Lucian said.

“No, you’re right, of course. Apophis was the big bad of Ancient Egypt. It’s not like anyone tried to erase him.”

“What if they aren’t in the library because no one felt safe to write their names down?

” I asked. “It might be one of those things where the only people who remember them are elders and they only pass that information on to other elders of their kind? I think we should try to get an audience with the fairy elders.”

“Good call,” Khalid said. “They like you and they seem to love Liam. We’d have to convince them whatever destroyed Fairy is back and we need a little more proof first.”

“Bad news,” Lucian said. “The only cell phone near where Selene died was Selene’s. I’m guessing our Forsaken Ones figured out whatever this darkness magic is, it kills their cell phone and the one who turns into a snake probably didn’t want to lose it when he shifted.”

“Shit,” I swore.

“Is there anything else you can do?” Liam asked. “You’re kind of a genius with this stuff.”

“I’m going to have to start reading messages and all of you are going to have to help me by narrowing down whose messages to read by watching who is sneaking off together. We all paired up, but they have to be from the same pantheon if they knew each other in their original life.”

Good point. I hadn’t even thought about that. Problem was, only a few of us knew who we were in our class. Some of us had to know and were keeping it quiet if the Forsaken Ones were awake.

I still just had this bad feeling Lola was one of the Forsaken Ones. I just had zero proof, and she was pretty popular, so she was around everyone. I couldn’t pinpoint her with another Forsaken. I didn’t feel like I could point the finger at her, even around my friends.

“Hey, can you look at Lola’s messages first?” I asked.

I waited for them to tell me I was nuts or at least a bitch for suggesting it.

“Yeah, you got a theory?” Lucian asked.

I just shrugged because I didn’t. All I had was a deep, nasty feeling in my gut that I didn’t even know was right or not.

And I didn’t think I could bear for them to hate me because I pointed the finger at someone who could be just a victim.