The Marked Girl by Lindsey Klingele Page B

do you?”
    Liv averted her eyes. “Well . . .”
    â€œI expected as much,” Cedric said, his voice kind of smug. “This is such a strange place, filled with so many things I can neither understand nor explain, and yet we learned very quickly that people here are unable to believe us. It is odd, though . . . they can speak to each other through devices smaller than this—” Cedric picked up the saltshaker on the table. “And yet the notion of a portal is unthinkable!”
    â€œWell, cell phones are possible through science. Portals are . . . fantasy.”
    â€œThey both seem like magic to me. But I suppose I understand your reluctance. Sometimes I try to imagine going home and telling my sister, Emme, about some of the things I have seen here, and I know she would never believe me.”
    Cedric shoveled the last bit of waffles into his mouth. Liv pushed the plate of hash browns over to him and smiled. He licked a bit of syrup off of his fork and dug into the new food.
    â€œSo why the museum? What would make you stay there, of all places?”
    Cedric contemplated while chewing. Then he told Liv a story, about a man named Mal-something who had led a group of the creatures—wraths—into his home in the middle of the night. “A small group of us managed to escape our guards, but there was no way out of the castle. So we left through the only means we could think of—the portal.”
    Now Cedric looked up, eyes blazing. But it wasn’t Liv he was looking at. It seemed as though he was focused on something behind her, though there was nothing there but the vinyl booth. “We had to run in the moment, but I will not run forever. I willfind my way back home. Create a portal back to Caelum, and once there, I will raise my father’s army. Malquin will not see us coming, and we will defeat him and the wraths.”
    The silence that followed Cedric’s tirade was heavy, and Liv felt that she should say something. “Well that sounds like . . . quite the challenge. So why haven’t you gone back yet?”
    Cedric looked away, the anger draining from his eyes. “We are looking for a set of scrolls, very old ones, that will open the way for us to get home.”
    â€œYou can’t just go back the way you came?”
    Cedric shook his head. “We tried. It does not work like that. The portal is closed from this side, and we need to reopen it. And the only way we can is with the scrolls.” He paused to swallow another bite of waffle.
    â€œThe scrolls. Right.” Liv once again put a hand up to her temple. One glance at Cedric’s face revealed his complete earnestness. He truly believed all of the crazy things he was saying.
    â€œSo you thought these . . . scrolls . . . would be at the museum?”
    Cedric sighed. “I do not know, truthfully. When we first arrived, our only goal was to stay alive. But the people we met were . . . not always helpful. None of them knew anything about the scrolls, or our world, or even wraths. I knew the scrolls were very old, and that I should look for them in a place where very old things might be stored. The museum is so large and has so many artifacts, I thought I would be bound to find them eventually. But I have so far only foundold parchment, rocks, and monster bones.”
    Liv tried to stifle a smile.
    â€œBut how did you get a job there, at the museum?”
    Cedric looked sheepish. “I did not, exactly. I took this uniform. So long as I keep my head down and move quickly, only coming up from the tunnels at night or when we really need to acquire food, no one has stopped me.”
    â€œAcquire food? Is that, like, a fancy way to say stealing?”
    Cedric leaned back against the booth with a heavy sigh. “We were so hungry . . . I have never known hunger like that, not in my life. But food was everywhere. Everywhere we looked—in stalls, in buildings, safe behind glass. We did