The Rise of Venus

Sin Almost Strikes Me Down

Song: a playlist for slytherins by philocaLY

"I realized there's a theme in finding the artifacts," Reign said. The tan wolf pinned a map of Salem to the wall with black tacks. Using a red marker he colored in five spots on the map before turning to us.

Leo brought my cup of jasmine to where I sat on the couch. The living room's atmosphere was light with Sky still in her room. At first I debated bringing her out here to hear the new information. But I decided against it as soon as the idea popped into my head.

She needed more time to calm down.

Leo squeezed beside me, placing my legs over his lap. I drank from my perfect cup of tea whereas he sipped on his sugary iced coffee. Leo, like Flora and Reign, drank coffee constantly. All three of them claimed to have been drinking it since a young age so the caffeine was lost to them. Now, they simply drank it for the taste alone.

They were all coffee addicts in my opinion.

"What's the theme?" Pride asked from the kitchen. Pink smoke curled upwards then vanished into a purple mist. He watched it with interest, recording something in my journal. Keeping his attention on our discussion, Pride continued to brew his magickal concoctions.

"The Apple of Eternal Life was found in Mage's Orchard. The orchard's where Mage gained elemental powers from Terra," Reign explained.

AKA, the Goddess of Magick and the Life God.

"Pridesong Library was built on the land of the first battle between the races."

"Which was where we found the Blade of War and the Chronicle," I said. "Makes sense. The sword was placed there as a nod to the fight. But why was the book there?"

"Gwendolyn said that Jupiter created the Chronicle after the first battle." Pride looked up from one of his many cauldrons, his eyes dimming at the mention of his racist grandmother. "If she's right, and it was created there too, then the Oracle hid it there hoping it'd get lost alongside all the other books."

"Was the library really that big?" Leo asked.

Pride nodded, taking a sprig of lavender from Flora. He broke a few pieces off before stirring the sweet smelling thing. "There's a glamour placed on the outside of the library. It looks really small from the outside but the inside is huge. It took me forever to find the Chronicle because there are thousands of books down there."

Damn.

And here we were about to lose our collective minds over a few hundred.

"The museum we found the Dagger of the Mind in was built by Mercury," Reign continued. "It's where she kept all of her conquests of knowledge. And the Ring of Love was found at the fountain where the first pair of interracial Mate's met."

Taking off his glasses, Reign rubbed his tired eyes. They were sunken and dark just like Sky's. The button nose he also shared with Sky twitched before he pushed his thin frames back over his face and spoke. "All of these things were found in places related to Witches and Werewolves. But, they also coincided with an important place tied to the Gods and what they represent."

That, actually, made a lot of sense. Looking at his map and skimming through the information I knew, I saw the pieces falling together.

We were finally back on track.

"Where do you think Uranus' object is?" Leo asked. Reign's blank face flickered with uncomfortableness. He eyed Pride and I. Raising my brows, I shared a look with Leo, nodding for him to press harder. "Reign? Where is it?"

Tapping his pointer fingers together, Reign switched to a blue marker and made a dot at the edge of Salem. It was beside a body of water and I pictured another cliff in my mind.