The goblins flung open the library door and tossed Leta in. She stumbled across the room, tripping over the tatters of her skirt, and fell against the Chronicler’s desk. Her hand overturned an inkwell and knocked a stack of parchments to the floor. Red-brown ink pooled like blood across the stone.
The door slammed and she was alone.
She stood clutching the desk with one hand, her other clenched tightly around the key. How long this solitude would last, she could not guess, and she must use it, must think. Why had Mintha given her this key? What secret might it unlock that Mintha could not access herself?
Footsteps outside pounded in Leta’s ear. She hastily dropped the key down the front of her dress, shivering as its coldness slid against her skin.
The door opened. Corgar ducked his head inside.
Leta turned about, her back pressed into the Chronicler’s desk, and stared up at her captor. She thought she’d never find breath to breathe again.
“I need to know the location of the House of Lights,” Corgar said.
Leta’s mouth hung open. She could hear the Chronicler saying, “A symbol of enlightenment, of understanding. The House of Lights is no literal house.”
And her reply: “I think you’re wrong.”
She tried to form words now, her lips moving without sound until finally she managed to gasp, “I don’t know where it is.”
“I didn’t think you would,” said the goblin. He crossed the room in two great strides, and she shrank from his towering presence. He reached out and took a book from a shelf, his claws gouging the fine leather binding. He shoved it at her, and Leta grabbed it close to her chest as though to somehow protect it. “I need you to search these documents,” said Corgar. “Read them all, every line, and tell me what you find. Perhaps hidden in this room is the secret to what I seek.”
Leta turned staring eyes from him to the shelves of books and scrolls and loose pages, many of them still indecipherable to her unpracticed eye.
“Do you understand me, mortal?” the goblin demanded.
Her throat was too dry to swallow, and her voice croaked from her mouth. “Where is the Chronicler?” she asked.
Corgar’s white eyes narrowed as he looked down upon her. “Do you mean the little king?” His voice was harsh and almost bitter. “Why should you care? Your task is before you. Open that book.”
Her fingers trembling so that she feared she would drop it, Leta spun the book around and laid its spine across her arm, supporting its weight as she spread the cover. The pages, full of the Chronicler’s familiar writing, blurred before her tear-filled eyes. She forced herself to study the passage she’d opened to. It was one she knew quite well, which was good, because otherwise Corgar’s heavy breathing would have frightened her too much to make it out.
“Speak up,” Corgar demanded. “What does it say?”
Trying once more to swallow, Leta read:
“The king will find his way
To the sword beneath the floor.
The night will flame again
When the Smallman finds the door.
“The dark won’t hide the Path
When you near the House of Lights—”
“That’s it!” Corgar cried, and one long finger came down hard upon the open page. “That’s it! The House of Lights! That’s what I need! Tell me, where is it?”
But Leta shook her head. “I . . . I’m sorry. That’s all it says. Just the rhyme. The House itself was lost long ago. If it ever existed.”
“If it ever existed?”
Corgar’s arm came down hard, tearing the book from Leta’s hand, shredding the open pages and scattering them at his feet. She retreated behind the desk, pressing her back to the wall, and watched as the great goblin turned and swept a shelf free of scrolls and loose paper that flew like large snowflakes in the air. Leta wanted to cower, to flee.
Instead, she yelled.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Corgar, startled at the ferocity in her voice, turned and saw her eyes flash fire. And she, watching all the long labor of the Chronicler swirling in destruction, strode through it, her hands clenched into fists.
“If you want me to search these documents, you’ll oblige me by not destroying them first! What if you just shredded your precious secret? Do you expect me to pick up all those little bits and piece them back together? Do you?”
The next moment his hand was on her throat, and her back was against the wall behind, her feet kicking the air. She gagged, unable to draw a breath, and tore at his arm. His eyes were close to hers, his gaze coldly intense. For a strangled moment she believed for the hundredth time in the last few days that her end had come.
Then, slowly, Corgar loosened his hold, and Leta slid down until her feet touched the floor. Her back remained against the wall, and he loomed over her, his ugly face leering down.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he growled.