Before me, the spirit grew into a hulking, long-armed shadow. It slithered forward. Death. A creature of fear.
Then it clicked into place. Amethyst. Quartz. They are the same. Elijah had taught me that.
I wrenched myself around. I didn’t check to see if Death pursued—I just bolted.
“My earrings!” I screamed. “Amethyst!”
Joseph’s eyes flashed open. My feet drummed on the wooden floor as I hurtled toward him and the fountain.
“Amethyst! Quartz!” My voice broke as I strained to run and scream.
“Squeeze them!” Daniel bellowed from the back of the library. “Squeeze them!”
I reached the fountain. I searched over my shoulder, and though I couldn’t see the spirit, I knew from the chill that it hovered in the spirit world nearby.
“Come out!” I whirled around, thrusting my head forward and my shoulders back. “Come and get me! I’m right here!”
The spirit winked into being directly before me. Piercing cold and corrupt darkness. The high-pitched shriek stabbed at me again, burning into the crevices of my brain.
I faltered, tripping backward. My calves hit the lip of the fountain, and then a hand planted against my back.
Joseph, standing in the fountain, ripped my hair aside and clasped my earring.
Instantly, a ripple like hot, thick oil ran under my skin from my earlobe. My muscles started to twitch, and my heart beat faster and faster. A weak blue light snaked across my vision, filling the air with a crackling pop. The light flashed again—stronger and booming like thunder. It hit the spirit but was sucked in.
Again the blue lightning. Again it was consumed.
I felt as if my veins would burst, as if my brain were too large for my head. The agony bit into my bones so deeply that I thought they would surely snap. And still my heart beat faster.
Another blue crack, but this time it hit the clotted shadow and remained a flowing line of electricity. A thousand veins of blue sizzled over the spirit and down to the floor.
Just as my brain screamed for this hot oil to leave my skin, for my heart to slow, that I could take no more, a howl of pain erupted from Joseph’s mouth. The lines of blue lightning stopped. The darkness was gone.
Joseph and I lay on the floor of the library entrance, leaning against the fountain’s lip. Beneath his legs, a pool of water grew as his trousers dripped dry.
I brushed halfheartedly at the white powder on my gown. It must have come from the plaster bust that had nearly smashed my head in.
“What did you do?” I asked. “With my earring, I mean.”
“I cannot say.” Joseph smiled weakly. “I do not know how it worked, but squeezing your earring gave me a source of electricity, and I used it.”
Daniel knelt before us. “Quartz is piezoelectric. Mechanical stress creates an electric current.”
I reached up and stroked the amethysts. “Oh.” He made it sound so simple.
“Although,” he added, “I never expected that much power. How were you able to magnify it so much, Joseph?”
“I do not know,” Joseph said. “I was also surprised by the strength of the electric source.” He tapped his chin and gazed at me. “I wonder...”
“Empress, are you well?” Daniel peered at me with concern.
“Yes,” I answered, though I wasn’t sure that was true. I felt... fuzzy.
Daniel leaned toward me and placed a hand on my forehead. “You just got electrocuted. You should tell us if you don’t feel right.”
Jie stumbled up and plopped to the ground. A slur of unfamiliar words spouted from her lips, and I could tell by her ferocity that they were not meant kindly. Her knuckles bled, her clothes were shredded, and a ripe, red bruise swelled on the side of her face. Her dark eyes shone with fury. “I hope you sent that spirit back for good.”
Joseph shook his head. “I do not think so. It was strong, and I fear it will return.”
“What does it want?” I asked. “Why would it attack us here? Now?”
Joseph opened his hands. “I cannot say.”
“I can,” Daniel said. “I think it wants those Exhibition guides just like the other Dead that was here. It’s the only explanation I can conjure.” He quickly described the discovery we’d made just before the spirit’s arrival. When he finished the tale, Jie hopped up and strode off. She soon returned carrying the guidebooks to the Exhibition.
“I don’t get it,” she muttered, gazing at the volumes. “Can a spirit do much with these? Maybe it just wanted to kill us.”
“Wi,” Joseph said. “Or perhaps both. There is something about this spirit. I can sense its desire. Its power is wholly focused on some deep-seeded want—though what that want is, I cannot say.”
Daniel sniffed and scratched his nose. “Well, let’s take the books and look at ’em in the lab. Maybe we can figure out what all these Dead are after.”
“Perhaps we should leave a note.” My brain hazily insisted something about a subscription and checking out books.