We both whip our heads around to see her shrug.
Jesinia leads us out of the main library and down a well-lit hallway lined with windows and with a few classrooms on each side. The deeper we travel into the Archives, the tighter my collar feels.
Xaden catches up to us in a few strides, walking calmly beside me.
“Someone is going to notice all that black,” I lecture quietly as Jesinia turns to the right. This place is a fucking maze, and it all looks exactly the same.
“There’s no one here.” Xaden’s hands are loose at his sides, and he’s exchanged the swords he prefers at his back in favor of a short one, which tells me he’s prepared for close-quarters fighting. “At least not in this section.”
“Your shadows tell you that?” Aaric quips.
“I thought we agreed not to speak,” Xaden retorts.
Jesinia opens the third door on the left, and we follow her into what looks to be a classroom. No wonder the hallway is lined with windows; in here, it’s dark. Two of the walls are made of stone, and the back one is lined with books. The rest of the space is sparse, filled with rows of long trestle tables and benches that face a lone desk at the front of the room.
“Everything from here is only what I’ve been told,” she signs, worry pursing her lips. “I’ve never been farther. If I’m wrong about any of this—”
“We can handle ourselves,” I promise.
She nods, then walks to the far corner of the room, toward the long bookcase.
“Imogen,” Xaden orders, nodding toward the door.
She takes a lookout position, retrieving a knife from under her robes as Jesinia reaches for the back of the bookcase, moving several tomes out of the way before locating a lever.
She pulls down on the metal piece, and the corner of the room separates from the other stones. It rotates a quarter-turn with surprising near silence, revealing the opening to a steep spiral staircase.
Looking closely, I can see the faint lines of the metal track it spins on.
“Amazing,” I whisper. How many of these little hidden wonders exist around here? “What?” I hiss at Xaden when I catch him looking at me.
“I feel like I’m looking at what could have been.”
“And?” The secret entrance clicks into place, halting its rotation.
“You look better in black,” Xaden whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear and eliciting a shiver of awareness despite our current situation.
“This is as far as I can take you,” Jesinia signs. “If I’m gone much longer, someone may notice. According to the others, the normal Archives wards end here, so if you can’t get back in time, you’re safer down there overnight.”
“Thank you,” I reply. “I’ll be in contact as soon as we can return them.”
“Good luck.” She offers us an encouraging smile, then leaves the four of us to it.
Xaden leans into the stairwell. “Watch your step,” he tells us. “There’s a little light coming from the bottom, but we’ll need to keep the rest from turning on.”
“We’re down to forty-five minutes,” Imogen says. Any longer and we’re either stuck and court-martialed…or dead.
No pressure.
“Then we’d better move quickly,” Xaden replies, lacing his fingers with mine before starting down the steps.
The first time you are caught in the Archives after the door seals for the evening will be the last. The complex magics put in place to preserve our texts are not compatible with life.
—COLONEL DAXTON’S GUIDE TO EXCELLING IN THE SCRIBE QUADRANT
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Shadows blanket the ceiling, blocking any mage lights that could flicker on at our presence, so I put my free hand on the wall as we descend the stairs slowly. Every step is a gamble in the darkness, but miraculously, no one stumbles.
Pale blue light blooms at the bottom of the staircase.
“A mage light?”
“There are two guards at the end of this hallway,” Xaden answers, slipping his hand from mine. “Wait here while I solve that problem.”
I put my hand up to signal the others to stop when we reach the final step. The space opens into what looks to be a hallway, but Xaden doesn’t question which direction to take. He moves quickly to the right, lifting both hands. A crumpling sound follows.
“Now,” he says aloud.
The hallway is maybe thirty feet long and little more than a glorified tunnel supported by carved pillars over a stone floor. It smells like earth and metal and feels dank with humidity. At one end, light shines through an open archway. Glancing over my shoulder, I see that only darkness consumes the other possible path.
“There isn’t even a door?” Imogen asks as we hurry down the hall.
“No need with wards that strong,” Xaden comments.
“I can feel them.” The thrum of sharp, intense power grows stronger the closer we get. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and my own power surges in answer to what feels like a hell of a threat.
“We have a few minutes before these two will wake up. I didn’t hit them that hard,” Xaden says as he and Imogen drag the infantry guards to the side, clearing the path.
“Those wards are some uncomfortable shit.” Imogen rolls her shoulders.
“There’s a hum, but it’s not that bad,” Aaric replies as we stare through the warded archway with its intricately carved stonework to the shelves of the small, circular library that lies beyond it.
“That bodes well for getting past,” Imogen remarks. “And you’d better hurry.”
“You’re looking for two journals,” I nervously remind him, even though we’ve gone over this three times.
“There have to be at least five hundred tomes in there.” Aaric’s gaze skims the shelves, and he sighs.
“You’ll have to search—”
“Violet!” Xaden shouts as Aaric grips my hand and strides forward through the archway, yanking me along.
Powerful magic ripples over me as I stumble through, pricking every inch of my skin and twisting my stomach with the feel of a hundred-foot freefall as he pulls me into the library.
He releases my hand and I hit my knees, falling forward and catching myself on my hands. Nausea overwhelms every other sense. My mouth waters and my head hangs as I fight back the urge to vomit.
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Xaden snaps from the other side of the wards. “Tell me you’re unharmed.”
“Queasy, but I’ll live.”
Aaric ignores Xaden, dropping to a crouch in front of me. “Are you all right, Violet?”
I force air in through my nose and out through my mouth. “Tell me you knew it would let me through,” I bite out as the worst of the illness passes. “Because it sure as hell didn’t want to.”
“My father doesn’t have anything warded that isn’t worth showing off,” he explains, holding out his hand. “So, I took a chance that you wouldn’t smack into the wards like a wall. And I can’t get through these books in the next forty minutes alone. You’re the one who knows what to look for.”
I ignore his hand and push to my feet despite the smarting pain in my knees from the impact. I turn in a circle, taking the library space in. There are six heavy bookshelves with glass doors lining the circular walls, and a pedestal of cabinetry in the middle decorated with a velvet tablecloth embroidered with the king’s signet. Above us, mage lights emit a soft glow, the illumination catching on the curves and knot-like lines carved into the decorative ceiling about five feet above Aaric’s head.
The scent of damp earth is gone, and it’s considerably cooler in this room than the tunnel beyond the archway. I scour above me, but there are no windows for ventilation or any visible modifications I can see. It’s not just the wards. There’s magic in this room.
“Pull me in. Now,” Xaden demands.
“No,” Aaric replies without so much as glancing in his direction. “The only perk I’m getting out of this whole expedition is knowing how much it must pain you to realize you can’t get to her.”