She moved to the door and slowly eased it open. It was dark in the hall, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Once they had, she was left with the decision of which direction to go. She hadn’t been paying enough attention when brought here to have any clear indicator of what side of the hall led where.
Throwing it to chance, she turned right, padding down the hallway swiftly but soundlessly. Some hallways were lit with dim orange lights pressed against the walls every few feet; others were almost pitch-black. She avoided those. She wasn’t quite sure what she hoped to find, only that there had to be somewhere with answers out there. The castle was huge, after all.
Knowing that she didn’t want to inadvertently run into the Basileus or Basilissa, however, had her also avoiding the hallways that seemed too lavish. The ones with even more gold trim running down them than the wing where Olena’s bedroom was located were also all carefully avoided. That still left plenty of selections though, and with the place being built like a maze, it was easy enough for her to choose between one hall and another.
A brighter orange glow, more vibrant than any of the other lights she’d seen thus far, filtered in at the end of a hallway. It effectively drew her into the darkness, her curiosity overshadowing her fear.
Logically, her brain told her, if there’d been any true danger here, there’d surely be guards, right? As it was, she’d yet to stumble upon a single one. The castle itself seemed to stand still, the quiet thick and heavy, beating down on her like a live thing. Through her wanderings, she’d found a sort of twisted comfort from it, the silence allowing her mind to filter through the day’s events without any interruptions.
The hallway stretched some thirty feet, not a single light aside from the one at the very end of it. The closer she got, the brighter it became, and she realized that it was a mere fraction of itself shown from beneath the crack of a very large door.
It wasn’t just spilling through the bottom but the side of the door as well; someone had left it open a good half a foot. Through the gap she could make out rows of cherrywood shelves covered with books of all sizes. Despite her enjoyment of the quiet up to this point, the distinct sound of crackling wood attracted her, igniting a homesickness at the center of her chest that had her pushing open the door the rest of the way. The possible ramifications of her actions were a blurry thought in the back of her mind, easily shuffled aside to make room for her inquisitiveness.
She entered a massive library the likes of which she’d only ever dreamed of. The walls stretched so high, she couldn’t even begin to guess where they stopped, the rows of books trailing up after them just as tall. The very top of the ceiling was a dome, lines of golden metal trailing from all edges to meet at the center, where they formed an odd shape she couldn’t label.
Delaney tried though, for a while, standing there with her head tilted back so far, her neck began to ache from it. The night sky above was charcoal with flickers of neon blues, greens, and pinks. She wondered if the windows were special, if there was something about them that turned the tiny pinpricks of light coming from the stars those odd colors. She was once again reminded that everything here was foreign to her, that she was out of place.
Except for the smell.
She found the source of it on the other side of the room, against a wide wall nestled between two stacks of shelves. The floor was solid beneath her feet, and she padded across it silently in her socks. She’d taken off her shoes earlier when she’d attempted to sleep, and hadn’t thought about putting them back on in her rush to beat Pettus’s return.
The fireplace was big enough to fit three of her easily, set in stone that sparkled like gold glitter had been used to form the rock. Heat radiated, hot enough that ten feet was the closest she could get before drops of sweat prickled her brow.
Now that she was in front of the fireplace, she could note that the woodsy smell was different from any of the ones back on Earth. There was a sweetness to it along with the smokiness, almost like someone had tossed a vat of gummy bears in it only moments prior. The scent effectively overpowered any that the dusty old volumes flanking it might have given off themselves.
She moved over to the closest bookshelf, selecting a tome at random. It had a burgundy spine, and when she pulled it from the wall, she found that it also had gold-leaf edges. She traced them with her finger, picking a page and opening it. The writing was in a language she couldn’t read, and with a heavy frown she replaced it, moving on to another. The next five volumes she chose were in the same foreign language.
Delaney was a bit disappointed that the hebi didn’t also help translate the written word. She figured it probably had something to do with the fact the device translated sound specifically. Unfortunately, the writing wasn’t even recognizable enough for her to attempt properly sounding it out.
The part of her that’d grown excited the moment she’d entered the library began to wither, as if under the heat of the fire. This would have been the perfect place to get her answers, so of course it had to be completely useless to her. A blatant taunt from an already bitter universe.
She turned away, spinning in a circle to better inspect the place. There was no telling how large it actually was, not when the stacks formed mazes of their own, rows creating passages that led deeper into the room in every given direction. Seeing as how she was already lost—there was no way she was going to be able to backtrack to Olena’s bedroom—she tossed caution to the wind and went for it.
“There’s got to be some English here somewhere,” she mumbled to herself, continuing on. It was a safe bet, considering Ruckus and his men had originally been speaking English with her on the ship.
At this point, any information she could glean would be good information. She knew little to nothing about either Vakar or Kint—damn Mariana for not pressuring her more into learning about them—and absolutely jack about Olena, aside from her being a bitch.
There had to be something here that could help her develop a stronger understanding of just what she’d been dragged into.
Delaney traveled through another four rows before coming to a stop at a corner made by two connecting shelves. Some of the spines had words on them, and her gaze homed in on one eleven rows up, with American Customs distinctly set in shiny silver lettering.
There was a step stool directly beneath it, as if someone had only just recently been searching the contents of this section as well. She hypothesized that if this book was in English, the rest here probably were, too. The stool was about a foot high, circular, and made of thick glass.