They’re inspecting people. Panic fluttered in my chest, and I clenched the cloak closed to hide my Sentinel gear underneath. I turned to go back the way I’d come, but was stopped by an older couple’s approach. They looked like parents who had just walked out of a Norman Rockwell painting, the man in his suit and the woman in a flowery dress. The man studied my face before I whirled back around.
“The libraries are crowded,” the woman said. “It seems quite unnecessary to make everyone return to the place of their births to reregister.”
With every movement of the line, my heart stopped, and I caught my breath. I should have stayed in Mantello as Bastien and Edgar told me. I was second in line, and my stomach clenched.
“Next,” said a guard with a hawkish nose and barrels for arms.
The man in front of me stepped up to the guard.
“Identification,” the guard said holding out his hand.
Identification? I didn’t have any. The panic in my chest nosedived to my gut.
The man held up a metal card. The guard studied it and then nodded the man through.
I approached the guard, playing in my head all the scenarios on how to get out of this.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked.
“Books,” I said in a soft, timid tone. He motioned for me to open the bag. I did and he searched inside.
Okay. There’re two guards. I’d have to use my globes.
“Identification,” he said.
“Just a second.” I squatted, put my bag on the floor, and pretended to search inside.
I opened my hand by my side and whispered, “Accendere la stun.” The power of the globe tugged at my palm. Leaping to my feet, I slammed the purple sphere against his shoulder. It spread across his body, encasing him in a purple glow.
A sharp intake of breath came from the woman behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Make sure to call someone to remove the stun, or he’ll run out of air and die. Okay?”
His eyes wide, the older man nodded.
I darted through the entrance, creating another stun globe and hurling it at the other guard pacing the library. It smacked him the chest, and he fell to the floor like a chopped down tree.
The Riccardiana Library’s warm woodwork and gold accents flashed in my peripheral vision as I dashed for the main reading room. My boots clacking against the checkered tiles resounded against the fresco ceiling. Moonlight came in through the tall window, casting shadows over the bookcases.
I called for the gateway book and spun around listening for it. Above the fresco was a circular window, the frame resembling a lemon slice. Though it was day in the havens, it was nighttime in Florence. Tables were lined up in the center of the room, gold-painted chairs with pink cushions pushed up against them.
The book wasn’t chained to anything. It floated to me and I flipped to the photograph of the Trinity College library in Dublin.
“Aprire La Porta.” I said the charm and jumped into the book, an alarm sounding as I disappeared into the gateway.
I searched the Long Room in the Trinity library for the spiral staircase Jaran had said led to Tearmann haven. The arched ceiling soaring overhead made me feel small. I walked past the display of the Book of Kells, which was an illuminated manuscript of the Christian Gospels created around 800 AD. Jaran would be impressed that I remembered what he had told me.
Finally, I found the spiral staircase tucked away in a tiny alcove surrounded by bookcases and beside a bust of Shakespeare. I stepped onto the first stair and clutched the black rod iron banister swirling up to the top.
Admit the pure. That’s what the charm to open the doorways into the havens meant. It was spelled to let only those without evil intentions into the haven. But I wondered if it really worked, because some of the wizards on the council weren’t playing nice. Could they have altered the charm? Most likely.
I took a deep breath and said, “Ammettere il pura.”
The rod iron shook in my grasp, the floor slid aside, and the staircase spun down. My grasp tightened. It landed with a bang, and I ended up in a rock tunnel, one that was surprisingly empty. I stepped off, and the staircase returned to the library above, the floor shutting me inside the tunnel.
“Okay, whatever happens, there better not be a flood.” I removed the itchy wig and shoved it into my bag.
Water leaked from the arched ceiling and plunked into puddles forming on the uneven stone floor. The tunnel walls were covered in beautiful graffiti art of wizards, Mystik creatures, and unusual landscapes. I stopped when I spotted one of me, a sense of pride swelling inside. Someone had actually painted me. By the details, whoever it was took a lot of time doing it. I looked fierce in my Sentinel gear with my pink battle globe, the wind blowing back my ponytail.
I bent and dipped my finger in the mud where a stone in the ground was missing. With the tip of my finger, I drew a hairline scar across my cheek. I’d earn the scar and was proud of it because it was a badge of survival. I wiped my finger on my pants and continued down the tunnel.
The passage dipped and rose until it came to a series of steps carved out of the rock, twisting down and then spiraling up. I had to duck to avoid hitting my head on the low arches, and I almost felt dizzy with all the turns. The final stairs were so long, I had to stop several times to catch my breath. The steps stopped at a heavy wooden door that I had to use all my weight to push open.
Bright light blinded me, and I squinted until my eyes got used to it. As my focus cleared, I caught glimpses of lush green grass with thousands of yellow cup-shaped flowers. A swarm of colorful humming birds rushed by me. Tall trees drooped with red and purple fruit.
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I recited, and laughed. “Now all I need are ruby slippers.”
“You always be talking to yourself like that?” a grumpy sounding male voice said from somewhere nearby.
The accent and syntax reminded me of Carrig.
I whirled around. “Where are you? Better yet, who are you?”
A guy a little bit older than me, with dark red hair and bushy brows of the same color, came out from behind a tree carrying a basket full of the red and purple fruit. He dropped the basket, the fruit tumbling and disappearing into the long grass.
“Be it you?” he asked, gaping.
I raised an eyebrow. “Last I checked, it was me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Who do you think I am?” I asked.
“Gianna,” he said with uncertainty in his voice.
Do I tell him he’s right? He could turn me in.
He ran his sleeve across his forehead. “I’m not going to harm you. If you were she, we’d protect you. The council is up to no good.”
I paused and studied him, not sure if he was trustworthy. He didn’t seem dangerous, but that didn’t mean anything. Lining the basket was a copy of the Mystik Observer.
“Why do you have an Observer?” I asked.
“Because it’s the only true news out there nowadays. The others are filled with false stories the council wants us to believe.”
I decided to take my chance. If he turned on me, I’d fry his ass.
“I am her, but you can call me Gia.”
“All right, then, Gia,” he said. “Never in all me days would I have thought I’d meet the presage. You be a hero in Tearmann. One of our own, you are.”