It must’ve been a long kiss because it felt like minutes passed before Briony said, “All right, we’re ready.”
The gateway book had put itself away, so I had to call for it again. I flipped to a photograph of the Central Library in Edinburgh, Scotland, and glanced at Briony. “Okay. Ready?”
Her eyes went to Galach, and he gave her a reassuring nod back.
“I am,” she said.
“Put on the crown.”
She put it on, and I grasped her hand.
“Aprire la porta,” I said and jumped with her into the book.
After we arrived in the Edinburgh library, Aetnae opened The Secret Garden pop-up book.
Briony turned to me, her eyes glistening. “One day, when there is peace, we will meet again. Stay strong, Gianna Bianchi McCabe.”
“I will,” I said. “And I will see you again.”
“If you need me,” Aetnae said, “you know how to find me.”
“I do. Now go.”
She nodded and led Briony into The Secret Garden.
With much pain, I used the spell to brand the crown back into my skin. Then I put on the blond wig and jumped to the Riccardiana Library.
There was a line to go through the bookcase leading to Mantello. It had to be longer than the one when I had left the haven. As I neared the front of the line, I twisted my hands in front of me.
Where is she? I bit my lip and adjusted my bag on my shoulder, my eyes darting to every corner of the reading room and scanning each bookcase.
The line moved again.
My heart sprinted in my chest. I glanced behind me. Maybe I should go back. Would they notice if I got out of line? The guard was too near, so I decided to stay where I was.
And the line moved once more, making me the next up.
I swallowed hard.
Something tickled my ear and I swatted at it.
“Whoa there,” Aetnae hiss-whispered. “Have you not learned that you shouldn’t swipe at what you believe are bugs? You’re going to bend a wing or something.”
I tried not to move my lips when answering her. “Where have you been? I’m almost up.”
“You need to get out of line,” she said. “We’ll make a diversion and you jump through the gateway to the El Escorial library in Spain.”
“To Santara? Why?”
The man and woman in front of me were in an intense argument with the guards.
“I must go to Mantello first,” I said. “Bastien is waiting for me.”
She heaved a sigh. “No. He was there, but you weren’t, so he went looking for you in Santara. Guess he picked the wrong haven. Your distraction is happening now; you best go.”
The man in front of me slammed his bag down and yelled something in a language I didn’t know, his arms flailing around him. Books dropped from a nearby shelf.
A woman screeched, spinning around, looking for something in the air. “What is it? A moth?”
People and creatures in line scattered. The guards’ heads snapped in the direction of the commotion.
I backed up and quickly walked to the other room. I called for the gateway book and waited. There were so many travelers coming through that it took several minutes before it came to me. I searched for the page with El Escorial on it.
“Hey, you!” a deep voice called to me.
I glanced up. One of the guards, a little smaller than the others with thinning hair and bushy sideburns, headed in my direction, his boots pounding against the tiles.
Crap. Focus, Gia.
I found the page with the El Escorial Monastery Library in Spain near the back of the book.
“I’m talking to you, mademoiselle—” His words and footfalls stopped, so I gave him another look. “It is you. Gianna Bianchi.” He picked up his pace.
Aetnae darted around the guard’s face, and he swung his hands around his head. I created an ice globe and pelted the floor with it, right in front of the guard’s feet. He slipped and landed hard on his back.
“Aprire la porta,” I blurted and jumped into the book, turning the page before I was fully through. I didn’t need a bunch of guards knowing where I went.
The darkness of the gateway surrounded me, and I breathed in the cool air.
“That was close,” Aetnae hollered over the wailing wind. Her voice was so faint, I wouldn’t have heard her if she wasn’t as close as she was to my ear. She held tight to my hair.
I landed out of the book and onto a black and white marble floor. The welcoming smell of old books and old-world air filled my nose. Aetnae let go of my hair and floated beside me, her iridescent wings barely visible while flapping to keep her up. My eyes went to the arched ceiling with gold trim. I’d studied this library in art class once. Afton had forced me to take it with her. It was a boring hour filled with the history of murals, frescos, and something else I couldn’t even remember. Out of all the different places, the libraries interested me the most. And here I was standing in one.
The panels of the ceiling were filled with beautiful frescos depicting the seven liberal arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, grammar, astronomy, rhetoric, and dialectic. Why I remembered this stuff was beyond me.
“You just going to stare at the ceiling?” Aetnae asked from where she stood on one of the display cases in the middle of the room.
I pulled my eyes away from a woman in one of the frescos—or it could have been a man, it was hard to tell in paintings sometimes. The woman had a crown floating above her head and religious men with beards and bishop-like hats surrounded her. Afton had chosen to paint it once for the class. Hers was almost identical; mine put stick figure art to shame.
I missed Afton. I missed Nick. I missed that long-lost time where the biggest fear we had was receiving our grades.
“Where is the entry into the haven?” I asked, pushing back the homesickness hardening in my chest.
Aetnae took off from the display case and hovered in front of a portrait of a royal-looking man. “This is it.”
I went over and faced it. “Ammettere il pura,” I said.
Nothing happened.
“Ammettere il pura.”
Still nothing.
“Are you sure this is it?”
“Yes,” Aetnae said. “It looks as if someone has changed the entry charm.”
“Do you know if there is a Talpar tunnel around here?”
Aetnae landed on my shoulder, her breathing heavy. “Why do you assume I’d know where their tunnels were located?”
“Because book faeries know everything in the libraries.” I craned my neck to see her. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
She lifted her face and frowned at me. “Well, you better not tell anyone I did. And you’re not going to like this. We need to go down to the basement.”
“Why am I not going to like it?”
“You’ll see. That way.” She pointed.
I hurried down the long stairs, clutching my bag to my chest, Aetnae bouncing in the air ahead of me. She brought me to a room with black marble, red jasper, and gilt decorations, with twenty-six marble caskets stacked four high on the shelves surrounding the room. An alter with a cross above it was on one wall.
“What is this place?”
“The royal crypt. Kings and queens are buried here.”
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“Told you.”