“Stupid heroes.” Constantine withdrew the cat from his cloak and set her down. She looked at him and Constantine pressed a finger against her forehead. “Analyze. Quickly.”
The purple and blue furry monstrosity snapped her hundred needled teeth together, then walked into the page. Little bursts of paint colored the page around her, seeping into the grains, as she stepped onto the staircase. The book shook with a pleasant shiver. The cat tipped her head at Constantine, and a whirl of magic lifted, then she padded down the steps with her three spade tails waving through the air as if tasting the magic. She disappeared into the crack touching the book’s spine.
“We will survive inside,” Constantine reported grimly. “There is life sustaining magic. The cat recognizes its kin to yours.”
I could feel the shadows growing closer.
“Valeris’s magic, then. I will go first,” I said. The blankness around the staircase was as unnerving as it was exciting—something new. Something Origin made. “Just like Will’s sketch.” But my adventure now.
“No.” Axer shook his head, stepping forward. “We won’t be able to retrieve you, if you get trapped. The reverse, however, we know is in your power.” Eventually, went without being said.
Constantine pushed him back. “She can’t survive the end game without you.”
“Maybe I’ll just be the weird paper creature swooping down to save the day,” Axer said with an entirely inappropriate edge of amusement.
I looked at him, horrified, then clasped the emotion to me. I never wanted to be without the ability to feel again.
Constantine looked skyward, then down at the book. “Stupidity is truly transmittable,” he muttered, then stepped foot inside, sinking into the page, faster than either of us could grab him. Little violet, turquoise, and ultramarine zips of colors stained the paper as he fully sank inside.
We crouched over the top, tense.
Constantine stood in 2D form on the staircase, and breathed in deeply as the page turned to creamed parchment once more. He reached out of the book in a violet ripple of emerging 3D, then pulled his hand back inside. He nodded sharply at Axer.
Axer went next in a burst of blue. He closed his eyes once inside, then quickly motioned to me. I stepped into the parchment world in a wash of color. Lanterns lit at the sides of the staircase, like a black-and-white drawing coming to life. I could see the real-world shimmering above—like a dome into another world. It was a little like looking at Valeris’s ceiling.
With that unsettling thought, I extended my head, shoulder, and arm out of the book and gathered magic to me. Footsteps pounded toward the room as my magic pooled—identifying me as the caster. The book’s page fluttered around me, feeding me bits of knowledge in how it kept itself hidden. I included a little of magic from each of us and layered that magic into the package I was creating. At the last second, I let it all go and ducked back inside the page, just under the cover of the book’s spells.
The packet of magic shot toward the seal and was sucked into the center, just as a man wearing my brother’s face rounded the corner.
Magic spewed upward from me at the sight, and I reached forward. A hand pulled me against a hard chest, another fastened around my mouth, and magic clamped firmly over mine.
The fake paused for a moment, but then he and the others—a dozen men all wearing my brother’s face—flew into the seal. The book closed its covers, and all went dark.
Chapter Twenty-four: What Was Found
The magic clamping mine released and gently pulled the paint from me. I shut my eyes, feeling empty. I knew what Stavros was doing—in case I had shaken off his hard work—but still, wow, did his methods get results.
I let the rumbles of conflicting emotions rush through me. Deep breaths, acceptance. Anger wasn’t going to help me—only meaningful action.
Both Constantine and Axer released me physically, feeling me settle.
A flurry of sounds echoed around me, and I opened my eyes to see books flying on wings of parchment, fueled by calligraphic ink and magic.
Paint droplets hung in the air from where Axer had pulled them from me, like splatters on an invisible page, and the books swept around, opening their mouths and capturing each, like a feeding frenzy in a giant fish tank.
I blinked, and reality coalesced. A domed ceiling and a single room encompassed us. Upward, I could see a dizzying bird’s-eye view of the inside of Valeris’s palace as the book we were within flew in slow circles around the room we’d just escaped from—its pages flapping a shifting view of dozens of men wearing my brother's face hunting through the palace, their movements slowing strangely the longer I watched.
Inside, Axer’s magic was a physical presence around us as the books, who had finished snapping up paint droplets, circled hungrily.
A slow smile worked its way along my mouth as I looked around at the perches and papered nests. “We...entered a library? Inside a book?”
I looked back up at the domed ceiling, just as quickly. “If they have an Origin Elite, will the hunters be able to enter as well?”
“Doubtful. Neither of us could see the book without you actively infusing us. Even after using your magic extensively at Crelussa and Verrange. No, I think this is an active Origin Mage infusion. I think we are safe in here—” Axer looked around. “Or as safe as we can hope.”
Constantine was at attention on my other side, his posture indolent, but his emotions tight. Guard Rock and the cat were watching with interest at his feet.
Guard Rock tilted his rock at them, then padded over to me. He jabbed at my pitted and torn cloak until he found the pocket he desired, then he slit the pocket with his pencil tip.
“Hey! That one was actually remarkably intact.” The remains of the Origin Book splayed out on the floor, and I immediately tried to gather them back together.
The books started swirling faster.
Guard Rock poked at my hands, then the papers. He moved one page with his pencil toward another. Pushing them together into a destroyed book pile. The books immediately started flying in an agitated, tight circle above us, and the lines of Axer’s body shifted, magic swirling under his skin.
Guard Rock sat on his haunches and poked the pile with his pencil again.
Nothing.
He did it again.
“Your rock is losing it,” Constantine said, tilting his head back, but keeping his gaze moving between all the possible dangers. “How long until the cat turns on us, too?”
The cat bristled, offended, and bit his shin.
Smoke rose on the third stab of his pencil and Guard Rock swirled the shreds. Mist rose into the air and formed a constellation of points.
The books above us began to fly tight patterns through the constellation.
“Great.” Constantine sighed, closing his eyes while painfully detaching the cat from his leg, then stroking it. He looked at Axer from the side of his eyes. “This is where we usually go on a field trip. It will have monsters and insanity. You’ll love it.”