Chapter 41 #2
At least now I knew for sure it was somewhere in here. But could I find it in five minutes?
I skidded to a jittering halt, trying to remember where I’d already searched and how many books were left to check. The place was gigantic, and ancient tomes filled every wall and shelf.
Too many, too many…
How much time did I have left? Three or two minutes before Jett would make his appearance and claim me? He’d drag me, kicking and screaming, and toss me in the path of the brunnie.
Where…where…where…?
I headed to a wall I was sure I hadn’t previously checked and started pulling books from the shelf. My fingers wrapped around each book—tug, fall, move on, tug, fall, move on…
They spilled onto the ground in a chorus of thuds.
The floor behind me was left in great big swells of books.
What if it wasn’t a book?
What if I had overlooked something when I’d targeted decorations and fixtures? Could it be a hidden latch in the stone wyrm coiled around the fireplace? What if it were something smaller? An antique fixed to a mantle or shelf, or even one of the adamere bricks in the wall?
I was running out of time, and my breathing became panicked gasps.
I fell back against the bookshelf. What was I going to do?
Maybe I should run? Maybe I should head straight to the tower where Jett couldn’t follow and hold up there until Graysen came home.
My terror was all-consuming, a wicked tornado that tore through my thoughts, scattering them wide.
It was the shift in sunlight on the spiral staircase. A rainbow of bright hues glancing off black wrought iron. My gaze snapped upward and honed in on the mezzanine level, where Tabitha’s romance books lined the walls of the cozy little nook.
Hope, desperate hope, coursed through my veins.
As yet, I hadn’t checked up there.
I sprinted to the bottom of the corkscrew staircase.
Latticework of cool metal met my feet as I ran up the steps, and the library filled with the raucous clatter of my panic-ridden climb.
The messenger bag thumped wildly against my hip as I spun upward, round and round, all the way to the upper level.
I came to a skittering halt. Paperbacks lined Tabitha’s reading nook wall to wall. There was even a wooden ladder set to the side to help get to the high-up, out-of-reach shelves.
Hope diminished as my gaze whipped about all the books. Tabitha owned so many.
Which book?
Where do I start?
Dodging around the coffee table, I trampled over beanbags and sheepskin rugs to get to a random wall. My fingers pulled at the novels frantically. I dragged each one of them out, letting them spill haphazardly to the ground as I moved to the next.
Too late, too late…
A storm of footfall and the library door crashed open.
I heard my name being called down below.
“Wychthorn…”
Horror exploded inside my chest.
Oh gods. Jett was already here. Five minutes had flown by.
I scrambled faster, casting book after book onto the floor, hoping that my fingers would latch onto one that wouldn’t budge easily. That I’d hear an audible click. Or a door would mysteriously appear.
There were too many books.
I froze, as did the oxygen in my lungs, crystallizing into abject terror.
Down below came an ear-piercing sound of a blade being dragged along the stone floor.
A scraping-sparking noise that hackled the fine hair on my body.
Lazy footfall made metal creak before a low, goading voice spun through the air.
“Time’s up, Wychthorn. Here I come, ready or not. ”
Mindless panic seized me. I fumbled with more books. More and more novels were flung to the floor. I scrambled through the shelves. Higher. Lower. I didn’t know. My gaze bounced sideways to all the remaining shelves. My stomach pitched into a dizzy freefall.
It was impossible.
I’d never get them all checked in time.
Yet as impossible as the task was, my sight landed on a collection of books on the shelf next to this one. Why, in all the chaos, the panic, my feet sliding and slipping upon the discarded books piled on the floor, that my eye would catch one in particular?
But I did.
No.
Yes.
Surely not.
Anticipation coiled tightly around my heart, quickening every beat.
I lurched, twisting sideways, stumbling over discarded books, to scan the small collection amongst all the paperbacks.
It was the same series that had captured my attention when Graysen first brought me to the library.
The series of books were all the same size, with similar widths.
All with a title regarding a princess. Just as the first book in the series suggested, ‘The Princess and the Mechanic’ it would seem the princesses were trying their hands at a new career.
But it wasn’t this series that had ensnared my attention.
It was a book caught up in the middle of them with a narrow spine and gold lettering stating the title: ‘The Heir and The Servant.’
There was one thing I knew about Varen and Tabitha, and that was how they’d met all those years ago.
Graysen had shared with me that his father, an heir, had met Tabitha at my grandparents’ when she’d been a servant.
They’d had a secret affair because of their difference in rank.
Our world did not permit those of higher ranks to be romantically involved with anyone lesser.
My fingers shook as I pinched the top edge of the glossy novel, and I sent a prayer to Zrenyth.
With the breath trapped in my throat, I pulled gently.
I felt the resistance immediately. It was a trigger, heavily loaded.
Adrenaline spiked a heady rush through my bloodstream as I eased the book forward.
A low click.
A swift scraping sound.
The wall of books swung inward.
And I faced absolute darkness.
The Crowthers’ escape tunnel.
A way off the estate.
A different kind of terror fell upon me as I stared into the darkness, its velvety black cloak. Clammy beads of sweat trickled beneath the knot of hair at the nape of my neck to slide under my dress. My breath came too quickly, too shallow. My mind grew muggy, threatening to shatter, and I swayed.
I can’t… I can’t…
The sound of Jett’s approach neared.
“Wychthorn…”
The threat thickened the air with menace.
I can…
I have to…
I scrabbled at the messenger bag hanging at my hip, unzipping it with shaking fingers and digging out the flashlight. It fumbled in my sticky grip as I turned it on.
A thin, reedy light pierced the pitch-black gloom beyond.
Just one foot, one step…
That’s all I needed.
“Ah, there you are, rat,” came from behind me.
Stifling a shriek, I lurched through the secret door, stumbling down a short corridor that led to a spiraling staircase hewn from rock. I hastily descended the roughly carved steps that wound like a ribbon…
…down…down…down…
All to the steady strike of an adamere blade against rock, ricocheting around me.
…clang…clang…clang…
The threatening ring chased me down the curling steps along with a mocking laugh that reverberated through the cold air. “You’re welcome, Wychthorn!” Jett called out from the entrance to the library.
And that’s when panic clawed at my soul, stealing my breath. I’d stepped from the safety of the library’s muted sunlight and thrown myself straight into darkness.