Chapter 31
Evan
Iheld Gregory’s hand as we crossed the threshold.
As soon as our boots touched the floor, the door slammed behind us.
One bolt locked, then another, then a third.
Each click trapped us, cutting off the last bit of light and leaving us in complete darkness.
The air went stale, and I stopped breathing for a moment.
I couldn’t even see my own fingers in front of my face. Reaching out, I fumbled in the blackness until I found Gregory’s other arm. My fingers dug into the muscle as the last lock clicked into place.
A shuffle echoed in the gloom ahead. “Apologies for the dustiness.”
Before I could process the words, a deep groan echoed from the walls as metal scraped against stone. Gregory tensed beneath my touch.
The grinding stopped, and thin lines of bright light cut through the darkness ahead. With a final loud clang, the walls slid open.
The light was so bright it blinded me. As my eyes adjusted, shapes began to take form.
My jaw dropped. This wasn’t a house. It was a cathedral made of paper.
Bookshelves stretched up to a ceiling lost in shadows, forming a labyrinth of rows. Massive candelabras were suspended overhead, shaped like spiders and big enough to crush a compact car. Lovell was a mere speck in the huge space as he padded quietly into the maze.
Gregory and I stood frozen at the entrance. He slowly pushed back his hood, just as shocked by the size of the library as I was.
Lovell paused a few yards in and peered back over his shoulder. His unassuming, dirt-colored tunic swirled around his ankles, as if moved by a private breeze. “Oh, I have forgotten my manners. This way, please.”
Gregory tugged me forward, and we followed.
Lovell scurried with a quickness that belied his deathly pallor, weaving through the hallway between the tall shelves.
At the end, we reached a large room with a desk as big as a boardroom table, covered in piles of scrolls, open books, mugs, and loose papers.
Lovell shuffled to the big desk and waved at the clutter. “Wasn’t expecting visitors. That’s why it looks like this.” He picked up one of the mugs scattered across the surface and took a noisy, slurping sip, his hand trembling but not enough to spill the drink.
He took a seat in a high-backed chair that creaked under his weight. His thin, unsettling smile didn’t reach his tired gaze. He pointed to the two chairs across from him. “Sit down.”
I glanced at Gregory, who gave a nearly unnoticeable nod, so we played along. I dragged out a chair and sat, keeping my back straight and trying not to breathe in the dust. Gregory sank down beside me, his broad frame awkward in the odd, cramped office.
Lovell leaned forward, setting his mug down and steepling his grubby fingers on the desk.
He cleared his throat, a scratchy rasp catching in the dust. “So.” He stared at Gregory with those bruised eyes.
“What brings Gregory of the fallen Dax house, fugitive of the Asterian Empire, the infamous Unholy Alpha, to my humble home?”
He began to rise from his chair, slowly at first, and braced himself against the desk. His polite tone vanished, replaced by anger. “The one who cost me my job at the Imperial court!”
He slammed his hand on the desk. The mug rattled, tipping over and spilling dark liquid across the surface. “You burned down the entire north wing, and my performance, my art, wasn’t enough to distract Emperor Cassian!”
He dismissed me with a look, sniffing the air as if I were an afterthought. “And… you brought your mate.”
The anger disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he sat back into his chair like nothing had happened, righting the mug with careful fingers. His unsettling smile returned as he lifted it. “Want tea?”
“No, thank you,” I rushed to say. “We’re good here.”
Gregory shifted next to me, unfazed, then reached into a pocket and took out the small satchel. He pulled out the broken onyx crystal and held it up. “We need information about the Conduits of the Empire and their magic.”
Lovell’s smile faded as he studied the crystal. “No. Can’t do.” He leaned back and tapped his chin. “A coin buys passage, not a map to the treasury. A debt for a life, not a key to the gallows. That request is far outside the scope of what Adam’s favor bought you.”
I moved to the edge of my seat and pushed my hoodie back. Lovell hadn’t said he didn’t know; he said the request was out of scope. “Then what questions can we ask inside the debt?” I said.
Lovell’s eyebrow twitched. “Clever. You can ask about what it is.” He pointed at the crystal in Gregory’s hand. “You can ask about this.”
I held my hand out to Gregory. “Give it to me.” When he hesitated, I added, “Trust me.”
He frowned but handed me the broken onyx. I focused, trying to recall the feeling from the forest with Harren, that strange rush of power. I pushed that energy into the stone, and a faint green light glowed in the cracks. “How about this, then? A portal used to bring a soul from another world.”
Lovell’s brows rose behind his glasses, and his unsettling, open-mouthed smile came back.
Golden energy flashed in his pupils, so bright it reflected off his glasses.
Suddenly, the room twisted, and my stomach dropped as everything shifted, putting Lovell right in front of me, his hand reaching for the crystal.
“Starlirium.”
Gregory lashed out like a viper, clamping his hand around Lovell’s thin wrist. He stopped the mage cold, inches from the stone. “What do you know about the Starlirium? And what do you want?” Gregory threatened. “I know your trickster nature.”
Lovell didn’t flinch, his attention still focused on the crystal. “This one’s a freebie. A bonus.” He twisted his wrist in Gregory’s grip, his bruised eyes shining with a mix of annoyance and greed. “Call it professional curiosity. A finder’s fee for the impossible debt Adam left me.”
Gregory’s growl was low and deep, but he uncoiled his fingers, releasing the binder’s arm after a long, tense moment.
Now free, Lovell picked up the crystal with his fingertips. He held it up, and the golden fire in his eyes flared again, making the shadows in the room dance.
He began murmuring, the words too fast to understand. Candles on the desk sputtered, plunging the room into a strobe effect of brightness and darkness.
Golden symbols, alive and writhing, poured out of the cracked onyx. They floated up, forming a swirling, complicated cloud above Lovell’s messy hair.
He peered at them, his ghastly smile splitting his face. “Fascinating!” He let out a high-pitched, unhinged cackle that scraped against my nerves.
Gregory jumped up, knocking his chair over. I flinched, my pulse throbbing as the spinning golden symbols and Lovell’s wild laughter overwhelmed me.
The mage didn’t react to Gregory; he simply raised a dirty finger. “Ah, ah. If you attack, you get no information.”
He clapped once, and three huge leather-bound books appeared out of nowhere, slamming onto the desk in front of me.
“Jesus!” I shouted, jerking back so fast my chair scraped the floor. The books lay open in front of me, filled with swirling golden symbols similar to those around Lovell’s head. They blurred and smudged like wet ink. Then, the strange writing turned into words I could read.
Gregory stepped close, his side rubbing against my shoulder as he bent to inspect the text. I reached for his hand on instinct, lacing my fingers with his. He squeezed, and I managed a wobbly, nervous smile.
“The Conduits,” Lovell began, his singsong tone gone, replaced by a flat, tired voice.
“Rare mages born with the ability to bridge worlds.” He gestured to the open book.
As he spoke, the golden script shimmered, and the space between the words animated with moving images, like paintings come to life.
“They were the Empire’s greatest weapon,” he continued as the figures in the book flickered, vanishing and reappearing. “Allied, they called it. Enslaved is more like it. With them, the Empire conquered kingdom after kingdom for centuries.”
Lovell paused, and the image in the book darkened. The figures representing the Conduit mages grew larger, looming over tiny, cowering Imperial figures. “So, of course, the Empire got afraid. Their pet weapons were stronger than they were.”
The scene morphed, becoming murky. Shadowy figures surrounded a throne.
A crown tumbled. The image focused on a crystal, summoning a faint, ghost-like shape through a tear in the page.
“They killed the old Emperor. And then they did the one thing no one thought possible. They used an anchor crystal. A piece of the fallen stars of Lunaris, the only stone powerful enough to hold the spell to drag a soul they thought they could control.”
My throat tightened, and I clenched my fingers around Gregory’s hand.
“Twin souls in twin worlds,” he whispered, a strange, manic reverence in his voice.
The book revealed complex webs connecting different realms. One figure dissolved into dust as another appeared on the other side. The linking thread turned a sickly, dark red. “When one soul dies, its twin on the other side… Well, the anchor crystal has a way of balancing the books.”
Lovell stood as the book showed a new scene: a young boy in shadows, watching the ritual, his face twisted in horror. “Prince Cassian witnessed the murder of his father and the swapping of a new soul.”
The boy in the illustration clenched his fists, his eyes blazing gold like Lovell’s.
“And he made a promise. He would find and control every Conduit. He would seek out one strong enough to open a gateway to the twin world, and once that doorway was secured, he would eliminate the Conduits for good.”
The images changed to show the boy, now older, standing defiantly before symbols of the twin goddesses. “And thus, he would purge all the old bloodlines to make himself a god of both worlds.”