Chapter 20 The Egg And The Serpent
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE EGG AND THE SERPENT
ADELINE
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” Roane demands.
I grind my molars together. “I said what I said. I’m keeping the book.”
“You can’t! Didn’t you see the fucking serpent coming out of it?”
“I... I think Olm was scared. And what’s the point of leaving the book in here,” I jab my finger at the floor, “if I can’t leave anyway? If none of us can?”
“The point is to chain a fucking dangerous book!”
“What’s going on?” Ardruna demands.
“She’s lost her godsdamned mind,” Roane says, teeth bared. “She made a deal with the book.”
“A deal?” Ardruna turns to me. “What sort of a deal?”
“I’m not leaving the book here,” I say. “Would you have chained your dog and left?”
“Thanks for comparing me to an animal,” Olm mutters.
“This is fucking pointless.” With one last glare at me, Roane turns and stalks away. I watch him go, his tall form vanishing in the darkness.
Gods. Am I making a huge mistake?
Olm says, “Am I a mistake to you?”
I want to shake the book so hard his metaphorical teeth rattle. He unleashed a serpent on us. On Roane. Can’t he see it could be problematic for the people already convinced he should be chained?
“You can’t wander around with that book,” Ardruna says, right on cue.
“This is where the books are kept. For a reason. They are bound. Then we lock the doors, which are reinforced with magic. When monsters escape the pages—and trust me, it happens a lot—we do our best to keep them inside this world, not giving them a chance to escape to the outer world and eat people.”
“To my world.”
“As you say,” she growls.
“I thought nobody can escape this place.”
“Can’t take any chances.”
“Olm wouldn’t harm people,” I whisper.
“Wouldn’t he?”
“You know I’m not like that,” Olm says meekly.
“Tell that to your serpent,” I mutter.
“Aline... think about what you’re doing,” Ardruna says. “You came here to deliver this book, as you should. Leave it with us. We know what to do.”
“He isn’t a villain.”
Talton flutters down to perch on Ardruna’s back. “You haven’t even read his story.”
“True, I haven’t.” I grip the book so hard my knuckles ache. “I wish I could.”
Talton’s croak sounds like laughter.
“Come on,” Ardruna says, “let’s go. Roane will do his rounds and we’ll check every opening, make sure nothing comes in or goes out during the night.”
I blink. “It’s nighttime?”
“One loses any sense of time in here, but yes. It’s the time nightmares come out to play.”
Don’t I know it…
Despite her ominous words, I don’t see any sign of a monster as we exit the sanctum and walk down the enormous main hall, with its colonnades and swaying lamps. Pressing the book to my chest, I glance up at the flickering symbols on the surface of the pillars.
“What is this place?” I whisper, my voice echoing faintly. “It’s enormous, and only one part of it is used for the books. If it’s a temple, then where is the altar? Which god or goddess was worshipped here?”
“Nobody knows. It was a long time ago.”
“Like I said,” Talton says, still perched on Ardruna’s back.
Figures. “And you, Ardruna? What’s your story?”
The lioness gives a low rumble. “I follow Roane and help him wrangle monsters and characters back into books. Or else kill them. We’ve been doing this forever.”
“Forever? What does that mean? Where did you come from? From the outside world?”
“I suppose.”
I frown. “You don’t remember?”
“Roane jokes that I was a pup when he found me.”
“And before that? Did you spring out of the air, fully-formed?”
Ardruna grunts. “Aline…”
“What about Talton? Was he an egg when Roane got him?”
The lioness barks a laugh. “Hear that, Tal?”
“I was the most beautiful egg, I bet.” The raven flies off her back with a flap of black wings. “We should check the doors. Come, Druna.”
The lioness watches me for long moments with her blue eyes. “Behind you is the nest. Go there and stay until we’re back. And don’t let that book talk you into doing anything.”
“People, and animals for that matter, have no appreciation of my nature,” Olm grumbles as I make my way to the nest in the wall. “I have traveled with you. I could have harmed you from the start, but I didn’t. Can’t they see that?”
“The serpent,” I murmur and shiver, because that was one damn big, scary thing, “may have influenced their perception of you.”
“Nonsense. They wanted me chained from the start.”
“To be fair, so did I,” I whisper.
“But you changed your mind.”
“It seems I did.” Unsettled, I set about pulling the covers off the bed to shake them. “I understand that it’s unfair.”
“Very.”
“But what will I do with you?”
“Take me to the royal library,” he says.
I laugh. “Will you please give up on that stupid notion?”
“Wouldn’t you rather go to the royal palace, back in your world, rather than be stuck in this awful place?”
“I would,” I say quietly. “All I want is to get back home.”
“There you go. I’ll help you.”
“You haven’t explained how you propose to do that.” I pull off furs, mantles, pieces of old paper… gnawed bones and feathers. “Gods, this man is a pig.”
“Didn’t I tell you he’s a barbarian?”
I shudder, shaking off everything, folding it and setting it aside, then using my hands to brush the bones and assorted trash out of the niche. “You are avoiding my question, I notice.”
“I’m not.”
Deep inside the niche, set against the wall, there’s a small rectangular object. Getting on all fours, I crawl toward it. “Then go ahead. I’m all ears.”
“I… can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Pardon me, but I don’t know if I can trust you,” Olm says stiffly. “You almost left me inside that… that dark place.”
“Isn’t the end result what really matters?”
He’s quiet. Maybe he’s thinking about it and taking his sweet time. Then I forget my impatience with him because the object I’ve found is…
“It’s a book.” I sit back on my heels, turning it this way and that to examine it from all angles.
“What?”
“A book.” Bound in worn leather, it’s as large as Olm’s, which is to say, it fits nicely in my hands. It’s tied with a leather band, the ends knotted, and has a metal lock. The pages are pressed together so tightly I can’t pry them apart. I wonder what sort of book it is.
Huffing in frustration, I rattle the lock, but it doesn’t give.
“Usually,” a low, growly male voice says, startling the crap out of me, “when a book is locked, it’s because you aren’t supposed to open it.”
Swallowing a gasp, I turn around, and there is Roane, looking murderous. “Your book, is it?”
“It’s my nest, so what do you think?”
“Sorry. I thought all books belonged to the library, not individual people.” Hurriedly, I put it back where I found it. “Any particular reason why it’s here and not with the other books?”
“It’s not magical,” he says. “It’s only a diary.” He eyes the folded furs, mantles, and other bits and pieces. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Cleaning. It was filthy.” I sniff in his direction. “Like you. You need to bathe.”
“Excuse me?”
“If I’m to stay with you. Until I find a way out of here. Have you smelled yourself?”
His lips peel back in a snarl. “After refusing to follow my instructions and keeping this cursed book with you, after deciding to take over my resting place and trying to open my diary, you feel you’re entitled to demands?”
“And your nest was full of trash.” I hide a smirk because by this point, I relish his annoyance. “Better start living like a man instead of a beast if you want me to treat you like one.”
I’m not surprised when he turns around and walks away again.
Deflating, I lean back against the furs and put my hands over my face. Why is he bringing out the worst in me? And why do I live for these interactions?
This is sick… I need to stop needling him, but he keeps getting under my skin and the sting is so sweet.