THIRTY
The morning dawned bright and cold, though Amelia woke with feelings of warmth and safety, nestled against Silas’ lap as he slept soundly above her.
The words exchanged were few as they redressed in their dried clothing, neither bringing up what they had discussed, or what they had done the night before.
She had a sense that to Silas, intimacy was something profound, something so unutterably meaningful, that the looming full moon dampened those feelings for him.
It meant something to her, too. Something incredible and unknown.
To trust someone with her body, with her heart, was no small thing after what she had endured.
And the echoes of his touch, his kiss, had her body prickling with heat, her core trembling from the memory of it.
She had wanted more, so much more, if he had wanted that, too.
But she understood. To him, it would be an ending, a goodbye, rather than the beginning of something.
It set a deep ache in her heart as they left the solace that the broken-down cottage had offered them and began walking the moors.
Fog blanketed the ground, the cold wind whipping against their clothing.
She huddled in her cloak as they walked, picking a northern direction in the hope that Ivory City wasn’t too far from where they had been dumped.
They trekked in silence for a long while before Silas finally spoke.
“You shouldn’t have gone alone,” he said, his own arms tucked around him to stave off the chill. “Yesterday. It could have been dangerous.”
She didn’t look at him, focusing down to where she placed her feet on the rolling mounds of grass. “I know, but you said you wouldn’t go.”
“No,” he disagreed. “I said we shouldn’t go.”
“Same thing.”
“Not in the slightest,” he argued. “If I’d known you were resolute in going with or without me, I would never have let you go alone.”
She glanced at him, expecting to see anger on his features. But his eyes were soft as they regarded her. “I know that,” Amelia said, before adding a sheepish, “ now .”
He smiled, rolling his eyes, and turning away.
They walked for another forty-five minutes before they came across it.
The Waystone for Ivory City, the far-off buildings rising into sight.
As they approached, Silas slowed his pace. “Hoods up, Winslow,” he said, pulling his own up and tugging it down to shield his face. “We don’t know who’s here and who might be on the lookout for us.”
A pit of fear gaped in her chest, hands shifting her hood into place, eyes kept low. “We head straight for the Spire,” she said in a hushed voice as they passed a couple walking together just outside the city walls. “We get what we need and leave.”
“Agreed.”
Their only stop was to an artefact vendor on their way through the sprawling city. Silas purchased more Waystone chips in case of a hasty retreat.
Then before she knew it, they stood before the rune-locked doors that hid the restricted archives.
She had only ever tried the handle once in her life when curiosity had overtaken common sense.
Amelia had never tried again. The current that had passed through her body when the handle rejected her touch had been lesson enough. She was rarely stupid twice.
Silas handed her the ring he had taken from her father’s finger, and she slipped it onto her thumb.
Taking a deep breath, she reached for the handle, bracing for the shock to ripple through her body. But she grasped at the cold, golden metal of the door handle and nothing happened. No shock. No rejection. Just a plain, cool feeling beneath her fingers.
She smiled triumphantly at Silas with a wiggle of her eyebrows before she pushed the handle down and opened the door.
“Yes, yes,” Silas muttered with humoured exasperation, “you’re a very clever girl. Now, let’s find this journal and get out of here.”
“Hm,” Amelia said, pulling the door shut behind them and sending him a coy smile, “I do like it when you call me a clever girl.”
His blue eyes snapped to her, and he lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
She bit at her lip and lifted a shoulder.
Silas’ gaze turned heated, and he took one single step towards her that had her heart-rate spiking, a jolt sparking through her body.
Then he shook his head and stepped away, giving her a more reproachful look.
“Damn it, Winslow. No distractions, we have important things to be getting on with, yeah?”
She sighed. He was more than right. “Yeah.”
She turned away and went to move, but his hand whipped out, taking her waist to pull her backwards into him firmly. She hit his chest with a startled gasp before she felt him dip his head low to her ear.
“But I’ll remember that…” he murmured, voice deadly low. His fingers gripped her waist tightly, his breath warm next to her ear.
She suppressed a shiver, swallowing as he released her and stepped away. He sauntered past like it had never happened.
She watched him go, needing a deep, calming breath before she followed and was finally able to take in the sights before them.
They stood beneath a carved archway of dark, obsidian stone, etched with runes that faintly glowed with a purple light. She could feel the magic emanating from them, a hum in her veins, a call to her heart.
The chamber beyond appeared vast, cloaked in shadow that was broken by only a few scattered arcane lamps sitting on tables.
They moved through the archway into the chamber in perfect silence, as though quiet was demanded by the place.
Amelia gasped softly as she looked up, the vaulted ceiling lost to darkness.
Black stone columns rose like ribs inside a body from the floor to unseen heights, each carved with runes of protection, of knowledge.
The air was cold and dry but charged with a magical signature that set her teeth on edge, the small hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
Long, curved shelves spiralled outwards from the main chamber, like a labyrinthine structured weighed down by tomes, scrolls, and relics. The entire place seemed to breathe in time with something. It simply felt alive .
Amelia picked up an arcane lamp and held it high, peering into one long, winding set of shelves. It was immense, this place. Who knew what kind of knowledge and secrets it was keeping to itself.
“We need to find the section for Mythic Histories,” Amelia whispered to Silas, raising the lamp to the golden plaques set into the ends of the shelves. “Lyana said it would be hidden in a false panel of the third shelf in that section.”
“Okay,” Silas said, taking up a lamp for himself. They split up to speed their search.
She passed numerous shelving and odd statues, the strange darkness in the place casting an ominous atmosphere.
At the end of a section on ‘ Blood Rites and Rituals’ , Amelia saw something that immediately caught her eye. A small book sat behind a glass panel, the title screaming at her. She sucked in a sharp breath, an idea occurring to her at once.
She licked her lips, glancing over her shoulder.
Silas was across the room, holding his lamp to a golden plaque.
Amelia turned back, sliding the glass panel open.
She reached in tentatively in case magic surrounded the small book.
When nothing stopped her, Amelia plucked it up, quickly shoving it into the inner pocket of her cloak.
She replaced the glass and continued with her search.
It took a few more passes for her to find it, but when she did, Amelia almost couldn’t believe it had taken her so long. The Mythic Histories section seemed to call to her as she stared down into the long corridor of shelving.
“Finley,” she called softly, and in the next moment, he was by her side, peering into the depths.
They moved inside, the shelves parted in sections and interrupted by carved statues of robed people without faces.
Amelia blinked at them, a sense of trepidation settling over her.
The area was heavy with a strange silence, each of their steps echoing for a beat too long, their breaths misting the air ever-so-slightly.
The entire chamber felt cold and unwelcoming, like it knew they didn’t belong.
In the third row of shelves, she began feeling around the panelling on each piece of wood that sagged under the weight of the sacred texts, looking for one that might shift under her touch.
Silas was doing the same behind her, poking and prodding at the wood.
“She didn’t tell you anything more specific about where to find it?” he asked.
She didn’t answer him, her fingers falling into a slight gap in the wood beneath a thick tome on ‘ Pre-Monolithic Magical Myths ’. She pressed inwards, and a hollow click sounded softly, the panel giving way as she gasped in a tiny breath at the discovery.
“Here,” she whispered, and Silas was by her side in an instant.
Inside was a small, brown leather journal. Dusty and worn, the cover bore no title.
She opened it, staring down at the first page.
“It’s Bane’s,” Amelia confirmed, seeing his name scrawled tidily at the top of the page. She turned the pages and they both read.
The ink was faint, but the script was unmistakably notes on a midnight ritual at a full moon. A Midnight Rite, he called it, one of transference, soul anchoring, magical connection, and finally…separation.
Her breath hitched.
This was it. This was what they needed to know.
Amelia turned her head, finding Silas’s eyes moving across the page at a blazing speed, his face drained of colour in the golden darkness. She hastily shut the book with the echoing crack of a snapped bone, pausing his perusal of the ritual that, by all intents and purposes, was meant to erase him.
His eyes lifted, meeting hers.
“Let’s go,” she said softly.
They both turned and paused in unison.
At the far end of the corridor, standing in the entrance to the shelves, a dark figure stood just outside the light cast by their lamp. The figure was still, watching.