21. Paige #2
Before I can get to her, another figure is there, cradling her.
Protecting her as the books fall from their shelves.
It’s exactly as I saw it when Athenaeum showed me this memory just before I took my vow.
Seeing this moment once more hits me hard, and my eyes burn with tears as I imagine what it was like to arrive here—to a world I didn’t know existed—just moments after losing everything I’d ever known.
Even as an infant, it must have been devastating.
Terrifying.
But Hoc had become a light in the darkness. My new home.
All this time, I’ve wondered just what my powers are. What I’m capable of. And now, I’ve been granted a front-row seat to witness it in action. Somehow, I’d re-set my world moments after Constantine had destroyed it. Almost as if I possess the power of creation itself.
“The stardust of creation itself,” Constantine had called it.
But he’s wrong.
I’m not creating, I realize as I think back to the grassy meadow.
I’m re-creating . Back in time to a version of the world that didn’t actually include the people I’d been so desperate to restore. My power is a gift and a curse, it seems. A power Constantine wants to consume.
“Now, do you finally understand?” Constantine demands.
“I can re-create worlds that have been destroyed.”
“Yes, little mage,” he replies, tone eager. He’s a cat toying with a mouse before he consumes it.
Delighting in the game and not just what happens once he’s won.
He hovers close to me, watching as my memories wash over me like an ocean. The parents I loved. The older brother I adored. All gone. I let the fury build inside me, using it, letting it fuel everything I possess. This time, when I unleash it on him, I won’t hold back.
Across the aisle, the memory of my arrival into the library continues to play out.
Hoc hurries off, carrying my infant self toward the safety of his office, and beyond that, his private apartment.
Around him, the other creatures that have managed to escape run amok while keepers yell from elsewhere to contain them.
In the chaos, my eyes catch on a shadow slithering along behind Hoc, and I gasp.
The shadow is one I recognize all too well. It’s the same shape and form as the one that stalked me in my bathroom just a few short weeks ago. With the same sort of movement as the darkness Constantine wielded on my homeland.
With disgust, I realize the two are the same. It was him all along.
I whirl on him, rage and fury only growing. “You came into the library the same day I did.”
“I came,” he agrees, his lip curling with fury. “And I licked my wounds. Growing slowly stronger and smarter about this prison you trapped us in.”
“You were the shadow that stalked me here all along.”
“I took the form you reduced me to,” he snarls at me. “And I have bided my time, consuming what crumbs you left me these last years, waiting to rebuild my power and planning my escape.”
I stare at him, shocked at the truth. “You’ve been here all these years. Trapped.”
“Thanks to your magic being caged. But no cages last forever.”
A ripple of unease runs through me as I remember the last time he was here when he offered to unbind my magic. “What does that mean?”
“I’ll admit, I thought you needed unbinding, but it seems your magic wants too badly to be used it did the work for me.”
“I haven’t used any magic,” I argue.
“Are you sure about that? Think. All of those books that came alive when you were near.”
“The books do that.”
“Not like they do for you.”
I frown, refusing to believe him even though his words are a voice to every doubt I’ve had and secret thought I’ve refused to give voice to over the years.
“Your power is far too great to contain, no matter how unending the magic that leashed it,” he goes on, clearly enjoying picking apart everything I thought I knew about myself.
“I didn’t open any books,” I say stubbornly.
“No? How exactly did those princess castles bring themselves into this world? With no animation or consciousness of their own?”
I don’t answer. I know exactly what he means because I have a vivid memory of being eight years old and grounded for being found playing in a castle tower I’d found in the medieval section.
Or thought I’d found. I’d told myself it was the book’s fault for letting it loose. But if what he’s suggesting is true...
It’s been me all along.
“I never did any of that intentionally,” I say, but the fire is gone from my voice.
He’s getting to me, and he knows it.
“Maybe not. And you certainly didn’t exert much at a time,” he snaps, clearly pissed at not being able to siphon more from me than he did.
“Until the night you used enough of your power to call forth your precious dragon,” he says with a twisted grin.
“Your potency that day was enough to finally offer me form again. And now, here I am. Powerful enough to claim this world for my own just like I should have done with Eldevain before. This time, you won’t stop me, either.
This time, your power will feed me until I’m unstoppable with it. ”
I falter, hesitating against the urge to unleash what I am against him. I'm terrified that he’ll only use my magic to feed himself and turn it back on me. I refuse to meet the same end as my own people—choked and drained by the darkness Constantine wields.
“Go on, little mage,” he taunts. “Use your magic against me. Unleash it so that I can drink my fill. Once I'm done with this world, I have plenty more at my fingertips to consume.”
The books.
I glance at them, realizing he’s surrounded by access to the very things that give him power.
Then I remember how desperate he was for me to help him get free of this place.
“You were stuck here all those years,” I say.
“Unable to feed from a single one of these stories. That’s why you needed me.
And then Oliver. To get you in and out.”
“Look at you finally catching on when it’s way too late to stop us,” Oliver drawls.
I glare at him. “You think you’re safe? The moment he’s done with you, he’ll dispose of you too.”
“Please,” Oliver snorts. “Don’t put me in the same category as you. Uncle Constantine cares about me.”
Anger flushes my skin. “You’re human, Oliver. From a different realm than him. How in the world could he possibly be your uncle?”
Oliver falters, and I realize he’s already thought about this, though he refuses to admit it. His expression re-hardens, and he says, “He cares about me. Right, uncle?”
He looks to Constantine, who smiles serenely. “Of course.”
Oliver smirks at me as if those two words were the most convincing argument ever. “Constantine’s going to make me a king.”
“Is that why you killed Tawny?” I spit back at him.
He shrugs. “War requires sacrifice.”
“Yes,” Constantine agrees in a voice that does not bode well for Oliver’s fate. “It does.”
I want to point out the obvious manipulation, but I know Oliver won’t see it. Nor do I care, considering the amount of hurt he’s inflicted on those I love. “Neither one of you will get away with this.” I look back at Constantine. “You haven’t won.”
His eyes narrow, and I know I’ve hit a mark. “I will grow strong enough to access these volumes and feed from them soon enough. Sooner still once you offer me another taste of your power.”
“I’m not giving you anything else,” I say.
“I don’t need you to give it. Not when I can take it.”
When he takes a step toward me, the rage and fury that’s built inside me snaps. Power explodes. Blinding light flashes, and the ground beneath my feet shudders then cracks. A fissure opens, an earthquake shaking the library hard enough that books and shelves rain down around me.
Everything begins to blur, the memory world crumbling before my eyes.
Constantine yells at Oliver to create a portal out. Oliver does it, and both of them run toward it. Before they can reach it, the ground splits and swallows Oliver up.
Constantine doesn’t even look over as Oliver disappears. His attention remains intently focused on his own escape. At the last minute, he stumbles, nearly toppling over the edge into the cavern before instead tossing himself through the portal Oliver left us.
I throw myself through the portal after Constantine, determined to end him once and for all. I owe that much to my family, to Hoc, and to myself. If I can create, I can also destroy. And that’s exactly what I intend to do to him.