23. Paige
Paige
M onsters and villains pour from the portal behind Constantine.
A winged horse with eyes the color of crimson and teeth sharpened to points; a man dressed in battle armor and covered in scars; a gray-haired hag with power crackling from her fingers and hatred in her eyes.
One look at their bodies and I note the keeper tattoo marking each of them.
He’s extracted and converted them all, turned them into guards.
Chosen monsters to roam these halls, governing over other monsters.
It’s chaos in the making.
And this is only the beginning. Once he’s strong enough, he’ll enter each of these worlds and drain them one by one until there’s nothing and no one left.
Athenaeum hasn’t shown herself, and I can only hope she’s all right after whatever twisted magic he’s used to take this place over.
Either way, it’s on us. On me. I have to save them.
No one else is coming to do it. I have never wanted vengeance more, but I also know I have only seconds to save the ones who matter most to me—the only family I have left in this world or any other.
Adrenaline pulses through my body, but my mind has never been clearer. It’s a strange sort of quiet when you’re standing in the eye of a storm. The lives of everyone in this library are mine to protect. And I cannot fail. Not like I’ve done every waking moment since I began training to be a keeper.
My fight is with Constantine…But my duty is to my people.
I whirl, instinctively reaching for the well of power buried deeply that terrified me before.
The magic inside me responds, and a portal flares to life at my will. A swirling red sphere that now stands as our only option for escape.
“That’s not a library portal,” Blossom says, backing away from it.
I don’t have time to explain.
“It’s our way out. Go!” I roar, gesturing for Aries to get the gnomes. “Trust me!”
He motions for them to jump from the shelf where they hover above us. One by one, they do. Blossom grabs Mag, who is growling at the zombie currently making its way toward him. She shoves him, struggling with his body now made of stone.
Something hits her in the back, and she stumbles, but her pained cry is enough to break Mag’s attention away from the zombie. He scoops Blossom into his arms then turns and races through the portal. Bingo grabs Kitty by the scruff and throws her through then races after her.
I reach down and grab Fred while Aries gathers Ted, Ned, and Zed in his arms. They kick, paw, and scream at him to put them down. To let them fight to an honorable death. But we don’t have time to tell them there will be no honor in this death.
Not until Constantine has been beaten.
Aries and I race toward the portal, but just before I go through, I turn back around and face Constantine. Behind me, wind whips at my hair, sending it flying in all directions. And as I fully embrace my power, I warn, “I will come back for what’s mine.”
“I am counting on it, little mage,” Constantine replies, his expression twisted into a snarl as he realizes I’m about to escape him. “After all, your magic is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.”
Before I can respond, a scaled arm reaches through the portal and rips me through to the other side. The moment I’m free of its swirling red layers, the portal closes, snapping shut with one last flicker of light before it’s gone.
I’m crushed against a hard body, so hard that even Fred struggles to break free of Aries’s embrace and escape my arms. “Ldmglph,” Fred says through mushed cheeks. My dragon loosens up enough that the gnome can jump down, but a heartbeat later, he’s holding me again.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers.
“I thought the same,” I reply, wrapping both arms tightly around him.
He pushes me back enough to cup my face. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I want to tell him everything, but I know that right now isn’t the time. So, I don’t answer. Instead, I turn in his arms, tucking myself beneath his arm. Here, in this new world where we stand, panting, silence weighs on us, a blanket of unease as we all catch our breath.
“Did we just get fired?” Ned asks.
“We did,” Fred replies glumly.
“You should have let us fight some more!” Zed yells.
“We would have died,” Ted says.
Bingo growls, and Kitty whimpers.
“Can I just say,” Blossom announces, “that I told Paige, back when we first met Oliver, he had someone chained in his basement?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Mag questions.
“It really doesn’t. Only that I was right, and my creep-radar is still working.”
“Oliver is dead,” I tell them.
They all whirl on me. “I killed him.”
A moment of silence before Blossom’s fist pumps. “That’s my girl!”
I don’t cheer with her, my mind still reeling over everything I’ve learned. I re-made my world after Constantine destroyed it. Or tried to. And in doing so, I caused the very thing that brought him into the library in the first place. The Extrication.
Without me, Constantine would have stayed trapped in my world. Without me, Hoc would still be alive.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. With Aries’s arm still around my shoulders, I’d love to turn into him, to seek comfort in his arms again, but I know there is still far too much to do before rest can be had.
“Are you sure that you’re okay?” he asks as he lifts my chin to check the cut on my throat where Oliver’s blade nicked me earlier.
“Physically, I’m fine. Honestly, I can barely feel it,” I tell him truthfully. “You?”
“We lost,” he says. “And I can feel your pain.”
“We haven’t lost,” I tell him. Turning, I face Mag and Blossom as well as the others. “We’ve been beaten, but we won’t stay down. Constantine will not win.”
“How are we supposed to get back?” Mag demands as he holds up his arm. “Our keeper tattoos are gone.”
“The same way we got here,” I tell him. “Me.”
Blossom’s eyes widen. “That was your portal. The red one.”
“Yes.”
“Which means you don’t need the library’s magic to get us home.”
“No,” I reply. “I don’t.”
Mag’s grin spreads. “Does that asshole know that?”
“Constantine does,” I tell them. “He’s always known what I was capable of. It’s why he’s been one step ahead of us.”
“How? How has he known when you didn’t even realize what you were capable of?” Mag questions.
I turn toward them. “Because we’re from the same world.”
They gape at me, all of them silent.
“What? Seriously?” Blossom demands. “Did he tell you that? Because that asshole is lying…”
“No.” I shake my head. “I saw it. When Oliver dragged me through that portal, it was into a memory world. I saw what happened. Constantine killed my people, slaughtered an entire village, but my power was too much for him. By using my magic without meaning to, I caused the Extrication and robbed him of his magic.”
“Wait. He’s been in the library all these years?” Blossom nearly shrieks.
I nod grimly. “He was the shadow that stalked me.” I turn to Aries. “And when I let you out, the power was enough that he was able to take on a corporeal form.”
“Shit,” Mag mutters. “This is—a lot.”
“I saw all of it,” I tell them as I turn back.
“He knew me well enough to know that, with Hoc gone, I would be solely focused on finding him. Then, he let Oliver distract me, used Tawny’s death to add to it, all while manipulating me into allowing them to call for a vote so he could come through and take charge. ”
“I don’t understand, though. The library has to have three council members. By killing Phillip, all they did was ensure there would be another member added to their ranks,” Fred says.
I shake my head. “They changed the rules. Didn’t you feel it? The toxicity creeping through your system as the library shifted its allegiance?”
Aries growls. “I should have burned them to the ground.”
I put an arm on his chest, feeling the weight of all of his anger and regret rippling through the bond we share. “No. Doing so would have destroyed all those worlds.”
He huffs.
“Okay. So, the plan is to regroup and kill the bastard.” Blossom looks around. “Speaking of which, where are we?”
I reach behind Aries, into the waistband of his jeans, and withdraw the book that he’s carried with him since he found it on the table. Then, I offer it to him. “Welcome home, Aries.”
He stares down at it. Then his gaze snaps up to the world around us. Tall trees, lush grass, and a jagged cliffside just ahead. “You brought me back to Astronia?”
“I brought us to the only world safe from Constantine,” I tell him.
“But my world is—”
“Hurting without you, yes. And it’s also the only place he can’t follow us.”
“Because you have the book,” Blossom says, clearly in awe of my plan.
“Exactly,” I reply. Then, I turn back to Aries and press both hands to his chest. “Let’s go take back your world, Your Highness. Then, we return to liberate mine.”