42 #3
“I have no stone,” I spit, trying to wrench free, but her nails dig into my skin.
Deep. The stone in my pocket hums—Noxus’s stone—as if it knows we’re talking about it, warning me to run.
My heart stops. Wait a second. Why is it in my pocket?
I clearly remember putting it between my underwear before we went to Avandal.
“You must not call him. It’s a trap. Not him. Not the dark one. Not the Master of Death. He’s in his prison, and there he shall rot forever.” The woman sighs—a horrible, dry sound—and opens her mouth wide as her back arches, as if she’s possessed by something. Or someone.
Her claws bite deeper into my skin as I keep trying to shake her off. My heart pounds like mad.
Just then, something ghosts along the wall. A dark presence, drawing closer and closer. A shadow creeping along the shelves, dimming, then extinguishing, the little lights down here, one by one, as it passes like someone blowing out candles.
This is the monster from the basement. The monster that prowls down there. I’ve gone too deep. My heart rate skyrockets, fear spearing through my body and yanking my magic awake before I can stop it.
The woman screams and hisses as lightning licks up my arms, over mine to hers, burning her flesh.
She lets go, pulling back with a wild snarl.
She looks like a beast ready to pounce, claws flexed.
She wants to lunge at me, teeth snapping, as if ready to sink into my throat—but a jolt of my lightning hits her square in the chest and throws her against a bookshelf.
No! Fuck. What have I done?
My breathing turns ragged as I try to call the lightning back, but it won’t listen.
It’s surging and pooling into my palms, ready to maim and kill and burn.
But right now, I might actually be glad I have it, as my head flicks from her to the shadow prowling closer and closer.
My stomach drops with true panic as it devours everything, leaving total darkness.
A few more seconds and I’ll be swallowed by it.
I shove the woman in the chest as she recovers, coming for me again—then bolt down the corridor I came from, sending out my talent to guide me back. Without it, I’d fall prey to the labyrinth—and whatever that shadow does for a living. My gut tells me it feeds on anything living here.
My mind snags on the woman, and I skitter to a sharp halt. I should have taken her with me, but panic made me run. When I glance back, darkness has already swallowed the whole corridor, and my heart sinks. I left her behind.
I start running again, cutting corner after corner, blindly following the pull of my talent. It drags me toward the main chambers at last, and by the time I stumble into them—panting, sweating, shaking—Faye is long gone.
Aris barrels around another corner. He’s shifted into a midnight-blue greyhound, probably to run faster. “What happened? I lost you!”
I quickly fill him in mentally, and he shifts back into his dragon form in a ripple of shadow and scales.
“These damn bookshelves move. One second you were there, the next you were gone—I was worried out of my mind. Next time you might want to wait for me before you blindly venture off alone,” he snarls—and for the first time, I get a tongue-lashing from him.
I take it with my head bowed, because I deserve it, and because he’s right, and because my mind is still too wild from what just happened.
“Let’s tell an acolyte,” I manage. “If that woman died, they need to know and maybe retrieve her body.” If there’s a body, I remind myself with a shudder.
“They don’t speak,” Aris says, still furious.
“That woman spoke,” I argue, looking at him as we walk, rubbing my arms.
“This is unheard of. Once they become acolytes, the magic hinders them from speaking, so they can’t pass down knowledge other than in written form—and that must always stay down here.
If they want the world to know something, the only way is to send for a scribe, and even then, it’s up to the library’s magic to decide whether a book or script can be carried out or not. ”
“Cruel,” I spit, my mind inevitably going back to Faye. To hells with it—she is no damn acolyte. And suddenly, I’m furious with the library for making such cruel rules.
“What about that shadow? It ate her up, Aris. It swallowed that acolyte. That woman. And I left her behind.” I pause, facing him and he skitters to a halt. “She warned me about the stone. She wanted to take it. Maybe I should go back and check on her.”
“You won’t go back down there.”
“But you could come with me. We must—”
“No. Stop this,” he commands suddenly, sharper than I’ve ever heard him. “We must not, Melody. Do you hear me? This is dangerous, and you’re lucky you came away with your life. Level two is off-limits from now on.”
“But…” My brow creases in frustration and my mind still crawls from the encounter. “Why that stone? What’s wrong with it? She murmured something about a prison.”
He takes a deep breath, then blows out a dark cloud of steam. “I cannot talk about it, little one. You know why. But I forbid you to ever go down there again.”
I stare at him as if he’s bitten me. “Forbid it?”
“No. Of course not, forgive me.” He looks suddenly pained, his tail swishing in frustration. “But, please, Melody. Down there…it is dangerous. Forget what you saw and never return. Can you do that?”
He looks and sounds so desperate that I find myself nodding. He seems relieved. But I wonder what he knows. What it is that he just can’t say.
“Good. Thank you. Let us not linger and return to the daylight, shall we?”
I nod again and we start walking.
We meet a single scribe on the way up, and since they can still speak before becoming acolytes, I ask whether she’s seen Faye—my talent is clearly tugging me toward an area of the upper level I don’t have access to.
But up is good, and the knot in my stomach eases a little at the thought of air and daylight.
“Yes, I have, just now. She said she was going to bed,” the scribe says, hood hiding her face.
“Oh. Can I see her?” My voice still comes a bit shaky.
The scribe shakes her head. “No. Our dormitories are not open to anyone but us,” she says apologetically.
I thank her, then Aris and I leave, my hand clenched tight around the stone in my pocket, its faint hum still vibrating against my skin.