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Oracle breaks away from Lilith. “Perhaps that is where your shifter blood comes from. Come, we must scour the archives for information on latent shifter blood among humans. It’s not something I’ve heard of before, but I suppose I might not know everything.” They sound offended by the idea.
They open the door to the laboratory and leave. We look at each other and rush after them. “Does Vanessa need to be here for this?” Lilith asks Oracle, catching up to them. “She shouldn’t be in the Citadel any longer than she needs to be. We have no idea how the Shadow Realm will affect someone with both shifter and human blood.”
“Indeed,” Oracle agrees. “We won’t keep her long, but we may need a few more samples.”
I shake my head vigorously at the idea and Mags whispers, “Probably just a hair or nail clipping. Don’t worry, we hardly ever need body parts.”
“What?” I gasp and she cackles, skipping ahead.
We make our way to the elevator bank, which feels like a marathon walk given how long the corridors are. The building must be magical because it doesn’t look wide enough from the outside. “Are the archives in this building?” I ask as we stop at the elevator.
“Of course not.” Oracle pushes the button for the lobby. “There’s not nearly enough room here to house the entirety of the archives.”
“How big are they?” I look at Mags who grins back.
“Bigger than you can imagine.”
The archives are located several bridges away from the laboratory building, stored in what looks like an erupting volcano. “Mind the lava flows,” Oracle warns as we make our way across the bridge leading to the mouth of the volcano. Heat blasts me as we follow a spiral staircase which winds down into the center.
My heart pounds with fear and my mind is racing. I’m inside an erupting volcano! Unharmed! “Are the archives located here for security?” I ask. “Because no one in their right mind would descend into an erupting volcano?”
“Why ever not?” Mags asks, surprised. “There are some incredible magical properties in lava.” She leans over, muttering something as she captures a sample in a glass vial that appears in her hand.
With excitement, I reach for the lava flow, assuming it must be safe to touch. Lilith drags me back, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. “Stop showing off and mind your human before she kills herself.” Lilith lets me go and continues after Oracle.
Shame-faced, Mags says, “Sorry. She’s right. I like to dazzle when I can and humans are easy to get a reaction out of. I used a spell to make my hand indestructible when I touched the lava.”
I smile at her. “I like to dazzle people too.” Pointing at the sample in her hand, I ask, “What are you going to do with that?”
“Dragon conjuring spell,” she says, grinning. “Only Rage Witches can do it, and dragons are so rare, I want to find out if there’s any left.”
“There’s at least one,” I tell her.
“Girls!” Lilith’s sharp tone has us quickly descending into the bowels of the volcano. The lava flows around us but doesn’t touch the stairs or the corridor at the bottom, which leads us deeper into the volcano.
“Never go that way,” Oracle points at another passage.
I peer curiously down the cave-like hallway. “Why?”
“It ends rather abruptly in a magma lake,” Lilith answers, then indicates a set of golden double doors labelled in glowing letters: Bibliothecam Magicam Ordinem.
Mags leans in to whisper, “Library of the Magical Order.”
As we walk through the doors, I’m awestruck as I gape at an endless room filled with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bookshelves. At the center, a cracking fireplace reaches up several stories, a cauldron the size of a car sitting atop the dancing flames.
The archives look like a disorganized mess with books covering tables, parchment paper littering almost every inch of the floor, and books and shelves moving constantly, but I don’t think it is disorganized. I think it’s probably the best library I’ve ever seen. Books fly around the room with purpose, landing on shelves while others unshelve themselves and fly to a series of tubes before being sucked into one.
I’m pulled from my musing as Oracle announces, “I’ll need someone in the shifter section, while the others cross-reference with reincarnation and mating curses. We need all hands, so let’s get moving.”
“I’ll take shifters,” Mags announces, skipping away before disappearing behind a moving shelf that I very much hope doesn’t crush her.
“I’ll take reincarnation,” Lilith mutters. “Maybe I missed something.” She steps into a shadowed alcove, snapping her fingers with purpose. Several books unshelve themselves and float after her.
Oracle looks at me and I say, “I guess that leaves me with mating curses?” They beam as if I’m a show dog performing the correct trick and points at a set of stairs leading to a labyrinth of bridges, enabling researchers to reach the higher shelves.
I glance over my shoulder, hoping to see Mags but the two witches and Oracle have disappeared. I’m on my own. I climb the metal stairs, wondering how I’ll know when I reach the right section. As soon as the thought leaves my head, golden glowing footsteps appear on the stairs in front of me, leading me up to another level.
I follow them. “You know where I need to go, don’t you?” I ask, then laugh out loud as I realize I’m talking to a library. “Are you alive? Is that how you know where I’m going?” A book flies out from the shelf in front of me, and I’m forced to stop walking as it opens in midair, the pages fluttering like a deck of cards.
