“W-what about you and Roosa?” Winslet asked.
“I’ll be fine without the stones,” I piped up, the words springing from my mouth without thought. Uh, I would?
A moment passed. “We’ll both be fine,” Cyrus concurred, albeit reluctantly.
One feeder stepped closer, almost brushing against me as I passed him. I gulped. Wouldn’t be long now.
“On my signal,” Cyrus announced, “we fight to kill.”
A shudder rocked me. A choked noise left the lord-in-training.
“Y-yes, sir,” Winslet said.
Domino appeared from thin air. “There’s a problem.”
I yelped, causing panic in my fellow trainees. Winslet fired off a shot, nailing a feeder in the shoulder. He didn’t fall, but he did jerk and growl, stalking after us as we continued.
“Was that the signal?” she demanded, swinging her gun this way and that, ready to launch another shot.
“No,” I said, setting my eyes on the librarian. How I hated his updates. He had yet to arrive with good news.
“I decoded a portion of my book,” Domino said. “Without divine intervention, you’ll be the only survivor. The glowers who remain in this world can’t help. Priority one is dismantling the invisible barrier CURED placed around the fruit field.”
So we were on our own. My heart thudded as I motioned for the librarian to tell me the rest. There was more, guaranteed. How would I survive but no one else?
“There’s a sole path to victory, keeping you all alive.” From his expression to his stride, iron control descended over him. “You must ingest your piece of the Rock.”
That didn’t sound so bad. Like Cyrus had said, it would give me strength. So why the attitude?
Though I wanted to ask that and a thousand other questions, I stayed silent and dug the piece from my pocket. Unlike the crumbles I’d ingested before, this one was completely solid with no give. Although, in the warmth of my hand, the stone softened, becoming malleable.
More feeders stepped closer to us, growing as gleeful as the laughter I’d heard.
“If you do this, you will alter your fate,” the librarian said, solemn. “You’ll walk a new path, and there’ll be no going back to the old one.”
I stiffened. Nowthatsounded ominous, as if I’d been on a great road, and I would suddenly find myself on a route fraught with unimaginable horrors. “Explain,” I mouthed.
His gaze darted for a split second. “We will be bound together, you and I.”
Okay, what did that even mean? Marriage? I sputtered, trying to form a refusal.
He acted as if he’d heard my thoughts. “Our connection will run deeper than a marriage. To defeat this many feeders, you need the skill of a librarian, and I’m the only one willing to aid you in such a way. The only one with permission, as you heard Ember give me.”
A valid explanation, yet I still struggled to understand, especially since his somber tenor revealed his reluctance. He didn’t wish to do this, and yet he intended to do it, anyway.
Wants you for his own.
Tremors rocked me on my feet. How would my brand-new boyfriend react to a full-on bond with the librarian he’d asked me to ditch? I couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that to Cyrus.We’ll find another way.
“There isn’t another way to save him,” Domino stated, again reading my thoughts. “The passage in my book was clear. Doing this isthe only chance he has. Yes, you might lose him anyway, but that will be his decision, not yours.” He canted his head. “Shall we proceed, Arden?”
Yes. No. Indecision tore at me. I needed time to think but so few seconds remained.
“Why?” I mouthed. He risked his own future, and it couldn’t be for the reason Cyrus had suggested.
“I’ve seen ahead.” He lifted his chin. “You ... matter to me.”
In a mentor/mentee way, right? Surely. The same way he mattered to me. But if the situation were reversed, I couldn’t say I would create a mystical bond with him.
