I sprang for the doors but quickly realized that if this got loose in the château, I’d never be able to send it back. Twisting, I cut into the stacks. Not escape. Evade—while I figured out what to do.
Renaud had not taught me anything about this. He had not even taught me how to protect myself.
The library continued to fill with its presence somehow; the pressure of the creature was suffocating. A pain built in my ears, invisible fingers shoved deep inside to break them. But when I glanced behind me, it didn’t seem any physically larger. If I did not hurry, it felt like the whole château would splinter from its presence.
I had summoned this monster. Like called unto like.
When I had accidentally opened the world into the abyss that one time when working with Renaud’s manuscripts, I had closed it by reciting the words in reverse and thinking of stitching the hole closed. ButI didn’t remember the words of any spell, and when I tried to think of sewing, my mind only screamed at me—Sewing? At a time like this?
The beast turned a corner. Somehow it faced me. Four sets of eyes, all glittering and roving, looked at me, and my knees became jelly. Its leathery wings flexed and hit the edges of the shelves, and I was frozen in that gaze, horrified. It scented the air. A wave of its sulfurous noxious breath washed over me, making my eyes sting. I backed up. But I was too late.
I was a fool. This was no regular creature. It was a demon!
It shrieked and lunged.
I jumped out of the way just in time. My back slammed around the stacks, into the next aisle. I slipped, but kept running, feeling the demon’s wings whispering over me—the same sticky material as the binding to the book. It was already overtaking me, claws gouging the floor. But I dropped to the ground, and it careered ahead, unable to slow, screeching. In a flash, I bolted back the way it had come.
I needed the book.The book it had come from. I ran through the shelves and picked the wretched little tome off the shelf, just narrowly missing the demon as it tore between shelves behind me, knocking books to the ground.
I fumbled, flipping the pages wildly as I ran. Finally it opened to the one I’d been on before.
Not knowing what else to do, I “read” the spell in reverse—but it wasn’t simply saying the words in reverse, I knew that. It was an undoing. No—that wasn’t right. I slid around another aisle, my heart slamming through my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Words could not be unsaid once said. Creation cannot be unmade. Once a boundary is broken it cannot be unbroken. It had to be a new work in the opposite direction. A repair. I turned my attention to the image forming in my mind of the demon being folded up inside the parchment itself, into its words, and slipping back into the binding it had come loose from.
And it worked—partly. With a screech the demon disappeared intoan unseen kind of slit in the air. To see but not look directly made my eyes go cross.
But simply sending the demon back wasn’t enough. I needed to close the opening. Desperate, I tried to think of sewing again.
A claw swiped out at me, the rest of the demon followed, spilling out of the air with a chittering sound.
It was impossible to do everything at once—to focus so intently, so carefully that I would be able to hold the demon back and close the slit, while also staying alive. I screamed—half out of fear, half out of frustration—and ran again. I spoke the spell reversed for the second time, thinking of repair rather than undoing. Again, the demon disappeared.
This time, I turned and rooted my feet to the ground as Perchta had taught me. I didn’t think of sewing—not yet. I closed my eyes and thought of my legs as roots, twining down far into the earth. I held my breath at the bottom of my stomach. I lifted my fingers and I began to make the motions of sewing.
It felt ridiculous. But I’d seen Perchta move her hands with her spells, mimicking the things she was saying. So I reached for the thread between the worlds and the thread I had pulled from the spell, and with those and my magic, sewed the seam shut.
Faster than I imagined, the entire room was quiet. Peaceful. The suffocating weight gone, the pattering of rain on the window the only sound.
I sagged with relief as the silence stretched longer and longer. My forehead was covered in sweat and my breath was too shallow.
I stood that way for some time.
When I finally felt sturdy enough to wipe my face and smooth my hair, I saw that every book was now replaced. The floor polished. It was too uncanny, and I eyed the ceilings and walls with suspicion, expecting to see that leering face in the ceiling from my first night—I’d forgotten it was only a nightmare. But the house never looked back.
I should have returned to my room then. But after all, I still had the keys.
I left the library behind, iron clinking in my pocket as I walked.
Regret No. 2
Of course, I was more cautious. And I told myself I would be more cautious still. No more pulling strange books off shelves. No falling into lulls and winding spells. No upheaval of emotions that made my magic spill its banks. I took a deep breath through my nose and trod forward.
I explored the empty ballroom—drenched in finery, dust-free as everything else and yet completely barren of any but my own echoing footsteps.
Great gilded glass lined one of the walls, fixed behind curtains as if they were windows to the outside, but their only view was the empty scene before them—and me.
I had never seen myself so clearly before. I stood like a lost thing in an Emperor’s court. My hair unbound. My skin glistening with a sheen of sweat from the humid day and the fear that had roiled through me. I seemed strong and filled out. Feral, like Renaud had said. I wanted to touch my mirrored self—to lay my fingers to her brow and push back her hair. But I was afraid to touch the glass or even get too close. I tore my gaze away from her and wandered on.
Just past the ballroom was a magnificent door made of intricate gold, wound in patterns of leaves and vines. Inside the throats of the small gold flowers were little diamonds. Heart racing, I reached for the handle and found it locked. Only a moment of hesitation, quickly overcome. I went into my pocket for the keys. My fingers trembled while I hunted for the right one—the iron twisted into delicate holdings—and slid it into the lock. The door fell open soundlessly under the softest touch. As it opened, I gasped, for this was even more magnificent than the library.
