Already on edge, Thorn dove behind a heavy chair, instinctively hiding from the potential threat, peeking out in the direction of the odd magic. It felt both familiar and completely unknown, and Thorn trembled in trepidation. As she watched, the outline of a doorway appeared, as if drawn by an invisible finger, the line shimmering a silver-blue and sending off sparks she nearly tasted.
Instead of opening, like a door might, the space inside the rectangle blurred, then altered. The bookshelves of the library beyond it vanished, replaced by an undulating landscape that hurt her mind to look at, but that she couldn’t bear to look away from. What her eyes told her she saw made no sense. It seemed to be a place that the portal opened into, but it had no ground or sky. It shifted constantly, seeming to be entirely grayscale one moment, full of lurid colors the next, then colored in some other palette that shouldn’t be possible. Thorn had never seen anything like it and yet a longing for the place filled her as if she’d been starving without knowing it. A creature drifted by, looking as if it swam in a depthless pond, unlike any animal she’d seen before. It glanced at her, bulbous eyes huge over a toothy mouth, then lunged.
Thorn had no time to squeak or throw herself backward before a woman appeared, tsked at the creature as if it were no more than a wayward sparrow, and flicked it back into a vein of deep purple, where it swam away. The woman stepped through the doorway and it snapped closed behind her. The woman—a sorceress, surely, the way she seemed to radiate magic, far more than Jada possessed—looked about, smiling at the cozy room, going to the window to gaze out at the quiet nighttime garden. She wore a simple gown, white with smudges of dirt on it here and there, as if she’d been gardening, which seemed very unlikely.Crimson hair streamed down her back, like a waterfall of fresh blood. Oddly, the window showed through in shadow, as if she were a ghost.
With a sigh, she finally went to one of the locked and warded shelves and studied the books there. The wards seemed not to matter to the sorceress because, in another moment, she had selected several books and turned away from the shelf. It seemed to float partially through her hand, and Thorn, exceedingly puzzled, shifted to get a better look. As she did, the woman turned to look at Thorn. Pausing, she lifted her face slightly as if sniffing the air. Thorn froze, terrified that this imposing sorceress would detect her presence, not entirely sure why the possibility frightened her so.
“Is someone there?” the sorceress inquired in a voice that echoed eerily, reminding Thorn of when stories said someone spoke from beyond the grave. A thread of warning wove beneath the question.
In no way should Thorn reply.
The sorceress waited a beat longer, staring intently where Thorn hid, still peeking out but not daring to move. Surely the woman could see her? But the sorceress shook her head absently, seeming bemused, then fastened her gaze on nothing. The doorway seemed to draw itself in the air again. This time, Thorn looked away, afraid of her odd fascination for the unreal realm and the tug that drew her to it, making her want to dive after that monster-fish and chase it to wherever it lived.
The sorceress stepped through the portal, as if walking through any ordinary doorway, her form dissolving amid the colors, which temporarily took on her shape and shading, like a thousand mirrors reflecting and amplifying her with inanimate adoration, before they swirled into something altogether new. Then the doorway vanished, and Thorn was alone in the empty library, the air of the cottage settling back into place like ripples stilling in the pond after a bird struck and left.
When she could move again, she creakily stood, aware that she felt dizzy and not quite real herself. Collecting her bearings, she went to the bookshelf to see if she could determine which books the sorceress had taken. No, that she hadstolen. From Jada. And without the slightest hesitation or fear. How remarkable. Thorn’s world shifted and resettled into new lines with the knowledge that Jada wasn’t the most powerful or frightening person in it.
The locks and wards looked undisturbed and Thorn still couldn’t read any titles. Shaking herself out of the stunned reaction the sorceress’s surprise visit had induced, Thorn reminded herself that she had bigger, more pertinent problems. She needed to find where Jada had gone and simultaneously take advantage of her guardian’s absence to find the books she needed from the library.
Doing what she likely should have done in the first place, had she been thinking straight, Thorn went seeking Jada in her bedchamber. Sure enough, the woman slept, sprawled in ungainly fashion across her large bed, lying atop the grand covers, rather than beneath. She looked as if she’d staggered into the room, perhaps feeling sleepy, then suddenly collapsed. Thorn considered arranging Jada to be more comfortable and covering her against the winter chill that seeped through the walls. Or would doing that wake her up? Torn, she waffled, not sure which path would give her the most time in the library.
Time that she was wasting with her indecision.
Turning on her heel, she dashed back to the library, quickly selecting and stacking up the books she thought might tell her what she needed to know, throwing a longing glance at the interdicted books that had been so briefly available. Sorting through the stack, she returned some books to their shelves, taking only as many as she could fit into her hiding place beneath the floorboards, a pitiful few. Then, realizing she had the perfect excuse—the visit from an unknown sorceress/thief—Thorn retrieved those books and more. But where to keep them?
The root cellar.
Jada never went down there, complaining bitterly that the ladder hurt her knees, and why should she when the young Thorn could go down and up so much faster? The root cellar had the added advantage that, should Jada detect Thorn’s rebellious disobedience—now or in the future—then any confinement to the cellar would at least give her the opportunity to study.
Resisting the urge to check that Jada still slept soundly, Thorn scurried to the sparkling-clean kitchen, then carried the armload of books down the ladder so fast that she briefly slipped, catching herself one-handed with a jarring halt and stinging palm.
“Don’t be stupid,” she scolded herself aloud. “Control yourself.”
Making herself go slowly and carefully, she hid the books in various places: at the bottom of the bin of autumn’s apples, in with the increasingly wizened carrots from the final crop of summer, behind the slats of the potato bin. She kept out only two, one on wardbreaking and another onOneiromancy for Beginners. Thorn had never heard of oneiromancy, which seemed to have to do with dreams and Moriah had mentioned dreams so it seemed an excellent place to start filling in the holes of her ignorance. Carrying just those two books to her room, she stealthily hid them away in the space beneath the floorboards.
Only then did she return to Jada’s room, to make her comfortable. When Thorn removed her shoes, the older woman came snortingly awake—and Thorn offered up a moment of gratitude that she’d thought better of touching or moving Jada earlier.
“What’s going on?” Jada demanded blearily, then narrowed suspicious eyes at Thorn. “What are you doing, child?”
Thorn assumed her best innocent expression. “I came to say good night and you weren’t in the library. I was concerned and went looking for you and found you asleep here on your bed. Are you feeling well?”
Jada rubbed a hand over her face. “I got so sleepy.”
“You’ve been working very hard,” Thorn said, oozing pretend sympathy. “Let me help you get undressed and into bed.”
Jada grumbled, but allowed Thorn to follow their familiar routine, getting the older woman into her nightdress and tucking her under the warm covers. Jada was asleep almost instantly. Thorn went back to the library, banked the fire, and cleared the incriminating dishes. She also locked the library door behind her and braced herself mentally for the morning’s conversation.
Sure enough, as soon as Jada plopped herself at the kitchen table, she scowled at Thorn, invisible wings buffeting the air with implicit threat, even as she accepted the mug of tea Thorn poured for her. “There are books missing from the library,” she informed Thorn, voice vibrating with anger. “You will return them to me immediately.”
Blessing the unknown thief in the night, Thorn sat down with her own tea. “I have to tell you something.”
“That you stole my books, which you were expressly toldnotto do. You’ll sleep in the root cellar tonight and for as long as I deem necessary until you are obedient again. Don’t make me put you in the Sleep of Ages.”
Thorn waited for her to finish. “It wasn’t me. Something very strange happened last night. I went to collect your dishes and say good night, but you weren’t there. I found you lying across your bed, fast asleep.”
Jada snorted, but didn’t argue. Good that she remembered that part.
“As you remember, I woke you up and helped you undress,” Thorn continued, sticking as closely to the truth as possible, altering the timeline just a bit. “Then I went back to the library to bank the fire, clear the dishes, and lock it up as I knew you would wish me to do. But something very odd happened.”
