"What does it say?" Milo peered over my shoulder, his skeletons mimicking his posture. "Is it the prophecy?"
Before I could answer, Fenric's phone rang. He answered it with his usual efficiency. "Agent Fenric speaking. Yes, Dr. Thornwick, I… what?" His perfectly composed expression cracked. "Are you certain?"
Something in his tone made my stomach clench. Zane moved closer to me, his presence warm against my back.
"I see," Fenric continued, his voice tight. "Yes, we have the scroll fragment here as well. Understood. I'll implement containment protocols immediately."
He ended the call and looked directly at me, his pointed ears twitching slightly, the first real tell of nerves I'd seen from him.
"Task One is complete," he pulled up his right sleeve. "The prophecy is initiating."
The scroll in my hands grew warmer, almost hot enough to burn. The runes began to move, sliding across the parchment like water.
"What's Task One?" I asked, but the room was already beginning to spin. "What's happening?"
"Hold onto her," I heard Fenric order, but his voice seemed to come from very far away.
The last thing I felt was Zane's arms catching me as my knees buckled, and then everything went dark.
Chapter
Four
Winter
Iwas floating.
Not the gentle kind of floating like when you're drifting in a pool on a hot summer day. This was a profound weightlessness, like my body had dissolved into mist. My limbs felt disconnected somehow, as though they belonged to someone else.
I opened my eyes to absolute nothingness. No walls, no ceiling, no floor. Just endless, infinite space filled with swirling dust and distant stars that seemed just out of reach. Tendrils of iridescent light reached out like curious fingers, caressing my non-existent form.
"Hello?"
As if responding to my call, the starscape shifted. The dust gathered and solidified, forming shelves upon shelves that stretched into impossible distances. Books appeared, filling the spaces, millions of them in every shape, size, and color imaginable. Some were bound in materials I couldn't identify; others seemed made of pure light or shadow.
A library. A vast, celestial library that defied all logic and physics.
This had to be heaven.
I tried to move forward, and found that intention alone carried me. I drifted toward the nearest shelf where ancient tomes with spines of beaten silver and gold sat waiting. As I approached, they rustled, actually rustled, like birds settling their feathers.
"Um, hello? Is anyone here?" I called out and my voice echoed.
A small, leather-bound book wiggled free from its spot and hovered before me. It flipped open, pages turning rapidly until it settled on what appeared to be a star chart. The constellations moved, rearranging themselves into words:
Welcome, Chalice-Bearer.
"I don't know what that means," I admitted to the book. "I'm just Winter. I work in a library as an assistant."
The book's pages fluttered in what seemed like amusement. Around me, other books began to shift and move, sliding from their places and rearranging themselves into new patterns, as though the entire library was recalibrating to my presence.
"This is just another reality break, isn't it?" I murmured, watching as a series of ancient scrolls unfurled themselves overhead, forming a canopy of ancient text. "I'll wake up, and Fenric will be lecturing me about emotional containment protocols."
"Oh, he'll lecture you regardless," a voice behind me made me jump. Or it would have if I could. "That's what he does. Doesn't mean you have to listen."
I spun around, or my consciousness did, anyway, and found myself face to face with me.
Wait. What?
