There was a stunned silence.
It was a harsher punishment than any she’d imagined—far, far harsher. She began to shake. Her heart beat as frantically as a hummingbird’s wings.
The drums began to sound, the signal that a verdict had been reached, deep and low and echoing. She felt them in her bones, each beat reverberating through her entire body.
Around her, the courtroom erupted into shouting. Rijes Velk stormed toward the dais, while Terlu sank deeper into her chair and hugged her arms around herself. It was only when the judge demanded silence that she realized she was screaming like a dying rabbit.
It all happened quickly after that.
Terlu was shuffled out of the courtroom by two court bailiffs. She stumbled as she walked, unable to remember how to place her feet one in front of the other. All the shouting had faded as if she’d been shoved underwater, smothered by the swirl of her thoughts.
A statue.
Her, transformed into a statue.
Will it hurt?
Will I live?
Will they ever transform me back?The judge had made no statement about the length of her sentence.Is it forever?No, it couldn’t be, could it? That would be too cruel. But if it wasn’t, wouldn’t thejudge have set a duration? She’d never heard of such a punishment, but then she also hadn’t heard of any librarian breaking the ban on magic use by non-sorcerers. With all the spellbooks in the Great Library, she couldn’t imagine another librarian hadn’t been tempted, but perhaps she was the first to be caught.
She wished she’d been more careful. More clever.
She didn’t wish she hadn’t done it. If she hadn’t cast the spell, then Caz would have never existed, and he’d been so happy to be alive. She’d never wish to undo that. She hoped that Rijes Velk would keep her promise—that she’d keep Terlu’s spider-plant friend safe and happy.
The bailiffs delivered her to a black stone room shaped like an octagon. It had no windows and no light except for a single candelabra in the center of the room that was lit with a dozen white candles, and it smelled of tallow and burnt herbs. A bearded man with sunken cheeks waited beside the candelabra. He held a bowl in his pale hands.
She recognized what he was instantly: a sorcerer with the ingredients to a spell.
And just as quickly she realized what this meant: there would be no reprieve. No last-minute mercy. Her punishment had been decided long before the judge had delivered his verdict.
She stared at the sorcerer.
She felt too empty to scream or cry now. She wished she’d had a moment to thank Rijes Velk for trying. Terlu truly did appreciate her kindness.
“Change,” he told her.
She noticed a folded tunic, a library uniform, on a chair. She hesitated for only a second before stripping off the gray clothes and pulling on the familiar blue of a Fourth Librarian. At least she wouldn’t face her fate dressed like a criminal. She wondered if this was Rijes Velk’s kindness as well, or if they simply wanted their example to be uniformed as a librarian. The sorcerer watched her dispassionately, and she wondered what he’d do if she tried to flee. She knew shewouldn’t get far—undoubtedly, there were guards on the other side of the door—and she didn’t want him to cast the spell while she was fleeing. If she was going to be transformed into a statue, she didn’t want her face to be frozen in fear. She wanted to at least try to be brave.
“Will I live?” Terlu asked.
The sorcerer hesitated. “Yes.” And then he began the spell.
As her blood slowed and hardened, as her breath caught in her throat, as her eyes froze in place, as her flesh turned to polished wood, it occurred to her that perhaps that wasn’t the right question to ask. But she couldn’t think of a better one.
If I live, I can hope.
Darkness.
Silence.
She didn’t know which was worse—the darkness or the silence—but she was suffocating in both. She couldn’t open her eyes. No, she couldn’t close her eyes.
Where am I?
She listened. There was nothing. No breath. No heartbeat.
A creak, then a sliver of light, and she could see shapes and shadows: shelves, a crate, and a cart. There were voices behind her, muffled, arguing about where to put a stack of chairs.
