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Even Ladrien looked taken aback.
“And my friend,” Aoife continued. “You stay away from her too.”
Ladrien lunged for the librarian, but his massive head struck the small door behind her. Aoife flung herself off the side, scurrying down the ladder while he strained against the frame, and the vines around him tightened.
Aoife raced towards Juliana, grabbing a loose plank from one of the shelves and shoving it under the bookcase to lever it up, just enough for Juliana to free herself. She seized Briarsong and followed Aoife as she opened a hole in the wall, a dense, dark tunnel between shelves.
The door closed, and they both sank to the floor, panting hard.
“Aoife!” Juliana said, when she’d gathered enough breath, “You just threw a book at the Unseelie King!”
“I know. Don’t worry. It was Egberd’s encyclopaedia, though. Monstrously out of date and wholly inaccurate. Not worth the paper it’s printed on.”
Juliana stared at her.
“What?”
Juliana laughed, and yanked her friend into her arms. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You too,” said Aoife, relaxing into the embrace. “When Hawthorn came back and you didn’t… I feared the worst. Should have known better.”
The tunnel shuddered and shook. A terrific roar indicated Ladrien had freed himself.
“What now?” Aoife asked. “I’m not fond of the idea of abandoning my library, but if the alternative is being eaten—”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”
Something collapsed outside. “Think quickly!”
Juliana tried to calculate the likelihood of getting back down to the throne room, retrieving Serena, and getting her upstairs without Ladrien noticing. The odds didn’t sit well.
She would need to defeat him first.
But how did one defeat a dragon?
People have,a voice reminded her.The storybooks are filled with them.
Most tended to be nonspecific on the details, though. And it wasn’t like she could crack out a textbook now…
You don’t need to.
Juliana hit her head. Of course she didn’t. She had the entire library right next to her.
“Aoife,” she started, “have you ever heard of an oilliphéist?”
Aoife fixed her with an incredulous glare. “Oh, you mean like the giant water dragon currently attacking us?”
“Yes, but I’m thinking specifically of the last one—”
“Caoránach,” Aoife muttered, as if this were a bedtime story she’d read every night. “Defeated in battle by Ser Gallioch on the—”
“Buthow?How did one man take down a dragon—”
Aoife rolled her eyes. “The same way onemandoesanything,” she said exasperatedly. “With the help of a woman.”
Juliana blinked. “A woman?”
“A witch, to be exact. She froze the seas for him.”
