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“I thought it was annoying, too,” I said, following her into the room.
The library smelled like leather, pine, and aging parchment. The walls to the right and left of the door were lined with books. The stairs to the second-floor balcony were wedged in the corner and thirteen bookshelves packed with magical texts and trinkets lined every space in between.
“Wanna start on the left? I can take the right,” Shado offered, gazing around the room.
I pointed up to the balcony. “You tackle the books. I’m going to see if I can find anything in his records upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” She followed my finger and squinted at the railing above us. “Are those filing cabinets?”
“They’re Viktor’s personal files,” I explained. “He kept records of everything: every case he ever worked for the Elders, every spell he created, every object he collected. It should all be up there.”
“Dude was a closet hoarder, wasn’t he?”
I snorted. “There’s a table by the window. Put anything that sounds remotely useful over there and we’ll sort through it together.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, disappearing into the shelves.
I climbed the stairs and stepped onto the balcony. Viktor’s snarling voice echoed through my mind.What are you doing up here? The cabinets are off limits. Go back to your lessons.He’d said those words thirty or forty times. I couldn’t figure out how, but he always knew when I snuck up there.
I opened the top drawer of the first cabinet, and it rolled out with a puff of stagnant air. The dates on the files were from the year before Viktor died. I closed the drawer. I knew most of what was inside. Objects I’d helped him procure, cases he’d handled for the Elders. It was all useless.
Walking down three more cabinets, I pulled the top drawer again, and the one next to it. I plucked a file from each and read the dates. One was from the year I went to college and the other was from the year I left, but both were about rogue werewolves in upstate New York.
“This is going to take a lot—”
“Uhhhh, Rebekah?” Shado called from the floor below.
I leaned over the banister and found her standing a few aisles over, staring at the wall of books. Her face looked pale.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What did you touch?”
She pointed. “What’s that?”
I lifted an eyebrow and tried to picture the first floor in my mind. “Ummm…oh, the door? That’s the side entrance to Viktor’s office.”
She shook her head. “Not the door.”
“What? What does it look like?” I frowned and tried to catch her reflection in the window on the other side of the room.
“It’s shining and kind of hurts to look at. Come down here, please. It’s weird,” she said, taking a step back.
“I’ll be right there.”
She’d crossed to the other side of the room by the time I retraced my steps downstairs. Her eyes were wide, and she’d nearly chewed through her lower lip.
“What’s wrong, Shado?” I asked.
She pointed to the far wall again. “Look.”
I followed her finger, but there was nothing shining in her eyeline. She wasn’t even level with Viktor’s office. That was another row down.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What did you touch?”
“Nothing! I just turned the corner and felt its aura pressing against my head. It’s like it’s trying to get inside my mind and make me do something. I don’t like it.”
I waved a dismissive hand and walked across the room. “Just relax and go check out the other shelves. I’ll figure out what it is.”
I was tempted to complain that Shado was seeing things, but she wasn’t the type. The closer I got to the wall, the more I felt absolutely nothing. I touched the shelf that had caught her eye.
