AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And, as I pointed out, if we failed to summon the dragon, we were all screwed anyway.
“Thank you for coming,” I told Daphne as we went to a far corner of the library to pull some books. There were too many of us to fit into the massive library, so most people had scattered with their stacks of books to different corners of the palace to read.
“Of course. There’s nowhere else I’d want to be, though I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I’m just one wolf.”
I smiled. “I appreciate it all the same. You never know how much of a difference one person will make. Plus, I know it’s not easy being here. You mentioned it feels like suffocating for shifters when they’re here.”
My best friend considered. “You know, it feels different this time. Last time, it felt like the entire realm was choking me. But this time it’s not so bad. I still don’t think I could shift. It’s like there’s a pane of glass between my wolf and me, when we should be one. But it’s not so painful. I still know I don’t belong here, but it doesn’t feel like the entire realm is hostile towards me. Less Hell, more being-a-living-creature-in-the-underworld.”
I tugged a gray book with a worn spine from a high shelf and handed it to her before picking another for myself, taking the time to turn her words over in my mind. Something had changed in the realm. I’d thought I just felt that because I’d taken the mantle, then because Cole and I were back in the capital. But maybe there was something to what she’d said. The realm had been the underworld when I’d ruled it, a neutral space. It had soured to Hell without any rulers caring for it, but there was no reason to believe it couldn’t be restored.
Things I’d ponder later. For now, I had a dragon to catch.
IfI’d thought wemight get lucky and find the book on Day One, I was quickly disabused of that hope.
Same with every single day for the first week. Then the second. We were dancing dangerously close to the deadline.
If one of us didn’t find a way to summon the dragon soon, Cole and I would be back in Tartarus. We spent hours and hours in the library, searching. Sometimes Daphne joined me, sometimes, when I got too irritable, she went off to Xander and Ian while Cole tried to reassure me.
But even he was growing anxious. Sleep was an extravagance we could seldom afford. The thought of each other in the pits kept us awake even when we tried to rest.
“We should talk to Phaidros. See if he found a way around it.”
We were both loathe to ask the demon for anything, but we were out of options. It was past noon, and at midnight, it would be too late. Cole summoned Phaidros with his magic, but the demon simply sighed.
“Are you sure you’ve tried hard enough?” I prodded.
While I had dark circles under my eyes that would’ve qualified for their own realms and hadn’t so much as bathed in—two, three, maybe more—days, the demon was in freshly pressed clothing, his star-studded skin nearly luminescent.
Now his expression narrowed. “I’ve tried to form portals until my magic threatened to swallow me whole and take me to realms that shouldn’t even exist. Rest assured, dove, I haven’t been sitting aroundreading.” He cast a disdainful glance at the pile of books by my side.
We were in a corner of the library that was miraculously unoccupied. It wasn’t a formal place to receive guests, but I didn’t have the energy to care, and he wasn’t a guest anyway.
If we did run out the clock, I’d simply kill the demon before the pits took us. At least I’d have that bit of justice to savor while the under-realm drove me mad.
“At least we’re still looking for a solution,” I snapped.
“Oh? And what do you expect to find?”
He was obviously fishing, but there was no point denying him. “We’re looking for a way to summon a dragon.”
Phaidros’s mouth quirked, ready to scoff at us, before he paused the expression and considered. “That could work. My mother can block me, but even she can’t stop one of the great sky beasts.”
“Do you know a way?” Cole asked, contempt and fatigue bleeding into the words. “You’ve possessed a deal of knowledge you should not have, as though you’ve slunk into countless conversations where you didn’t belong.”
Phaidros grinned, like Cole had praised him, before turning serious. “I vow to the Styx I do not. If I did, I would tell you so you could kill my mother.”
“But youdidknow a way,” I argued, pieces clicking into place. “You summoned the undead dragon before.”
“Yousummoned the Queen’s Dragon in her decayed state,” he corrected. “Sorry, darling, but planting-the-teeth-of-the-last-Queen’s-dragon only works once while the dragon itself is sitting between the realms. Once you healed the dragon, that door closed.”
I frowned. I’d been so caught up in everything that had happened immediately after I’d healed the dragon—Cole nearly dying, then getting dragged to the pits—I hadn’t really thought about it.
Phaidros sat at an empty table and kicked his legs up. I glared. “You can go now.”
To accentuate my point, I opened a portal right next to him.
He glanced at it, half amused. “If this is how my last hope dies, I may as well savor it.”
