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“Ruby, I need the library. You know, the place where we won’t get expelled for entering.”
“No,” she corrects smugly. “You need here. Assuming you still want to discover a way for Rhaegar to win the Nocturus?”
My eyes widen. How did she know that?
With a maniacal grin, she adds, “Unless you’re too scared to break a few rules, human?”
“Pfft.” I roll my eyes. “Where do we start?”
She swirls her hand in the air and a bright golden orb appears, floating just above her.
With my sprite lit up like a living flashlight, I search for the section labeled, Ceremonial Magic. A part of me wants to laugh at how different my life is now.
Three months ago, I was dead broke, desperate, and breaking into warehouses . . . now I’m still dead broke, desperate, and breaking into a library while using a tiny person as a flashlight.
I guess some things stay the same, after all.
When Ceremonial Magic proves to be a dead end—and also incredibly boring—I move on to Enhancing Your Power the Natural Way. Another dead end. The next section, The Forbidden Arts, is interesting only because I wonder why they don’t teach it in class—but it’s not helpful.
Ruby yawns above me, her little light bobbing as she wavers in the air. Afraid she’ll fall asleep midair and plummet to her death, I settle her on my shoulder and move on to the very last section.
A half hour later, with my sprite’s snores serenading me, I find a book without a spine covering. Curious, I pull the leather-bound tome from the shelf and search for a title. The front cover is missing, and the parchment feels as if it will crumble at the touch.
My heart leaps when I read the title page.
Histories of the Nocturus, from the Winter Wars until the Dark War.
“Gotcha.” I’m so excited that I fist pump the air, waking my sprite.
“What in the Fae hells?” she screeches. She nestles back on my shoulder, her eyes drifting closed . . . when they pop back open.
Alarm flickers across her face. “Do you smell that?”
The moment she mentions smell, my nose begins to pick up something. A fetid, dying odor. Like something dead is trapped beneath the floorboard. Except the rank odor is only growing stronger.
Ruby zips above my head, still sniffing the air. Then she hisses, “Deamhan,” and whips out a miniature dagger with a jeweled hilt. “Come meet your fate, deamhan!”
“Ruby, what’s a deamhan?” I demand just as the sound of something heavy stomps outside the library. Heavy and dragging. Each ominous thud shakes the floorboards and sends dust flying off shelves. A low, gravely bellow splits the air, and my gut clenches.
Ruby’s lilac eyes are big as peas. “Orc!”
26
By the loud noises, I was expecting the orc to be big, but not can’t-fit-through-the-freaking-door big. Ruby and I are watching from behind a bookshelf as the orc tries to duck under the doorway into the forbidden library. But it’s not just a matter of his looming height.
There’s no way his enormous frame will fit.
“Nothing in here for you, big guy,” I whisper. “Move along.”
The ropy muscles of the orc’s neck strain as he literally tries to cram his way through.
Not the brightest bulb, are you, bud?
He’s even more hideous than I imagined. Beady, all-black eyes blink from beneath a huge, overhanging brow, and an underbite sends his lower fangs curling all the way to his upper lip. Pointed ears shorter and more jagged than a Fae’s stick out from a bald head. His flesh looks rotten, all ashy and green-tinged.
With a frustrated howl, his head disappears from the doorway.
Ruby shoots into the air, waving her dagger. “That’s right, you hideous, wart-faced orc! You don’t want a piece of this.”
