Time seemed to slow. Reflected in the glass, the wavering flames of the candles stood still. Snowflakes hung sparkling in the air. She didn’t know if it was Nathaniel’s doing, or a different kind of magic entirely.
A fierce, urgent joy thrummed through her body. She felt as though she could leap out the window and take flight, soaring high above the rooftops, impervious to the cold. She closed her eyes and gripped Nathaniel’s back, lost in the overwhelming sensation of his mouth against her skin.
A knock came on the door.
Heat scalded Elisabeth’s cheeks as they both jerked upright. Minutes ago, the door had been open. Silas must have closed it at some point, and she could only imagine what he’d seen. “We’re decent,” she said, tugging the edges of her dressing gown into place.
The door creaked open. As usual, Silas’s expression gave no indication of his thoughts. She instantly felt foolish for imagining that, after centuries of living among humans, he might have the capacity to be shocked by her and Nathaniel’s behavior.
“Master,” he said. “Miss Scrivener. I am sorry to disturb you, but you must come at once. Something is happening to the Codex Daemonicus.”
For a split second, Elisabeth sat frozen, her ears ringing with Silas’s words. Then she burst upright, almost bowling the armchair over in her haste to seize Demonslayer from the corner. Without a second thought, she charged outside.
Her eyes watered. She coughed. A haze hung over the hallway, and when she reached the stairwell, smoke billowed up from the foyer in oily clouds. The sour, unmistakable stench of burning leather choked her nostrils. Dimly, she was aware of Nathaniel and Silas following her as she flew down the stairs.
“Did anything spill on the Codex?” she shouted over her shoulder, mentally going over the precautions they had taken. Following the night that it had transformed into a Malefict, she had been careful not to set any candles nearby. But perhaps one of the potions in the study had exploded, or a magical artifact had acted up—
“No, miss,” Silas replied. “Until a moment ago, all was well.”
Elisabeth’s stomach twisted. If the damage to the Codex hadn’t happened on their end, that could only mean one thing.
Ashcroft had found a way inside.
THIRTY
WHEN ELISABETH REACHED the study, she drew up short, squinting through the smoke that filled the room. Her blood ran cold as she took in the scene. The Codex hovered several inches above Nathaniel’s desk, its pages fanned out, splayed at such a hideous angle that it risked breaking its own spine. Embers danced along the edges of the pages, and the cover’s leather bubbled like boiling tar.
Nathaniel appeared next to her, his shirt pulled over his nose to block out the smoke. “It looks like it’s being tortured.”
That was precisely what Elisabeth feared. “I have to go in,” she said, starting toward the grimoire.
He caught her arm. “Wait. We have no idea what’s happening. You could get trapped in there.”
His face was pale. Regret pierced her like a blade. She would give anything to reverse time, to be back upstairs with him, her troubles far away.
“You’re right, but we have no other option. If Ashcroft is torturing Prendergast, I must stop him, or at least try.”
He opened his mouth to object, but she didn’t hear what he said. She had already reached out and taken hold of the Codex, its cover searing her hand like a hot iron even through the bandages, and the world was spinning away.
She appeared in Prendergast’s workshop with a stumble, almost slipping on the wet floorboards underfoot. The room looked as though it had been through an earthquake. The table lay overturned on its side; cracks splintered the ceiling beams. A tremor shook the dimension, and jars slid down the buckled shelves and shattered, spilling their slimy contents across the floor.
And this time, she hadn’t come alone. Nathaniel’s hand gripped her arm. Silas stood beside him, holding his wrist in turn. They exchanged looks. Either Prendergast had let them in on purpose, or he was no longer able to keep them out.
“Oh, wonderful,” Prendergast said weakly. “More visitors. Forgive me for not getting up and offering you tea.”
He lay crumpled on the floor between the leaning shelves, as though someone had thrown him there like a discarded rag. Elisabeth dove to his side. His complexion was the color of porridge, his face contorted with pain.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s Ashcroft?”
Prendergast dissolved into a fit of coughing. When he recovered, he gasped, “You’ve just missed him. We had a delightful chat.” Elisabeth bit back her frustration as more coughs wracked his thin frame. “Help me sit up, girl,” he panted at last. “That’s it. I want to see what he’s done to my . . . oh.” He fell silent. She followed his gaze. Across the room, embers smoldered along the broken edges of the floorboards, exactly like the Codex’s pages. Ashes swirled away into the void.
“The dimension is collapsing,” Nathaniel provided for Elisabeth’s benefit, coming into view. “We can’t stay here long. A few minutes at best.”
Prendergast’s eyes widened. “You. You’re a Thorn.” He turned to Elisabeth and spat, “Are you mad, bringing someone like him along? Have you any idea who he is?”
Nathaniel tensed. Reflexively, he ran a hand through his hair—trying to make the silver streak less visible, she realized. “You weren’t a friend of Baltasar’s, I take it.”
Prendergast sneered. “Certainly not, demons take him. Those of us with any sense stayed as far away from him as we could. Even Cornelius wouldn’t touch him. And you’re the spitting image of him, boy.”
Nathaniel looked sick. Elisabeth couldn’t let this go on. “We need to know what happened,” she interrupted. “Is Ashcroft coming back? I don’t see why he would have left, unless . . .”
She trailed off. Prendergast wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Unless you told him your secret,” she finished.
“In my defense,” he said, “pain is considerably more persuasive when one hasn’t felt it in hundreds of years.” He shrank from Elisabeth’s expression.
“What did you tell him? We need to know!”
“If you think I am going to allow the truth to fall into the hands of a Thorn—”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s over!” She resisted the urge to shake him until his teeth rattled. “All of this, everything you’ve done”—she waved at the workshop—“will have been for nothing if you don’t help us. Nathaniel is here to stop Ashcroft. Whether you believe that or not, you’re almost out of time. This is your last chance to make things right.”
Prendergast’s head hung. His mouth twisted into a grimace. Several seconds passed, and then he seemed to come to a decision. “Watch closely,” he instructed sourly. “I don’t intend to repeat myself.”
He yanked six rings from his gaunt fingers. While Elisabeth and Nathaniel watched, perplexed, he started arranging them on the ground. Understanding dawned as he set the final ring in place. The shape was as familiar to Elisabeth as the back of her own hand. One ring in the center, the five others spread around it to form an evenly spaced circle.
“What pattern have I made?” he asked.
“The Great Libraries,” Elisabeth answered, at the same time Nathaniel said, with equal certainty, “A pentagram.”
Silence fell.
Elisabeth looked again, more closely this time. In her mind’s eye she drew lines between each of Prendergast’s rings, connecting them to create a star inside the circle. The shape was a pentagram. But it was also a map of the Great Libraries. It was both.
Dread slammed into her, knocking the air from her lungs. “Counterclockwise,” she whispered. When Nathaniel looked at her, she said, “Something has been bothering me all day, ever since Katrien’s map arrived. I know what it is now. The attacks on the Great Libraries are occurring counterclockwise. Knockfeld, Summershall, Fettering, Fairwater. Then Harrows. The pattern reminded me of when I lit the candles for Silas�
��s summoning.”
“Go on, girl.” Prendergast’s dark eyes glittered. “You’re almost there.”
She turned to him and said, “Cornelius built the Great Libraries.”
“Yes. He constructed them to form a summoning circle.”
Elisabeth’s mind reeled. She wondered, distantly, if she might be ill. She didn’t want to believe Prendergast. If he was telling the truth, the Collegium had been founded on the darkest lie imaginable. Her own life, a lie. The magic that flowed through her veins, the beauty and majesty of the Great Libraries—could it all have been for this?
She spoke haltingly, stumbling onward. “The Maleficts—Ashcroft intended for them to be defeated, didn’t he? That’s the point of the sabotage. He’s using them in place of candles.”
Prendergast nodded. “A ritual this size calls for more than wick and wax. When a Malefict is destroyed, it unleashes a vast amount of demonic energy. Position a sacrifice of that nature at each point of a pentagram, and one ends up with sufficient power to breach the veil for a greater summoning.”
Elisabeth’s nails dug into her palms. Once more she felt the effort of driving Demonslayer into the Book of Eyes, saw the gouts of ink pour forth as she twisted the blade. A crucial part of Ashcroft’s plan, carried out by her own hands.
“But why?” Nathaniel broke in. “Why create such a large circle? Ordinary pentagrams work perfectly well. There’s no reason he could possibly . . .” He paused, his narrowed eyes boring into Prendergast. “Ashcroft needed something from you before he could complete the ritual. What was it?”
Prendergast returned Nathaniel’s glare. Animosity darkened his features. “A name. That’s what I’ve been guarding all these years.”
“A name,” Nathaniel echoed flatly.
“You know of lesser demons, fiends and goblins and so on, the lowest subjects of demonic society. And you know of the highborn demons who rule them, like your demon there. But the highborn are ruled by something else in turn. On the Otherworld’s throne sits a being of almost limitless power—a creature called an Archon.”
Both Nathaniel and Elisabeth turned to Silas. His face was as inscrutable as a marble carving, but his yellow eyes, fixed upon Prendergast, seemed to glow with a cold inner light. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. Prendergast was telling the truth.
A humorless smile twisted Prendergast’s mouth. “Cornelius and I were close friends, or so I thought. I told him of my travels in the Otherworld. We theorized that the Archon’s true name could be used to summon it, supposing a sorcerer could assemble a ritual equal to the task, which I did not believe possible. For years, the matter never rose again between us. Then, one day, he asked me for the Archon’s name. By then he had already begun building the Great Libraries. When I realized what he was planning, and refused to tell him, he flew into a rage. Until that moment, I believe he truly expected me to help him. He viewed the Archon as a resource, something that could be harnessed and controlled for the betterment of mankind. . . .”
“Progress,” Elisabeth murmured. How ignorant she had been, they all had been, raising their glasses in praise of Ashcroft’s plan.
“Arrogance,” Prendergast corrected. “There is no controlling a being like the Archon. Yet Cornelius’s heir is going to attempt the summoning. Tonight.”
She looked to Silas. “What will happen if he succeeds?”
“If the Archon is permitted to enter your realm, its power will destroy the veil that separates our worlds.” Silas’s lips thinned. “Demons will run free, slaughtering your kind with abandon.”
She stood so quickly that the blood rushed from her head. “We must stop him,” she said, glancing to Nathaniel in appeal. The hopelessness she saw in his eyes sent a jolt through her stomach.
“Even the full strength of the Magisterium would take hours to breach Ashcroft’s wards. We don’t have that much time. He’ll have finished the ritual by then.”
“Then you go directly to Harrows,” Prendergast said, “and prevent the final sacrifice.”
“But it’s a three-day journey,” Elisabeth protested.
“Not necessarily.” Prendergast gripped the nearest shelf and wrenched himself to his feet. He staggered deeper between the broken shelves, trailing his fingers along the jars, skulls, and books that lay tumbled along them. Finally he dragged out a chain, on the end of which hung an onyx stone. No, not a stone—a round crystal vial, filled with blood.
“I alone discovered the means by which to travel between dimensions, to fold reality like a tapestry, joining one location to another. The magic lives on in my blood. Since I no longer possess a true physical form, this is the final sample remaining.” Bitterness warped his mouth. “And here I am, about to hand it over to a Thorn.”
Elisabeth couldn’t stand the mistrust etched across his face. “Nathaniel isn’t Baltasar,” she blurted out. “I swear to you, he’s different.”
Prendergast gave her a sour look. “There is enough blood to transport the three of you to Harrows and back.” He threw the vial to Nathaniel, who caught it one-handed, startled. “Use it carefully, boy. It will exact a toll.”
As Nathaniel ducked his head through the chain, Prendergast limped away. He set a chair upright and then leveled a bleak stare at the overturned table. Elisabeth lifted it back into place for him, even knowing her efforts wouldn’t do any good. The embers had eaten away another several feet of the floorboards. In minutes, the section they were standing on would be consumed, and the table would topple into the void.
Another tremor shook the workshop. Wood groaned, and more jars smashed around them. Prendergast’s fingers spasmed on the chair’s backrest.
“What about you?” she asked. “Can we take you with us?”
He shook his head. Slowly, as though every joint ached, he eased himself into the chair, facing the approaching darkness. “Go, girl,” he said in a rough voice. “My time is finished. Pray that yours meets a better end.”
THIRTY-ONE
ELISABETH FELL. IMAGES whipped past like scenes glimpsed through the window of a runaway carriage. Darkened hills. Trees silhouetted against the night sky. Countryside spread beneath a crescent moon. And stranger vistas, like a forest of gray, twisted branches shrouded in mist, and a ruin overgrown with luminous flowers. They were not hurtling through the mortal realm or the Otherworld, but somewhere in between.
She couldn’t close her eyes. In this place of nothingness she felt no wind, no breath, only the pressure of Nathaniel’s hand gripping her own, accompanied by the endless sensation of falling.
And then wind slammed against her body. It tore the breath from her lungs, whipped her hair around her face. Cold pierced to the marrow of her bones. The ground reeled beneath her as though she had been spinning in circles; the stars whirled overhead.
She staggered, only for her boot to meet empty air. An arm hooked around her waist and yanked her back. Stones tumbled from the lip of rock where she had stood a second before, plunging silently toward the trees far below. The three of them had materialized on a cliff’s edge. Stunned, she took in the dizzying drop as Silas dragged them away from the precipice.
“We seem to be in the right place,” he remarked, “but you may wish to take more care with your aim on the return journey, master.”
Nathaniel laughed, a wild sound. Then he bent over and retched. Something dark spattered the pine needles underfoot.
“It is not his blood, Miss Scrivener,” Silas said when she cried out in alarm. He steered Nathaniel toward a boulder and firmly sat him down before he fell over.
Of course. The vial hung half-empty against Nathaniel’s chest, the upper portion of the crystal coated in a red slime. In order to harness Prendergast’s magic, he had had to drink it. He’d explained the principles of the spell as they’d leaped from the disintegrating Codex back to his study, scrambling to tug their boots and coats on over their nightclothes. This was blood magic, strictly banned by the Reforms, which Elisabeth thought he had declared alto
gether too cheerfully as he’d raised the vial to his lips.
“Are you all right?” she asked, a twinge of nausea stealing through her relief.
Nathaniel grinned at her, even though he still looked slightly peaked. “Don’t worry, I’ve swallowed far less wholesome substances. Once, for instance, I was permanently banned from a lord’s estate for—”
“Let us save that story for another time, Master Thorn,” Silas interrupted, ignoring Nathaniel’s frown. “If memory serves, the Inkroad passes by this hill, and the Great Library lies less than a quarter mile onward. You will be able to reach it in a few minutes.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” she asked.
“I am a demon, Miss Scrivener,” he replied softly.
She looked down at her hands, which had curled into fists. Silas had fought back against Ashcroft as hard as any of them. But if he came with them, the wardens would attempt to kill him on sight. The injustice of it made her sick.
He paused, taking in her expression. “I will accompany you as far as the road. That should be safe enough, as long as I am not seen.”
They recuperated for a few moments longer before Silas vanished into the trees. Elisabeth thought she glimpsed where he had gone: a trembling branch, and a flash of white that might have been a cat’s fur. She helped Nathaniel back to his feet, shooting him a worried glance when he stumbled. Her own dizziness had worn off, but she had only experienced Prendergast’s magic secondhand. Nathaniel shouldn’t even be out of bed in the first place.
A springy mat of needles cushioned their steps as they picked their way down the hill, passing gnarled pines and stones that thrust from the earth like broken bones. Above them, the jagged range of the Elkenspine rose to soaring heights, the summits stark white and imposing against the night sky. Snow streamed from the peaks like pennants, blown loose by the wind. Elisabeth shivered. The wind tearing through the branches seemed to howl forth the landscape’s loneliness and isolation; her ears had already begun to sting from the cold.
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