Chapter 14

The darkness of the library gave us only a moment's grace to find cover before the lights snapped on.

Caitriona and I dove behind the map case, tucking ourselves behind its bulky stand. Olwen slipped behind the statue, pressing flat against the alcove's wall.

"—just take a second—" came a man's voice. The sounds of the party, music and laughter, flowed in behind him. His tone changed in an instant. "What the devil are you doing in here?"

Caitriona gripped my wrist, her gaze meeting mine in silent question. I shifted, risking a quick look out from behind the stand.

"What does it look like?" came Emrys's drawl.

My heart leapt into my throat, fingers curling against the plush rug beneath us.

"Oh—Gods, I'm sorry, I didn't realize—" Judging by his accent, the Hollower was one of the London guild members. "I didn't recognize you there, Mr. Dye."

He was all but bleating with deference, one terrified heartbeat away from bowing and scraping.

"Does Wyrm know you're here?" he continued, his voice growing faint at Emrys's cold silence. "He told me that your father hadn't sent his regrets, so we weren't … sure."

Emrys stepped out from behind the shelves, his arm looped around Neve's shoulder. She leaned her head against him, her arm wrapped around his waist. "It's always fun to keep a bit of mystery, isn't it?"

"Oh, well, yes," the man said, eyeing them—Emrys dressed for a vault job, and Neve in jeans, her sweater, and a dark purple jacket, both a far cry from the black tie the invitation had clearly called for.

I just barely held in a shocked laugh; they'd mussed up their hair and clothing, as if they'd been caught midfumble in one of the library's many dark corners. The Hollower was either too polite or too scared to comment on it.

"This is—" Emrys covered his hesitation with an adoring gaze at Neve, and suddenly, I didn't feel like laughing. "This is Violet."

This is what he does, I thought. Play pretend.

Neve took the moment with a cool confidence, dismissing the man's outstretched hand with a single devastating look. "Enchanted, I'm sure."

When the Hollower looked down to collect his thoughts, having clearly forgotten what he'd come in for, Neve shot Emrys a look. She motioned to her jacket, mouthing, Violet? Seriously? He gave her a helpless shrug.

"Shall I take you to, ah, greet our host, then?" the man said. "I'm certain he'll be overjoyed to see you again. And he'll want to show you the mantle, of course …"

"Fine," Neve said, feigning irritation. "I was getting bored anyway."

Emrys's brows lifted as he swallowed a laugh.

"Right, then," the Hollower said. The silver pin on the man's tuxedo flashed as he opened the door, and Emrys startled. He drew Neve in closer to his side, his hand tightening around her shoulder.

"Some pin you've got there," Emrys said, raising his voice ever so slightly. Meaningfully.

I looked again, squinting to see the pin as the man turned back toward Emrys in surprise. It was a hand holding a bare branch, cast in silver.

The breath stilled in my chest .

It was the very same one I had seen on both Emrys's father and Septimus Yarrow in the weeks leading up to our journey to Avalon.

But the pin and my growing uneasiness were pushed to the back of my mind when Neve caught my eye over her shoulder. As the door closed behind them and they were swallowed up into the festive scene, she tilted her head with a clear message. Go.

The lights automatically shut off, throwing us back into darkness. After a beat, Caitriona leapt to her feet to go after them, but I grabbed her arm.

"Come on," I whispered. "Now's our chance."

Caitriona whirled toward me, whispering furiously, "And leave her alone with them?"

"We have to," I told her. "I don't like it either, but she can handle it."

Caitriona remained unmoved.

"The sooner we find the mirror, the sooner we can return for them," Olwen reasoned, though she didn't quite sound convinced herself.

"Emrys said to look for Tennyson's Idylls of the King, " I said. Unfortunately for us, we had no idea why.

With a hard breath through her nose, Caitriona finally relented, and forced herself to join us as we searched the shelves.

"Oh—here!" Olwen called. She was in front of the bookcase just to the right of the fireplace. Her fingers skimmed along the old cloth spines. And somehow, even before she tried to tug the book free, I knew what would happen.

With a horrible scraping groan, the fireplace—swords, mantel, and all—slid down into the floor, and behind it were the very modern silver doors of an elevator.

"Great Mother," Olwen breathed out, leaning around the bookcase with wide eyes.

"Okay," I said begrudgingly. "That was a little cool."

It was a small lift, big enough for two people at most, and only had a single button .

"I'll meet you down there in a second," I told them, bundling a hesitant Caitriona and Olwen inside. I stepped back to keep watch on the entrance to the library. The elevator doors closed.

Why did he point out the pin? I thought, circling back to that moment, to the unguarded look of alarm on Emrys's face.

The elevator doors opened again. Caitriona and Olwen stood there, flummoxed. I stared back, equally confused before I realized my mistake.

Caitriona stomped a foot to the ground.

"Down!" she ordered in an imperious tone.

"Please?" Olwen offered, staring up at the ceiling, in case that helped.

Flipping the book back into place, I managed to leap over the fireplace before it closed the elevator off from the room again.

"Sorry, sorry, I forgot." I squeezed in with them, weight limit be damned, and leaned forward so the sensors would allow the doors to shut. I reached behind me, and after assessing the various emergency and call buttons, hit the one labeled CELLAR .

Caitriona's hands shot out to steady us as the elevator rumbled to life and began its descent.

"So this is what we call an elevator," I told them, watching their expressions transform from fear to curiosity. "An alternative to stairs. It also rises."

"Oh," Olwen said, looking all too tempted by the panel of buttons in front of her. "Marvelous!"

Caitriona looked ready to pry the doors open by force. "This is unnatural."

"But convenient!" I said, a bit too cheerful.

The trip down into the cellar was mercifully short. Before we spilled out into the narrow stone hall, I twisted toward Olwen. "Can you take out the little red velvet bag from the front pocket of my jacket?"

"What is this?" Olwen whispered, holding it up. "It feels … "

"Dark," Caitriona finished.

I took it from her, letting the spent crystals spill out into my palm. The magic trapped inside thrummed against my skin. "Take one."

Olwen held hers close to her eye, studying the rippling light trapped inside the quartz.

"They've absorbed the magic of curses," I told them. "They'll interfere with any electronic security system down here, including cameras."

I might as well have been speaking in tongues.

"Electronic … cameras?" Olwen repeated, testing the sound of the words.

"I promise I'll explain it later, when we're not about to commit theft," I said. "Follow close behind me, and let me know if you see any strange symbols on the wall—"

Caitriona immediately pointed to the glowing emergency exit sign, a man running from fire toward an open door.

I clarified, "Any strange symbols that look like curse sigils you've seen before."

"Got it," Olwen whispered, beginning an eager search.

With the crystals interfering, any automatic sensors for lights didn't switch on, leaving us in darkness until Olwen let out a soft hum and snapped, creating a small blue flame at her fingertip. We followed the short hall into the main chamber of the cellar.

Barrels of whiskey and shelves of wine bottles greeted us. I did a slow lap around the room, scanning the stone walls for doorways or curse sigils. My frown deepened.

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" Caitriona asked.

"Not even a little," I said, annoyed all over again that Emrys had managed to get both himself and Neve caught. So much for him being useful.

"At least it's warm down here," Olwen said, rubbing her arms.

It really wasn't. There were no vents to bring in heat, allowing the winter cold to seep in through the foundations. But as I circled back toward her, I felt it too. The air warmed like a breath around us .

I backed up toward the nearest wall, keeping a hand outstretched to follow the trail of warm air. I checked the floors for sigils and this time saw what I had missed before. Half of a sigil was carved into the floor at the place where it met the stone wall and had been painted to blend into the tile.

"Oh," I said. "What a clever little Wyrm."

"What is it?" Olwen asked.

I couldn't resist showing them. I walked back toward the wall, keeping my hand out in front of me. Instead of meeting stone, my hand passed through the wall, as if it had been nothing but air.

It was nothing but air. The other half of the mirage sigil was visible as I stepped through the doorway, into the actual storage room.

"God's teeth," I whispered.

It wasn't a room, it was a warehouse —not just for relics, it seemed, but artwork, statues from antiquity, and furniture that looked like it had been scavenged from some beheaded king's palace.

I was so used to crawling around dusty old vaults and researching the past that it was disorienting to see such a modern, almost futuristic setup. Everything was sleek metal and clean shapes. The storage cases that contained relics were lit by dim lights and temperature controlled, covered by both locked steel cages and protective wards.

As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I scanned the walls and floors for any other sigils that might trigger an alarm, a trap, or worse.

"Don't step on any of the rugs," I told them. "There could be curse sigils beneath them."

"What is all of this?" Olwen asked, holding her flame higher to better see. Rows and rows of tables and chairs were scattered throughout.

"Their real library," I said. "And storage for their finds." Most of the guilds focused exclusively on legendary, magical relics rather than priceless antiques and mortal-made treasures, but it seemed that the London guild was branching out.

"Hello?"

The faint voice was as soft and sweet as a songbird's. For a moment, I thought it had come from upstairs or the wine room, but Caitriona held out a hand, stopping us.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

"Yes," Olwen called back before I could stop her. "Where are you?"

"H-Here."

The voice was already faltering, as if swallowed by the gloom. We moved toward it, past the barred cases, past the shelves of Immortalities, to the unlit end of the room, where a tall object was hidden by thick fabric. Caitriona gripped it, pulling it away with a single hard tug.

The mirror revealed itself in all its towering glory, its silver frame adorned with beasts of every kind—dragons, unicorns, lions, falcons, stags. We saw none of it. Not at first.

Not when there was a trembling, pale-faced girl staring back at us from the other side of the glass.