Chapter Twenty-One
The neoclassical manor of the Shelter seemed quiet compared to the last time I’d been there. The makeshift camp that housed many Mystiks, wizards, and guards during the uprising was gone. To the south of the manor, the lake was a dark gray, with clouds covering the moon.
With labored breaths, struggling with her tote bag, Nana tried to keep up with us.
“Here. Let me carry it for a while,” Afton said, adjusting the pack on her back before taking Nana’s bag from her.
Nana smiled and patted Afton’s arm. “Thank you, dear.”
We crossed a bridge arching over the river and walked on a cobbled pathway that cut through the tiny rows of cottages. Not a single villager was out as they were the first time I had walked the roads. Only a few of the windows had flickering lights behind their thick glass windows. No voices greeted us when we came into the foyer of the Shelter.
“Something isn’t right.” I held on tighter to my bag with Gian’s book inside as I quietly walked into the den. The furniture resembled hunched ghosts covered with sheets. “No one is here.”
Panic fluttered in my chest. Where are they? Pop?
Bastien crossed the room to the large brick hearth that dominated one of the walls. He grabbed a metal rod leaning in a stand beside it and poked at the charcoaled logs.
“It’s wet,” he said. “Someone put it out with water. They were here not too long ago.”
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Afton twisted the handles of Nana’s tote bag.
Nana clicked her tongue. “Now, now, dear, we always stay positive in moments like this. We wouldn’t want to invite bad karma, now, would we?”
My chest tightened as all the horrible things that could have happened raced through my mind.
Pop was supposed to be there with Afton’s parents. Bastien’s mother and her guards had been hiding at the Shelter for months. Briony and Galach should have already arrived there, too. But they hadn’t. They were gone—or worse, taken.
“Where are they?” I asked, frustration in my voice.
“By the looks of things, they were covering up their presence here.” Bastien stood and wiped the wet cinders from his fingers onto his pant leg. “Perhaps they went to the basement. There’s a hideout there.”
I followed him down the basement steps. Nana and Afton waited at the top of the stairs for us. As I landed on the bottom floor, my hands shook. Bastien went to the farthest wall to a heavy mahogany wardrobe.
At first, I thought he would open the doors and we would travel through the wardrobe to another magical realm just like in one of my favorite books, but instead he searched the side of it. His arm jerked and a click sounded.
“Stand back,” he warned me before calling, “Hello! Is there anyone inside? I am Bastien Renard of Couve.”
“Bastien?” a woman’s voice came from the other side of the wall.
The wardrobe swung out. A guard with huge muscles and a receding hairline, his sword extended in front of him, eased through the opening. “C’est lui,” the guard said. “Bastien.”
Sabine, wearing a tunic with pants and boots, squeezed by the guard. “Mon cher fils,” she said, throwing her arms around Bastien. They had the same dark hair, except gray streaked hers.
He hugged her back. “Mère.”
Another guard, taller, with fewer muscles and more hair, came out.
The moment a tuft of red hair peeked out from behind the door, I knew who it was. “Pop,” I cried and ran into his arms before he had a chance to enter the basement. “I was so worried.”
“Welcome to my world,” he muttered against my head. “I’ve been out of my mind worrying about you.”
I pulled back to get a better look at him. There were more wrinkles pressing into his forehead and around his eyes, and the bags under them had deepened.
“I can take care of myself.”
His thumb gently traced the scar across my cheek and there was a sadness in his eyes. “Doesn’t stop my fear of losing you.”
“Where are my parents?” Afton bit her bottom lip. I hadn’t even heard her come downstairs.
Pop glanced over at her. “They weren’t home when the guards came for me. They’re in New Mexico. Your grandmother had a fall.”
Concern struck her face. “Abuelita? What happened to her?”
“She broke her wrist,” Pop said. “But is doing much better. Thankfully, it wasn’t a hip.”
She stopped worrying her lip. “So they’re all safe?”
“They are,” he said.
To our side, Briony, Galach, and a few guards shuffled out from behind the wardrobe. Kayla Bagley, wearing a guard’s uniform, her apricot hair pulled tightly back, was right behind them.
I pushed away from Pop, pulling the dagger out of the holster around my thigh. “What is she doing here?”
Kayla was the guard sent to Branford to watch over the gateway book in the library there. She was supposed to help us with our search for the Chiavi. Instead, she was a spy for Conemar, and she’d turned on us. Not to mention she had been dating Pop and broke his heart into pieces.
Pop grasped my hand, the one strangling the dagger, and lowered my arm. “We are safe because of her.”
“Nick is gone because of her,” I snapped.
“No,” Kayla said. “You don’t understand. I was a double agent for Merl. Conemar thought I had turned to his side. If I hadn’t helped him escape that day on your front lawn, more of you would have died. It was either Nick or all of you. And I knew Conemar would never kill his son.”
“How do we know you’re not lying?” I asked.
She removed a cell phone from her pants pocket and searched for something on the screen, then handed it to me. “I have proof. It’s a video from Merl in case I was ever caught.”
Hearing Merl’s name twisted my heart. He had been Asile’s high wizard before he was murdered and Uncle Philip took his place.
I inspected the cell phone. It was the exact match to the one Ricardo, a Laniar who’d died helping me, had once. It also had a message from Merl to me. I pressed play.
Merl’s weary face popped on the screen. “Whoever receives this video, know that Kayla Bagley is a guard for Asile. I enlisted her to spy on Conemar. To become a turncoat, so to speak. She is to receive complete immunity from any crime committed while in my service. May Agnes guide you…in your duties and in removing this threat on ours and the human world.” A loud boom went off somewhere off screen.
He glanced behind him. “We’re under attack. Kayla, you must go. Use the secret passage.” The video was still playing as he handed her the phone.
“Your Highness, come with me,” she pleaded. The images of his office were jumpy as she moved.
“No,” he said. “They know I’m in here, and will assume I had a secret escape. I can’t risk them finding you. You must get back to Branford. Besides, I won’t leave my people.” I could barely see what he was doing with the screen jerking all over the place. He tugged on the side of a portrait of Taurin, the Seventh Wizard, and it opened like a door. The video stopped and Kayla’s legs froze on the screen.
The words clogging my throat wouldn’t come out. I gave her back the phone and turned away from everyone. Facing the brick wall, I tried to gather my emotions. Merl. It was right before he died. He could have saved himself. Instead, he felt saving Kayla was more important than his own life.
I turned back around and found Kayla’s gaze. “Why were you hiding down here?”
“I overheard Conemar order Odil to take some of Couve’s guards and search the Shelter for Sabine,” Kayla said.
“How come they didn’t find you in the hiding place?” I asked.
“Because my husband had it built,” Sabine said. “He only told me and his most trusted son, Bastien, about its existence. Never had he put such faith in Odil.” There was regret in her eyes at the mention of her older son’s name.
I found Bastien’s gaze. “I need to get to the library. My first duty is to Royston. But you have to get everyone here to a safe place.”
“I won’t let you go by yourself,” he said.
“They need someone more powerful than guards to protect them, Bastien,” I said. “They need a wizard. You couldn’t go all the way with me, anyway, just to the first library. We don’t have time to argue. I need to go now.”
“All right,” he said. Though his head was nodding his agreement, his eyes were protesting. “Where should I take them?”
“To the New York Public Library,” I said. “Jump with them at the same time the Mystiks make the library hop diversion. Go to the lowest level and then to the north wall. At the bottom is a tiny starburst. Push on it and a door will open. Follow the tunnel. It will lead you to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Your entry will alert Father Peter, and he will meet you.”
“Right. Father Peter. Got it.”
“Okay, we have to hurry. I’ll go with you to the library, make sure you get through before I leave.”
Their concerned faces touched my heart. Though I was afraid to go alone, I knew it was the only way to ensure that Pop and the others were safe. Guards were great fighters, but they would be no match for a wizard.
I stormed up the stairs, the clomping of boots shaking the steps behind me as the others followed. They couldn’t see the fear in my eyes or the tears gathering in them. I had to be strong.
Bastien needed to go with them. It was the only way. I wanted to tell him every secret in my heart. Tell him how I felt the spark between us the first time we met. Tell him I forgave him and that I was scared to lose him.
But there wasn’t time.
We never had enough time.
…
I’d chosen the George Peabody Library in Baltimore because it was large enough to hide Gian’s book containing the entry into the uninhabited coven where the Tetrad’s prison was located. And I didn’t want anyone discovering it while we were gone.
The stark room contained five stories of galleries behind ornamental cast-iron banisters. Walls rose dramatically up to a skylight of several glass panels with metal crisscrossing inside, framed with white painted wood. The huge open room was like an atrium for books.
There was a small movement in the shadows on the floor. I whirled on my heel, searching the library, but there was nothing there.
“Stop freaking yourself out,” I said. “It was just a trick of the light.”
Placing my bag down, I stood on the black-and-white tiled floor and watched the gateway book, listening to the sound of silence. The cool air swirling inside the library brushed the back of my neck and kissed my cheeks. I turned my wrist over and checked the time on Carrig’s watch.
It was just turning two in London.
Anytime now.
The pages of the gateway book flipped, and I backed up.
“Accendere il fuoco,” I said, creating a fire globe on my palm.
Royston flew out of the gateway book, that cocky grin on his face. His light brown hair had been cut, and soft waves brushed his jawline; he’d also shaven. He towered over me with his wide shoulders and long, muscular torso.
It took me by surprise when he snatched me up in a hug. “Milady is well?”
I wiggled out of his arms. “I’m good.”
He intently watched me before nodding, his eyes on my cheek. “You were hurt.”
“It’s nothing. I’m much better now.” I picked up my bag with Gian’s My Magnificent Journeys inside. The gateway book lifted and flew off to wherever it belonged. “We need to get going.”
“Aren’t we meeting the others?” he asked, following me across the tiled floor.
I turned to face him. “I didn’t want anyone else to know. They have no idea what I have planned for us. We need to end things. It’s getting bad.”
“What about the mission?”
“It’s finished,” I said. “You’re out of Asile. So are the others. Now we have another one to complete.”
He lowered his head, nodding. “I will do whatever you wish.”
“We’re going to destroy the Tetrad on our own.”
He lifted his hazel eyes to mine, his stare boring into me. “Then that is what we will do. I only wished to make my farewells. Can you deliver them for me?”
“Yes, of course.” I swallowed. The resolve on his face, the knowing that he only had a little time left to live, threatened to break me. “I’m so sorry.”
“You did nothing but be my friend.”
There was something noble about Royston. He would give his life to save two worlds full of strangers, not even people from his own time. What did he owe us? Nothing. Athela had made him our sacrificial lamb, and we didn’t deserve his offering.
“I am your friend, Royston,” I said. “I won’t leave your side. You won’t be alone.”
“Thank you, Gianna.” Grabbing the back of my neck, his massive biceps flexing, he pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. “I have complete faith in you.”
He released me, and I took a few steps back from him. “What do you want me to say to the others?”
“Thank Cadby for his service. Tell him he was cherished as a father. Deidre, I cared deeply for her and wished we could have had more time together. The others, thank them for making me feel as if I belonged to a family for the first time in a long while. I shall miss our times in the hideout.”
“I will,” came out so quiet, I wasn’t sure he’d heard me.
“I am ready,” he said. “My father is waiting for me.”
We needed to find a more private place where the book would be safe until our return. I led Royston up the stairs to the fifth level and between two lines of bookcases. Below us, boots hitting the marble floor resounded through the library. I dropped to my knees and pulled Royston down beside me.
“Someone’s here,” I said, barely audible.
Shit. What do I do? Think of a plan.
“You are in the light.” Royston dragged me back like a rag doll. “What shall we do?”
I have to get him out of here.
I removed Gian’s book from the bag and retrieved the leather canister from inside my boot, then shoved them both behind the books on the shelf beside us.
“I’m going to distract them,” I whispered. “You jump through the gateway book to Chetham’s library in Manchester, England. Wait there. A book faery will show you to the Barmhilde coven. Tell The Red who you are. He’ll protect you. Okay? Did you get that?”
He nodded. “Chetham. Wait for a faery. Go to Barmhilde. Seek The Red.”
“Good,” I said.
Lifting my wrist, I blew on the silver butterfly embedded in my skin, gave her instructions, and she flitted off. I untied my breastplate and lifted my shirt under Royston’s questioning look. My fingers shook as I placed them on the crown and whispered the charm. I bit the back of my hand as the Chiave ripped from my skin.
“Take it,” I said, grunting through the fading pain. “Wear it while jumping. It will shield you. Don’t lose it. Keep it safe until I make it back to you. We need it to release the Tetrad.”
He grasped it. “I will do as you say.”
The boots below us were shuffling around fast as they searched the library. How did they know to follow Royston’s jump? The guard’s mark that enabled him to jump was old. Maybe the Monitors could tell it was ancient.
I stood and motioned for Royston to go the other way. With quick, quiet steps, I found the stairs and went down to the lower level. When I came into the main room, my breath punched out of me.
Arik turned at the sound of my boots against the marble floor.