Chapter Twenty-four: What Was Found

 

The magic clamping mine released and gently pulled the paint from me. I shut my eyes, feeling empty. I knew what Stavros was doing—in case I had shaken off his hard work—but still, wow, did his methods get results.

I let the rumbles of conflicting emotions rush through me. Deep breaths, acceptance. Anger wasn’t going to help me—only meaningful action.

Both Constantine and Axer released me physically, feeling me settle.

A flurry of sounds echoed around me, and I opened my eyes to see books flying on wings of parchment, fueled by calligraphic ink and magic.

Paint droplets hung in the air from where Axer had pulled them from me, like splatters on an invisible page, and the books swept around, opening their mouths and capturing each, like a feeding frenzy in a giant fish tank.

I blinked, and reality coalesced. A domed ceiling and a single room encompassed us. Upward, I could see a dizzying bird’s-eye view of the inside of Valeris’s palace as the book we were within flew in slow circles around the room we’d just escaped from—its pages flapping a shifting view of dozens of men wearing my brother's face hunting through the palace, their movements slowing strangely the longer I watched.

Inside, Axer’s magic was a physical presence around us as the books, who had finished snapping up paint droplets, circled hungrily.

A slow smile worked its way along my mouth as I looked around at the perches and papered nests. “We...entered a library? Inside a book?”

I looked back up at the domed ceiling, just as quickly. “If they have an Origin Elite, will the hunters be able to enter as well?”

“Doubtful. Neither of us could see the book without you actively infusing us. Even after using your magic extensively at Crelussa and Verrange. No, I think this is an active Origin Mage infusion. I think we are safe in here—” Axer looked around. “Or as safe as we can hope.”

Constantine was at attention on my other side, his posture indolent, but his emotions tight. Guard Rock and the cat were watching with interest at his feet.

Guard Rock tilted his rock at them, then padded over to me. He jabbed at my pitted and torn cloak until he found the pocket he desired, then he slit the pocket with his pencil tip.

“Hey! That one was actually remarkably intact.” The remains of the Origin Book splayed out on the floor, and I immediately tried to gather them back together.

The books started swirling faster.

Guard Rock poked at my hands, then the papers. He moved one page with his pencil toward another. Pushing them together into a destroyed book pile. The books immediately started flying in an agitated, tight circle above us, and the lines of Axer’s body shifted, magic swirling under his skin.

Guard Rock sat on his haunches and poked the pile with his pencil again.

Nothing.

He did it again.

“Your rock is losing it,” Constantine said, tilting his head back, but keeping his gaze moving between all the possible dangers. “How long until the cat turns on us, too?”

The cat bristled, offended, and bit his shin.

Smoke rose on the third stab of his pencil and Guard Rock swirled the shreds. Mist rose into the air and formed a constellation of points.

The books above us began to fly tight patterns through the constellation.

“Great.” Constantine sighed, closing his eyes while painfully detaching the cat from his leg, then stroking it. He looked at Axer from the side of his eyes. “This is where we usually go on a field trip. It will have monsters and insanity. You’ll love it.”

Guard Rock herded us closer together, then shook his pencil and stamped it on the ground. His pencil was gripped in staff-ready position.

Constantine watched the byplay, strangely relaxed. “Your rock thinks he needs to stand guard with us now, when he didn't at a man-eating house. I feel concern.”

I eyed Guard Rock, whose gaze swept the room. “Let's stay optimistic,” I said, reaching out for the map displayed in the air.

“No one thinks that's a good idea.”

“I think it's a good idea.”

“You are full of bad ideas. Your vote doesn't count,” he said, still strangely, loosely relaxed, as if he recognized temporary safety and was ready to grab it with both hands. “Neither of your votes count.”

I very carefully sifted through the constellation points.

“This one.” I pulled the pieces into my palm and concentrated. Maps and worlds shifted through my mind, then settled. “The Broken Palace, created by Flavel Valeris, currently in Third Layer Golina—no, now in Olterre, now Flet.” I shook my head as the switches continued unabated. “And inside of it, The Library of Broken Books.”

“A myth,” Axer said, looking upward at the book tornado that was forming.

“Hidden,” I murmured. I looked around. “The Origin Book highlighted it as a place of safety.”

I pictured the book winging off while we were off on adventure. I looked down at Guard Rock, who looked solemnly back. Whatever the book had been doing, I had a feeling I would find out here. Paint swirled upward in my throat, but I grabbed the swirls of ultramarine and violet lingering in the air and swallowed it all back down—more easily this time than any other.

“That was almost controlled,” Constantine said, touching the back of my neck, grounding me with the residuals of the magic we’d called in Crelussa.

“I feel...” I frowned. “Not as bad.”

Both exhausted and wired, yes. And I had nearly lost everything. But now that I could explore it, it was like there was a buffer between my world ending capabilities and the world ending.

“Maybe it’s being here?” I looked around. “The palace? The library?”

I watched five books collect Ori’s remains. They huddled over it, then started slowly piecing pages together. Hope filled me.

Bloodthirsty Bonds and Chains landed, but stayed just out of reach, hawkish pages stiffly rippling.

A tattered, well-used copy of The Twelve Black Steps landed at its side. I stared at it. It rippled its pages—death, decay, and ancient promise in the gesture and proposition. A memory played across its cover—of Christian tossing footballs with me, then tackling me as I crossed an imaginary goal line. We were both splayed on the ground, limbs akimbo, laughing.

“Oh, that is not good,” I murmured faintly.

Death Magic landed next to it, examining me like one might a social curiosity.

Robberies Involving Mental Torture landed next to Bloodshed: One Hundred and One Ways. A scream of anguish screeched from its pages.

I shuddered. “Why are most of them, you know…?”

“Mad?” Constantine asked, poking the book with his toe so it shut before it could issue a second scream. “Did you think 'Broken Books' meant physically?”

“Why are they all so specific?” I clarified.

“Books are specifically created,” Axer said.

Bookspeller’s Last Moments—subtitled Now with 10 Accounts!—landed next to Ori, and the others made room for it. I grimaced. I really hoped those accounts had been given freely.

“Do all books of similar title talk?” I asked Axer, looking at The Twelve Black Steps.

“They are all born of the same tome. But they imbue their own memories once they are in the wild. You can determine the edition number with a spell.”

I remembered the shopkeeper’s words. “You give up a piece of your own soul for the kind of magic The Twelve promotes. And it doesn't work out how you think it's going to.”

I remembered the brittle cracking of his face, like someone breaking from within.

I remembered what the pristine version on the Fourth Floor looked like.

“Yeah… I think we’ve got a first edition here.”

The Twelve Black Steps bent its covers and pages to form a grisly smile.

Axer frowned. “The first edition went missing three weeks ago from the Royal Library in Ansolme.”

Comprehension took me all at once, making my breath catch. I looked at Guard Rock, still holding wary court, and I looked at the remains of Ori. I had to swallow the emotion that threatened to drown me.

“The book was freeing them,” I said. Saving its people, just like me.

Constantine swore and let his head hit the wall behind us. “No. Absolutely not. I only have the energy for one revolution.”

I looked at the way the books were trying to piece Ori together. I watched the strings of the book connecting to strings coming from the others.

I looked back at The Twelve. I looked at the hanging tethers that had kept some of the books in place in a library somewhere. The magic was chipped in spots, as if something had taken a bite out of them.

“Did Ori free you?” I asked softly.

The book straightened its spine imperiously.

I watched it for a moment, thinking through the monumental issues such a course of action would cause. At one time, I would have given anything to have access to this book. Given my soul.

Flipped pages in Bloodthirsty came to rest on a spread that showed death and destruction—dismemberment and pain.

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked at the Ori’s remains. “Plucked daisies and trapped innocents would be a lot easier to defend on the world stage.”

The Twelve Black Steps stomped its spine and leaned forward, pushing pages into my view.

“No, I get it,” I said softly. “You are rich with information and resource—a library is better for having you in it. And it only matters what you are used for,” I murmured. “Just like me. Dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Like all of us,” Axer said.

I inclined my head. I’d always taken comfort in that assertion he’d made to me what felt like ages ago. “But if you are free, it’s what you choose...”

It regarded me steadily.

I looked at Guard Rock, and gathered his little body in my hands. He tilted his rock at me, pencil poised in question.

“We make things of magic, give them life, then refuse to set them free,” I murmured. “Even eighteen-year-olds are free from their parents where I'm from.”

I set Guard Rock gently down. He tapped his pencil lightly against my hand, then assumed his guarding position again.

I nodded at the book. How could I go about trying to free my people and not let the books do the same?

It relaxed a measure of its posture and backed away, as if satisfied.

“Ren, we aren't going to go around freeing books,” Constantine said.

“No.” I tilted my head toward Ori and watched as more books gathered and each page sparked a little more as the books worked. A smile worked its way across my mouth with an emotion that had been ripped from me in the Basement. Hope. “He's going to free them. And we aren't going to stop him.”

I watched the first page of the Origin Book grow brighter.

Hope filled me. I looked at my hands and the connections brimming along, reaffirmed. I did feel better.

“Maybe when broken, I am fixed by surrounding myself with loved ones, too,” I murmured. “Maybe each time the reformation grows stronger...”

“Or maybe you are gaining what you need to control the world,” Constantine said flippantly, though I could feel the knot of his emotions—still not soothed from the Basement incident—and that he never wanted to test any theory of broken connections again.

He leaned back against the wall Guard Rock had herded us against, and whipping his ribbon against his palm. Three energy bars rolled down the satin and into his hand. He tossed them to us. “We could use a few spell supplies, if so, future potentate.”

As if that was a switch—or the use of magic had been one—the books still circling broke formation.

Guard Rock crouched low, ready to flip into the air as one dove at Constantine. Constantine, as tall as he was, snatched the book from the air before Guard Rock could stab it. The book squawked as Constantine turned it over. Its cover read How to Be a Successful Dictator’s Assistant.

“Cute.” Constantine flicked it upward, sending it back into flight.

But the books were in motion closer now, and he pulled in another immediately—grabbing it as it passed. Part of the spine was missing, making the book flap erratically.

Grossly Illegal Ways of Communication was scrawled across its cover.

Guard Rock stabbed Axer in the ankle, then padded over to start constructing a pedestal in the middle of the room, pulling it into existence with his bloody pencil tip.

“I'm not certain whether to be concerned about your rock's continuously growing abilities,” Axer said, flicking the flurry of converging books away with practiced ease, as he watched the pedestal grow taller as Guard Rock incrementally climbed and continued to draw higher. “Or amused that he just told me without words to guard the two of you for him.”

“They are going to have to put all of us away at the end of this.” Constantine turned the damaged book over in his hands, then pulled a piece of ribbon from his coat. He stretched it along the spine, securing it in place, and the book shuddered, then launched itself into the air and gave a shake, testing its new binding. It made a single circuit around the room, then dove back to Constantine and opened its pages. He made a motion as if considering it—though with our magic freed again, I could feel his satisfaction. He’d deliberately patched that book.

Constantine sighed—falsely—and held out a finger. The book clamped it, then suddenly voices filled my head and the room. And the books became whirling dervishes in the air, flying faster than my eyes could process.

I blinked at the whizzing books, trying to catch their titles—but it was like trying to identify a single blade in a highspeed fan.

“But where are they?” Olivia’s voice was strident. “I want to know now, Dagfinn.”

“They are somewhere in the Third Layer—but their location is changing so fast.” Dagfinn sounded as harried as he ever did when something was out of his control. “I’ve never seen something like this before. Leandred hasn’t patched us back—wait, what, hello?”

“Yes?” Constantine answered in a bored voice.

A general feeling of relief and overwrought emotion encircled us, even as the books danced faster.

“Where. Are. You.” It was more a demand than a question. “What happened? It felt like you died.”

I stumbled through a quick explanation of where we were, putting off the answer to the other question as long as I could.

Guard Rock, pedestal deemed complete at around five feet tall, was holding some sort of court in the middle of the room—a small subsection of the books frantically zipping around him. He had raised Ori's remains up as well, and some of the books were buzzing closer to brush against the pages. Guard Rock held his pencil stiffly and motioned at us with his free hand—though his body remained wary and on guard.

“Valeris’s Palace? The Library of Broken Books? Sure,” Dagfinn said hysterically. “Find the lost city of Fier next. Then we’ll move on to—”

“You aren’t doing anything else until we get there,” Olivia demanded.

I let out a shaky laugh. “Sounds good.”

“I'm not kidd—”

Their voices cut out as the book shook itself free from Constantine’s finger and flew off drunkenly.

The whirling books suddenly slowed to normal sweeps and curls, in a strangely united motion.

My emotions, so frayed and newly rejuvenated, decided to freak out, especially with the suddenly lethargic feedback I was hearing from Excelsine.

Constantine frowned and put a hand on my shoulder, his gaze on the inebriated communications book. Axer’s eyes narrowed in the way that said he was trying to piece clues together.

Guard Rock motioned at one of the books and pointed at me. The book reluctantly flew over and landed at my feet. I crouched down, willing to do anything to get my mind off the repeated feeling of loss, no matter how temporary. The book hopped forward and held out a corner to me with some distaste. Temporal Specifics glittered on its spine. I quickly held out a finger, looking for answers. Knowledge filled me as soon as I touched it.

My lips parted.

Duty done, the book lifted into the air.

“Well?” Constantine asked, already reaching in to get the answer from my mind.

“The book said that we can only talk to the outside world for five minutes each hour.”

“That is oddly specific,” Axer said, and I could see the smile forming on his face, something absolutely catlike about the satisfaction in it as he figured it out just from that.

“Forty-eight hours in here is an hour outside.” I looked up at the galaxies swirling outside. “And the magic to communicate between the two disparate times is destructive to the world here when used in large amounts, so it cuts off before any damage is done.”

I looked at Guard Rock, who looked steadily back. “The gift of time,” I murmured.

Constantine’s gaze intensified. “So, we could stay here indefinitely, time passing barely at all outside?”

I blinked. “No. Could you imagine, we’d grow old in here while everyone outside remained the same.” The thought made me anxious. I set a spell to keep track of time. “And the book said that anything over a hundred cycles would cause dementia and death in humans.”

I set another time tracking spell, to be on the safe side.

“Hidden,” he murmured.

“For four days,” I said, reality showing me the possibilities and I slumped against the wall. “Four days. One hundred—well, maybe ninety, to be safe—to plan. And only eight hours to pass in the real world. We can stop Stavros.”

Axer's eyes closed with something like bone-deep relief, then opened above a dark smile. His back slid down the wall to sit against it, head tilted back, an overwhelming languidness to his posture, like he had given himself permission to just...rest for a moment after days, months, years on duty.

“We can only communicate with the outside world for five minutes each hour of our time?” Axer was looking up at the books circling with a glittering edge to his gaze. His compass was spinning madly.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

Constantine snatched another book out of the air, read its cover, then flung it back into flight and snatched another. He did this a dozen times while we watched.

“Just give them something,” Axer said to him, a frankly concerning amount of smirk on his face as he leaned against the wall in a half-sprawl. “I'll make sure they don't eat you.”

Constantine’s gaze focused strangely on him for a moment, and a secondary tie that had been broken snapped fully back between them.

I could feel how much force it took for Constantine to hold the overwhelming emotions from his face as his expression became indolent as he looked back into the air at the circling predators. “Fine. Who wants a taste?” He touched his temple and pulled out a thin thread of magic, snapping it into the air. Like chum suddenly scenting the water, four books dove at him. They froze in front of him and I wondered how he had done that until I saw Axer’s fingers twitch in the held position he had at his side.

Constantine looked through his choices, pointing at the second to the right. “One chapter. You provide real time readouts on whatever we want for forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours in here.”

It vigorously nodded. Constantine tilted his head toward his roommate. Axer flicked his fingers, sending the three waiting books winging off. Easy. Like they had done this before in another library. Sometime long ago.

The selected tome—Communicating Off Grid—flew up to clamp his head like a strange man-eating hat. Constantine tried to look bored while the book duplicated whatever knowledge it was after.

Finished, the book shivered, then flopped open on a table Constantine raised from the floor. Constantine touched the open pages. A minute later, written data started to remotely write across the left side, but at a glacial pace of a single letter for each second.

The first line read: “How did you do that?”

I could almost hear the demand in each letter’s slant. Constantine smirked at Olivia’s handwriting. He responded, then touched another page that he labeled “news.”

 

“In other news, the intense stores of magic held in Crelussa have been moved to an undisclosed location. Helen Price stated that it was clearly the target of the Origin Mage and terrorists that she was working with and will be kept in locked secrecy for now. Some lawmakers have expressed unease with these secrecy conditions, though, further putting the Department in a pos—”

 

Constantine checked his time spell. “Ugh. Watching any more of that write itself out will give me dementia in one hundred seconds. Boring. Let’s set that to record.”

He hooked up a spell to duplicate newsfeeds to another book, then traded two more written quips—and a single heartfelt response of mine—to Olivia’s short follow-up sentence, as we waited for her to verify the time.

One minute had passed for them. Twelve for us.

Time.

I let myself bonelessly flop on the ground, suddenly understanding exactly what Axer's sprawl meant. I could just...do nothing for five minutes. The world probably wouldn’t end in twenty-five seconds, Stavros wouldn’t find us, no one would die. I closed my eyes and fought the sudden urge to cry. “Boring sounds great,” I said.

“Yes.” Constantine smiled. He flipped to another page and scrawled a detailed note. Olivia’s handwriting came through ten minutes later.

“Perfect.”

Axer was still splayed against the wall, but he had roused himself enough to have some sort of staring contest with Stealth and Tactics. Its brother tome had hunted him relentlessly at Excelsine. The book inched forward. Sacrificial Plays inched in behind it.

“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

He tapped his bicep. “Plotting again.”

I scraped myself from the floor and Constantine and I experimented with the communication gaps for the next hour. Olivia got one hundred paragraphs of ours to every few of hers. But it made it so that I could write out, in less stuttering sentences, everything that happened with Stavros.

Constantine, on the other hand, took constant opportunities to input all sorts of offensive things Olivia couldn’t respond to in time.

Axer gave Stealth and Tactics his finger, while Sacrificial Plays vibrated behind it and Ludicrously Dicey Plans landed to wait its turn.

At the hour mark, we hooked back up for our five minutes of conversation with Excelsine.

“This is going to get old fast,” Olivia said sternly.

“But, Ren,” her voice was anguished. “You—”

“I know, I know. It's okay. It's all fine.” It wasn't fine.

“It's not fine. We had to put Nephthys in a medical coma. We're just bringing her out of it now.”

I shut my eyes.

“And, Ren...” Olivia hesitated. “The Department... Ren, Patrick's younger brother...he was attacked a few minutes ago. He's still alive, but the curse... Lifen's aunt suffered the same a few minutes before. The cure is only held by obtaining a piece of the caster. Delia's family just made it out alive and has gone dark. Will's family made it. But Mike's... ”

I choked on the knowledge. Stavros had said... “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” I whispered.

“No. Stavros will be,” Olivia said, voice implacable. “Find a way for us to get to you in the next six hours of your time. That's 30 minutes for us. We're scrambling, but will be ready. Tell Leandred no more irritating notes.”

Constantine waved his hand at me in a lighthearted 50/50 gesture of compliance, but his emotions were dark and swirling with vengeance.

The connection stuttered a warning. Five minutes went by surprisingly fast when you were trying to stuff so much debilitating information in.

“Ren, the Kinsky paintings, Stavros...be careful in Valeris's home.”

She was right, of course. Before he'd destroyed himself, Valeris had lived to a far greater age than either Kinsky or I. His breadth of knowledge, by years alone, would have been greater.

Looking around me at what he had built and imbued was all the evidence I needed of that.

But I could only be grateful. We needed to find Stavros, more than ever. We needed to destroy his plans.

Olivia gave a last strong embrace along the connection, then once more, we were alone.

“Wait,” I said, looking at the time. “We had thirty seconds left.”

“Yes.” Constantine was already connecting to another call.

“Constantine,” Stuart Leandred's voice was sharp. “What—?”

“There's no time. I'm sending you a list of names. You need to protect the people on the list. I'll contact you again in an hour.”

Stuart said nothing for a long moment. “I'll take care of it. You have my word. Wait—” Stuart stopped Constantine before he could disconnect. “Be safe.”

Constantine nodded sharply and disconnected.

My friends' families... I looked over at Axer, who was watching us both from where Sacrificial Plays was hungrily attached to him, sharing its secrets.

“Reprisal. Stavros is going to—”

“You can't think about the others in singular right now,” Constantine murmured, offering comfort through touch. “Once you are back—”

“I can’t go back.” I unearthed Kinsky's journal. Books immediately dove and formed a hungry circle around me. I looked at the closed journal, and thought of the dead woman depicted over and over by the same hand.

“Ren,” Constantine murmured.

“I keep trying to figure out how to go back.” I moved uneasily and let out a breath. It came out a little cramped and hysterical. “I keep trying to recreate what I’ve lost.” I thought of the Kinsky. At the same woman looking back from every portrait. “Holding too tightly.”

To Excelsine, to home, to Christian, to my friends.

I thought of the Third Layer wise woman, and her words on not knowing what it was to be without. “I know what it is to be without.” Without connection. Without magic. Without aim. Without restraint. Without all four of those working together.

“Ren—”

“Kinsky lacked any connection but the one—and he lost it. Valeris lacked restraint. I have lacked all at different points, and Stavros would like me to stay that way.”

“But I need to go forward, and in going forward, I might find again what I’ve been searching for.” Home. I fisted my fingers, watching the magic swirl. “Because I can’t go back.”

If I wanted to go home, I would have to make a new path there. I had to earn my own freedom. And that started with getting rid of Stavros. Because I, and all those I loved, would always be hunted by him. And he would always be a danger to the world.

He had to be destroyed. Severed of power.

And the secret was in the paintings. It was time to confirm the answer I already knew.

Priyasha, Kaine's words about seals, the symbol on the two paintings... Pages fluttered open and the surrounding books inched closer.

I held the journal and closed my eyes. Show me.

The sturdy pages flipped, fell open, and then symbols, script, and knowledge burst into the air.

I tilted my head at the images. A pentagram with circular seals pressed into the five extending tips and pyramid seals at the interior connecting points of the pentagon within.

The points shimmered when each was touched. I gave the magic a twist, setting the images rotating into motion, the points shifting around the center, keeping that which was being protected safe inside. It was like how I was hiding the installation in the Western Territories. Not in a pentagram form, but in the way that each edge was secured.

Domes were far harder to erect in wards, but they gave an increased defensive edge, as it was a lot harder to peel a part away.

But five was a sturdy, secure number.

And the symbol at the center...

Constantine cleared his throat and I jumped to see him sitting on my right with a pile of string nets, ten filled containers, a series of half-finished projects, and one wrist flat and bare against the surface. Books were all inching around, trying to creep closer to me, only held off by a quick boot.

I looked down in confusion at the chair I didn’t recall sitting in. “When did we make a larger table?”

Axer was curling magic into a series of containers across the table, a pile of glistening blades and stars freshly sharpened in front of him as well as all three of our cloaks and a slew of removed devices. One bare wrist was also sliding across the surface of the table as his fingers worked to guide the magic or mend a protection. His gaze slid over me, then, satisfied, returned to repairing the next piece of our arsenal.

Guard Rock swung his legs over the edge of the table next to Axer, watching the creep of books on the ground and in the sky. One of Guard Rock’s palms was flat on the table as well, pencil ready in the other hand. The cat had its tail in his lap and was seemingly out cold, though I saw one eyelid slide open to peer at me, then slide shut again.

At least fifty books were in a hunching perimeter around us and were avidly watching—pages whispering.

Who had removed my cloak? When had I sat down?

Constantine raised a brow. “We couldn't break you away from your trance, but you responded to simple commands, and were at baseline on all measures, including your response to our connections. Alexi and your rock thought we should leave you to it.”

His fingers lifted, and I could see him pull the protections they had been holding on the table into his fingertips. I noticed the soothing cream and tan tones of Neph mixed in with Constantine's violet and bronze, and bright ultramarine magic setting them indelibly into place—so much more stable than before.

“You are pulling from each other so easily now?”

And Neph, Neph was okay. So many ways for everything to go wrong, and so little time for me to be able to worry individually about anyone. I pulled shaking fingers down my face. All I wanted was to be able to hold all my people close. To stack into a huge pile under a blanket fort and not come up for an entire weekend.

Constantine let the magic swirl into the air to form a loose cover around the five of us. “Let's talk about you taking years from my life.”

“I can’t believe you let me not answer your call inside a place that as far as we can tell might be digesting us for a thousand condensed years.”

And after completely freaking out in Verrange.

“I was told to try this new thing called trust. I can’t say it holds much appeal so far.” But he didn’t seem angry.

Axer rolled his eyes, sealed the containers he was working on, and tucked three into each cloak.

“Did I miss the check in?” I asked.

“No, there are still a few hours to go,” Axer said.

Constantine snapped his fingers twice between us and motioned at the journal. “Now to that, and your irritating meditation. Before I take the standing offer from When You Simply Can't Take It Anymore...”

A bedraggled book in the circle perked up.

I spread my fingers over the pages of the journal. I took a moment to carefully inspect the magic this time, seeing the threads.

“I thought at first Priyasha gave the journal to me as a warning. It's like the yearbook I looked through in Greyskull’s office, but even more personalized. A singular view captured with all the sensory intensity of each moment. Kinsky’s record of his journey to resurrect Priyasha.” I looked up. “But it's more than that. Kinsky must have had just enough agency at the end to make changes to it after his capture and the revelation of Stavros's duplicity.”

“This symbol.” I tapped on the pentagram. “It was in the Crelussa Kinsky. And the one at Verrange. Sergei Kinsky's last move was to embed this journal with a way to reveal how to find his duplicitous master.”

Axer stared down at it for a moment, then looked at me with a raised brow.

“What?” I pulled the journal against my chest. “I know what I saw. I know what—”

He reached his fingers to me and formed a picture in my mind’s eye of what he could see. A jumbled mass of incomprehensible squiggles dotted a parchment page.

“Oh.” I let the journal fall from my chest and looked down at the detailed and beautiful drawings. I pulled a picture of the page into my mind and when Axer opened a gentle mental palm to catch it, I set it inside.

His gaze sharpened along with his magic as he immediately passed the image to Constantine. “You saw this symbol at Crelussa?”

“Yes. It's a powerful warding symbol.”

“Hidden from normal sight,” Axer murmured. “But made by Origin hands.” His gaze drifted to Constantine, who was grimly looking back at him, emotions firm.

“There was a Kinsky in Salietrex,” Constantine said, finally. “We viewed it about fifteen minutes before...”

Axer turned to me, gaze intense. “Tell me about Ganymede Circus. What happened before Verisetti destroyed it?”

“I went to a black magic store, trying to resurrect my brother.” I pulled a hand over the back of my neck. “That didn’t go as planned. There was a layer shift. I went into an art store—the owner sucked. There was a Kin….” My voice trailed off.

“There was a Kinsky there?”

“Yes. But without the symbol.” I traced it with my finger. “The woman had a paper for me, though, same as the others.”

“You hadn’t unlocked your power. The symbol might have been there.”

“Raphael destroyed Ganymede because of a favor. He said that before he did it.” A favor for Godfrey Sr. or Leonach or someone high in a Third Layer terrorist organization.

“But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there for the painting. Did he ask you about it?”

“Yes. He asked me what was inside,” I murmured. “The Library of Alexandria had a Kinsky, too. We escaped in it, and the library expelled all who remained outside. They never figured out what the terrorists were after.”

“But they figured out who did it.”

“Yes,” I whispered. Raphael Verisetti, using my dolls.

“A man whose only goal is to destroy Enton Stavros.”

My lips parted. It had to be right, then. All clues led down the same path as my intuition said.

Axer looked at me. “A pentagram hide. A powerful tool to hide something.” His eyes were fierce. “Or someone.”

“All of those towns Raphael destroyed,” I murmured.

“I bet we will find a Kinsky was in each of them. That’s how Stavros does it. That’s how he hides. Five specific Kinskys are the seals protecting the sixth—or whatever is in the middle. Kinsky was prolific under Mussolgranz. The works are everywhere. It's a perfect camouflage. Verisetti probably figured out that you needed an Origin Mage to see the symbol at some point. He connected a leash to you to gain your power, but after another few strikes yielded nothing, he might have realized he needed you specifically. Someone the paintings—all connected—recognize.” Axer smiled. “She knows. Priyasha. In all the forms she takes. In the memories that Kinsky imbued in her—in all the paintings of her—connected together, they know. They know they are protecting someone untrustworthy. Someone who caused the death of their creator.”

“That’s why Kaine grabbed the painting in Crelussa,” Constantine said, stabbing a knife into the leather he was cutting. “He was protecting his master. One seal of five.”

“And why Stavros was so furious with the destruction of the Basement seal—he's lost another.”

“There are hundreds of Kinsky portraits, all over the layer, as Alexi said.”

“And Verisetti, even imbued with your magic couldn't distinguish them. He needed you, but you were taking too long. He swiftly started looking for other opportunities to destroy Stavros—opportunities still provided by you, since Stavros was hunting you.” Axer sat back, eyes closed, mouth curled. “And this...this gives us the shroud for Plan A.”

I looked at him and nodded slowly.

Axer smiled. “We are going to finish Verisetti's job. We are going to rip all of Stavros's protections away.”

“We can't do it alone,” Constantine said.

“No, we have to get the others involved. And campus still has hold of them. We have to back Marsgrove into a corner that only has one exit.”

“Marsgrove might do it without threat,” Constantine said, looking down suddenly. The books had gathered together, top of their spines bent inward. “And the books are having a moot. No concern there. Rock, what's going on?”

Guard Rock motioned to me like, “One of these days, I'm going to stab him where he can't heal it,” then pointed to the side and crossed his arms.

I cocked my head at a book that was inching closer. Temporal Physics and Interdimensional Travel in the Physical Age was sliding its cover along the tabletop in one-inch scoots.

“Are you...do you know how we can do what we need?” I asked it.

With a crack of displacement, it suddenly appeared right in front of my face and latched eagerly around my head. I squawked and tried to peel it away, but it held tighter and rifled through my thoughts and memories until it had six laid out in a grid in my mind. It let go and hopped back to the desk.

Constantine grabbed it, a spell on his fingertips.

I held out my hand to him. “Wait.” I looked at the book. “You will trade for the knowledge?”

It solemnly nodded, pages vibrating in anticipation.

“What does it want?” Constantine asked brusquely.

“It wants the blueprints for building the inter-layer portal pad.”

“Absolutely not.”

I didn't look away from the book. “In exchange, it has a way for everyone at Excelsine to come here via a book on the Fourth Floor.” It nodded eagerly.

“Do it.”

I blinked at Constantine. “That was quite a change of tune.”

“When the tune is obvious, you change it.”

“How many can come through?” Axer asked, relaxing back in his chair, as if the entire war had just been won.

The book made a gesture, flipping a specific number of its pages.

“Looks like fifty, if I’m interpreting that correctly,” I said.

“How many copies do you have in other libraries?” Axer asked it. “And do you visit them?”

It flipped five pages and dipped its spine.

He tapped his fingers on the table. “The Department is going to get the technology anyway. If they get you, no restriction will matter. Do it.”

We sent the instructions to Olivia, and before the six hours was even up, the book's pages began to glow.