“We would have been unbound with it. Our lives. Our souls. We would have become nothing.”
Horror shuddered through me. “I don’t mindthatroom being gone … but what about the others?”
The wolf answered my unspoken question: “It could be any of the rooms. We will have to take care.”
I was more shaken than I wanted to admit. Any of the rooms meant the library could be unbound next. I could lose access to Mokosh.
I could lose Hal entirely. What would happen to him if he was truly trapped in the worlds of the books, as I suspected? What happened to a pressed flower if the book it was in was thrown into the fire?
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked the wolf.
“Be vigilant,” he said. “Do not stray too far from the door.” His ears flicked sideways. His eyes met mine. “And hope that the bedroom is the very last room to be unbound.”
THERE HAD TO BE SOMETHINGelse I could do. Some kind of old magic I could invoke to save the house and the library, and the wolf and Hal, too, while I was at it. I still didn’t want to set foot in the bauble room, so when the wolf excused himself for the afternoon, I went straight to the library, determined to finally find some answers.
I stepped into a book-mirror about a real historical king who was famous for his vast book collection. His library was huge, shelves stretching up to the ceiling, tall windows looking out over a shining moat. I glimpsed siege towers being erected just beyond the water, but decided to ignore them.
An ancient librarian came round one of the shelves, mumbling to himself. He had wisps of white hair and a quill pen tucked behind one ear, ink dripping down his neck. He held a crackly sheet of parchment and was peering at it with a violent frown.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said politely, “Do you have any books about the old magic?”
He looked up at me and somehow managed to frown even deeper than before. “Up there.” He pointed to a balcony accessed by a winding staircase. “Though I don’t know why you couldn’t read the signs.” He waved at a blue metal plate attached to one of the shelves, inscribed with swirly shapes that were maybe supposed to be letters but were wholly undecipherable to me.
I just thanked him and climbed the stairs.
The books were beautiful, with cracked purple or silver or indigo spines, embossed with gold and studded with gems. They smelled like roses and cinnamon. I opened one and tried to read it, but the words swam in front of my eyes and I had to put it back. A second book was the same, and a third. Disappointment squirmed inside of me.
“You know, you really ought to be better prepared.”
I jumped and wheeled about to see Hal leaning nonchalantly on the railing at the top of the staircase. He exuded a kind of amused boredom, but the faint sadness in his eyes belied him. “Don’t tell me you stepped into a living, breathing book to read the boring ordinary kind.” He stepped past me and plucked the volume I was attempting to decipher out of my hands. He gave it a careless perusal and stuffed it back onto the shelf.
“Why can’t I read these?”
“Made-up language. This library may bebasedon a real one, but it’s not like the author ever visited it, let alone read every volume on the shelf. Window dressing, Echo. That’s all this is. A glint of color and magic to give depth to the story.”
I harrumphed, dissatisfied, and Hal grinned at me. He caught my eyes in his deep sea blue ones and I suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“But you should be better prepared,” he said, returning to his original theme.
I gave him a wobbly smile. “For what?”
He tapped the hilt of the sword strapped to his side. “Battles. You made a rather poor showing during the revolution the other night.” I flushed—Hal had pushed me behind a curtain before plunging into the fray. I’d alternately watched him fight and screwed my eyes shut against the shocking amount of blood. Mokosh had already left by the time the battle was over. “I thought you said it’s impossible to die in these books.”
“It is, but youcanget into some awful scrapes, and sometimes the book gets so wrapped up in itself it won’t let you stop reading. Always best to have some skills under your belt.”
“Is it?”
He grinned, not taking his eyes from mine. “Fortunately for you, I’m an excellent teacher.”
“Hal, whatareyou talking about?”
“Fencing lessons! What do you say?”
I let my gaze drift to the spines of the magical books just behind him. I thought of the wolf and the unraveling house and the danger Hal himself was in. “Hal, I—”
“You gratefully accept? Excellent!” He grabbed my hand and started pulling me down the stairs but I resisted and he released me instantly, a guarded expression coming into his eyes.
“I’ve got research to do,” I explained.
