I do it again, the mirrored plate spinning, crank by crank, under my fingers.
Ceridwen’s attention returns to the shelf and she springs away in surprise. “Flame and heat! Keep doing that—there’s a compartment opening behind one of these shelves.”
I jerk to the side, eyes scanning the library’s floor beside the shelf. “Watch out for—”
But Ceridwen is way ahead of me, testing the floor with her feet and holding on to the shelves should a surprise pit open up here too. She shoots a cocked eyebrow up at me. “Just keep cranking.”
Books smack into the floor as she tears them off the shelf. I keep easing the oval, gear by gear, until it locks into place, the numbers upright again. Skirt flurrying around me, I leap off the chair and step into the row, careful to avoid the stacks of books Ceridwen removed to make room.
One of the shelves has lifted out, swinging horizontally away from the rest, revealing a hidden compartment.
Ceridwen, holding a cluster of books against her chest, turns to me. Her shock eases into smug amusement and she tips her head, curls bouncing.
“See?” she says, triumphant. “You do need me, Winter queen.”
My surprise evaporates into the slightest tingle of unease as I wrap my fingers into the door and pry it the rest of the way open, the wood crying out with age and more than a few bursts of dust that spray into my face. I cough but open the door wider, allowing a nearby orb of light to shine into the narrow compartment. My fingers twitch to reach inside, but memories of my last encounter with the Lustrate’s key make me hesitate. Is this one a conduit too?
In the back corner sits a smashed cloth. I ease my hand around it, waiting for the hard bite of metal to warn me of a key, but the thick weave of the cloth curves around something lumpy.
I pull it out and guide it open in my hands, my stomach knotted up with two different emotions. Hope that it will be the key—and dread that it will be the key.
The cloth unrolls and reveals a key within, identical to the one I found in Summer—iron, ancient, with the Lustrate’s seal at its head.
So easy.Again.
Warning hums in my throat, the instinctual rearing of danger coming. But I should be relieved. I’m that much closer to finding the Order, or at the very least, having leverage over Noam. This is good. Not threatening—good. Maybe the Order wanted the keys to be found easily. Maybe they separated them only so they wouldn’t be easily accessible.
But I only have two keys—no answers. No informationabout the Order itself, or anything that could help me with my magic. Yes, I’m a step closer to being able to keep the chasm closed, but I need more than that. And it’s only luck that I found these two first—it could have been Theron with just as little effort. It makes no sense that the Order would bother to hide these keys in places that are so simple to find, unless theywantedthem found. But why? And further—why Yakim? Summer, Yakim, Ventralli . . . what do these three kingdoms have in common?
No—calm down, Meira.Right now, it’s just two keys, nothing dangerous. I won’t let myself worry until a viable threat materializes. I certainly have enough other things to worry about.
The cloth around this key depicts a scene much like the tapestry the Ventrallan queen sent with Finn and Greer. Mountains circle a valley filled with beams of light and, in the center, a tight ball of even more brilliant light woven in yellow and white and blue threads, all of it swirling around.
Magic.
I exhale, hands shaking. The placement of the key in a tapestry, hidden in a row of books about Ventralli—it’s purposeful. The final key is definitely there.
I look up at Ceridwen. “Now we—”
She winces before I even talk. I glance at Lekan, who eyes her with a lingering sympathy.
Ceridwen bobs her head. “Ventralli next. That was the plan, anyway.”
“Yes,” I say slowly. “But . . . you don’t have to come with us.”
Ceridwen sets the books in her arms on the floor. “Thanks, but I know someone in Ventralli who can help with that.” She nods at the tapestry, her expression void of emotion. “It’ll lead you to something, right? Admit it—you’re helpless without me.”
I start to smile, warring with pressing her discomfort regarding Ventralli. But I flinch when the stillness of the library shatters around the sudden chiming of music.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Meira
A PIANO DISTURBSthe silence, the player unleashing the melody from close by, steady notes that tinkle like raindrops beating on a window.
