Sylas's hand clamped down hard around my mouth, and he all but dragged me behind a bookshelf before I shook him off.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I hissed at him.
"Shut up!" Sylas hissed back, his dark eyes flashing around as the sound of footsteps grew closer. He grabbed me again, by the shoulder, and he started a Working.
Not sound. Not sight. No trace. No trace.
The spell flittered uncertainty around us, half-formed like a tadpole with legs flopping around on dry land.
The footsteps grew louder, and I could now hear raised voices.
I grabbed Sylas's hand and joined in the Working. I forced my mana into Sylas's spell, the same mana which I'd just tried to use minutes ago to try to kill him.
Soundless. Sightless. Eyes see no evil. Ears hear no mischief.
The last dregs of my mana mingled with Sylas's spell, solidifying the Working. Light dimmed around us in shadowy ribbons as we were pulled into the Narrative of no one else being in the library besides the people approaching us. It wasn't as solid as something Lord Woodman could spank out, but I liked to think it was fairly solid considering two freshmen had pulled it off.
I still held my breath, and I prayed Sylas did the same. I squeezed his hand tightly, and I focused on keeping the Working active. My Witch's Mark burned in protest and I continued to wring more and more droplets of mana stubbornly out of myself. The voices resounded into two men as they came closer.
"Are you certain it was in this section?" said the first voice.
"Now that you mention it," murmured the second voice. "I suppose it could have been back in theoretical demonology, though I can't see why."
Sylas slowly looked around the side of the bookcase and took in a sharp breath. I fought the urge to slap him for making any sort of sound. Thankfully, the other two people poking around the library so late at night don't seem to notice.
"That book," the second voice continued. "Deals with bargains struck between two phantasmal realms. Powerful bargains at that. I can't imagine the librarian would have just let it wander off."
I reluctantly pushed forward to snag a glance at the two figures as well. I restrained my own gasp of panic. Professors Dumont and Neuhaus walked through the stacks of books.
"Hmm," Professor Neuhaus said and placed a hand against one of the bookshelves. "I believe it should be somewhere around here…" He ran his hand down the wall and paused. "Or would it have been further back? I can't say."
"Is there anything you do know?" Professor Dumont asked. For his part, Dumont walked to the bookcase opposite Professor Neuhaus, or rather the place Sylas and I were hiding behind.
I pulled my face back quickly, deeper into the shadows and the weavings of our Working. Sylas remained where he was, watching Professor Dumont grow closer and closer.
Idiot. I thought. Idiot. Idiot. IDIOT.
I pulled sharply on Sylas's hand, but he didn't budge.
"Why exactly did you need my help with this nonsense again? And at this hour?"
Professor Dumont seemed to take his time, looking at the titles of each book printed on the different spines.
"Hmm." Neuhaus said again, and I gave Sylas another sharp pull. The Working shuddered around us as Professor Dumont grew closer. I tried to push more mana into it, but it was like trying to scrape a pot for the last dregs of a stew from a rusty old pot.
"Well, it is in French. Written by François Prelati himself by some accounts, though that is some matter of scholarly debate."
"Prelati?"
Dumont was practically on top of Sylas. I dug my fingernails deep into the flesh of Sylas's hand, and he flinched in pain, making a little gasp. The room went perfectly still.
"Did you hear that?" Dumont asked.
Sylas turned around to glare at me in a way that I'm sure was meant to look intimidating, but he came along when I pulled him into the shadows and further away from Dumont. The Working seemed to stabilize a bit, but it continued to wobble about like jelly.
"Hear what?" Professor Neuhaus asked.
Dumont poked his head around the bookcase, and I could feel his eyes almost slide over us, like water on glass. I held my breath, and he looked this way and that, holding out his candle to cast tendrils of light. After what seemed like years, he finally turned and walked away from our hiding place.
"I must have just imagined it."
"Ah well, it happens to the best of us, I suppose. Shall we continue our search?"
"Another night. I fear I might be getting tired if I have started hearing things."
I waited until their footsteps completely faded, and a beat or two after that, before I shoved Sylas off me and let the Working completely collapse.
"Are you out of your mind?" I hissed. "You could have gotten us caught!"
Sylas glared at me with a confused crease on his forehead, his brown eyes seeming to flash an acrid yellow. "Am I out of my mind? You're the one who started… clawing at me." He looked at his hand and winced. "They almost found us after that."
If I felt even the slightest spark of guilt or shame, I quickly snuffed it out. "We almost got caught," I informed Sylas through clenched teeth. "Because someone just had to keep spying on our teachers as opposed to, oh I don't know, trying to stay hidden?"
He had the sense to look embarrassed at that, for all of one moment, then he just frowned at me. "What are you even doing here?"
No chance in hell I was answering that one. "What are you doing here?" I asked with my very best "Lord Woodman" voice, layers of hauteur and entitlement coupled with a dangerous, furious look. Sylas ruined it by looking away and not even bothering to answer. Which of course made me madder.
"Fine then," I said flatly, standing up and giving my pants a quick brush. "I suppose I'll be seeing you around then." I took a moment to check on the book. My fingers brushed the cover of Le Journal De La Voisin, and that torrent of necromantic power was there again. What moves the dead? They shall dance and dance and dance and—
I pulled my fingers back sharply, and the Narrative bled from my mind. I shuddered. If anything, the voice was stronger than before. Clear and crisp as a winter's night. And the mana there, so sweet and full, an ocean I could drown myself in—
"Are you quite alright?"
I had forgotten Sylas was there. "Fine," I said shortly, and I turned on my heel to go.
Of course, it was at that moment the security alarms all went off.
They sounded like a series of angry owls, all choosing to scream at once. WHOOO! WHOO! WHOO!
My hands immediately flew to my ears, and I turned to see Sylas was covering him as well. "What the hell is that?" he yelled at me, all pretense of us trying to be quite abandoned. Before I could open my mouth to yell something helpful at him like, "How the fuck should I know?" Sylas's question was quickly answered when a large stone owl swept down at him with outstretched talons.
My hand flew up before I knew what I was doing, and I tried to cast the one combat spell I knew, the one Rosamund had shown me earlier. Except I didn't have any mana.
Thankfully Sylas did because he just looked up at the stone monstrosity and said, "Une part."
Part. Divide.
The owl exploded into a cloud of dust and pebbles that rained around us. For a split second, I actually thought we might be in the clear until the noise came again. WHOOO! WHOO! WHOO! And again WHOOO! WHOO! WHOO! And again WHOOO! WHOO! WHOO! Each time accompanied by the most charming beats of stone wings flapping.
Realizing quickly that Sylas was probably my best chance at survival, given his ability to blast the wretched things apart with two words, I grabbed his arm again and pulled him along.
"Come on!" I said, and thankfully he responded without me having to dig my nails into his tender flesh.
The two of us ran, and the wretched stone birds chased after us. Sylas fired off a few more spells at them, flashes of fire and ice that melted their talons and froze their wings mid-beat, making them crash to the ground. But more owls joined them, making that awful noise. WHOOO! WHOO! WHOO!
Professors Dumont and Neuhaus hadn't shown up yet. Maybe they'd left the library already. Of course, with my luck, the two of them would drop out of the sky any minute to hurl thunderbolts at us.
Sylas and I ran through the restricted section, and I could swear some of the books started talking. Whispering things, soft and almost silent, but if I just stopped for a moment, I knew I could understand—
Sylas slapped me across the face. Fast and hard.
My ears ringing and cheek stinging, Sylas pulled my arm and ran.
"What're you doing?" Sylas shouted at me. "Didn't they tell you not to listen to the books?"
"I—" Of course they did. Shit, why didn't I think of that? My cheeks burned red as we ran. The red ribbon tied tenuously around the library's restricted section snapped as we ran through it and pounded past the shelves of the other sections. We almost made it to the door before another owl reached us. It veered toward Sylas, stone talons flashing. He wouldn't see it in time. Stone talons outstretched, ready to find flesh and—
Without thinking, I gripped the book and pulled on the necromantic source. The curse, the spell Rosamund taught me, tore itself from my lips.
Break. Bend. Shatter.
And the world responds. The book twisted in my hands and the stone owl shuddered then fell to the ground. One of its stone talons was close enough to tear into Sylas's arm and he grunted. I shoved the door open and the two of us exited the library and were greeted with the crisp night air. The owls didn't follow us, thankfully, but their cries rang out over campus.
WHO. WHO. WHO!
Lights turned on in the windows of buildings around us. Witch lights sparked on as well, casting the paths snaking across Angitia in sallow greens. Voices echoed across the yard.
I scrambled, searching through my channels for the barest hints of mana. The barest threads to weave another spell of obscurity. It was like scratching against a wall of sand, looking for the vaguest hint of water. I reached for the book, for the overwhelming wellspring. For the ocean of mana within its pages.
Before I can, though, Sylas cast a spell around the two of us.
Not a hide. No hair. No sight. No sound. Our path is not followed.
Crude, I thought. But effective.
I follow him back to our dorm room, while the lights of Angitia spurn to life and students and faculty alike go to see what all the fuss was about at the library.
The two of us slipped past the crowd of sleepy-eyed students and teachers that congregated around the library, woken, I presumed, by the noise those blasted owls made.
I waited until we'd slipped into our dorm room; the door closing behind us with a satisfying click before I turned on Sylas.
"What the hell were you doing?" I hissed at him. "You could have gotten us both killed."
The braggart had the gall to blink in confusion before looking affronted. "What the hell were you even doing in the library?"
Sylas looked like he was trying to make his face look displeased, but hadn't quite gotten the trick. "What were you doing in the library?"
We stared at each other, and I glared into Sylas's eyes. He looked away first. "It was a rush challenge. From Lion Hall. Steal a book from the library's restricted section."
"What? You broke into the library at night to get into a bloody Hall?"
"We have to get into one before the second semester. What would you have me do? Sleep outside?"
Almost to punctuate Sylas's point, I briefly felt the pull of restless spirits wandering around the school's grounds under the moon's light.
Blood and ripping and—
I push it away as quickly as I can and force my attention back to Sylas.
"They wanted you to steal a book from the restricted section just to join?" I asked. "That's incredibly stupid."
That time Sylas actually gave me a decent glare. "Well, what were you doing there then?" he asked. "You can't expect me to believe you were hunting in the restricted section for some late-night reading."
My mouth went dry, and I couldn't figure out what exactly I should tell Sylas Thorne. The truth was out of the question. Lord Woodman's secrets and my own were tied around each other too tightly for that.
So instead, I just let the quiet stretch between us, and I returned Sylas's glare with a look of my own.
He broke eye contact first, and I took that moment to pounce. "What's even the point of joining Lion Hall?" I asked. "You're a Thorne. I bet Boar or Eagle Hall would fall over themselves to offer you a bid if you just showed up to one of their events when official rush starts."
I hadn't expected Sylas's gaze to snap back on me so quickly, or for the air in the room to grow hotter. A wind rustled briefly, and I could hear the faintest whispers of something—Narrative?—in the air before it cut off abruptly.
I took a step back from Sylas.
"You don't know anything about me," Sylas said finally. "You know nothing about me, or what it means to be John Thorne's son."
There was a weight there I didn't like. Like Sylas had just told me something I was better off not knowing. I should've turned away. I should've left Sylas to whatever nonsense he wanted to get up to with Lion Hall and just move on with my own business. Instead, I said, "And you know nothing about me, and what Lord Woodman… expects for me to do while I'm here."
The dropping, gut churning feeling that generated. The knowledge that I just let something critical about myself and my mission here slip, and to Sylas Thorne, of all people, made me what to vomit.
The air between us was tense.
But how Sylas looked at me, his expression softening… It felt almost reassuring. When he spoke again, though, it was almost like he drug each word out. "My father was in Lion Hall," Sylas said. "The best Knights from Angitia come out of that Hall, and I need to be the best Knight to come out of our year."
Knight. He wants to be a Knight and not a Hunter like his father? Did that mean Sylas didn't have the same desire to hunt Irregulars? The same feelings about nulls even?
No. He probably still thought lowly of nulls. Most of his lot did and always would. But he threw me a piece of trust, and I'd already told him enough about me that a drop more wouldn't hurt.
"My Uncle," (and the word didn't even feel stuck in my throat, so there's that) "also expects things of me," I said. "I guess we both have people we can't afford to disappoint."
"Yeah," Sylas said. "I suppose so."
***
The rest of the night, blessedly, did not involve any more dramatic conversations or chases through libraries. Sylas and I returned to our pajamas and slipped back into our beds silently.
But I didn't sleep well that night.
The book, Le Journal De La Voisin, laid tucked securely in my bag, but I could still feel the pull of necromancy from it. The sickeningly sweet promises of mana and the power it offered.
And I could hear it too.
Theodore. Theodore. Theodore. the book whispered to me all night long. Death comes for you, Theodore Crowley.