I yanked open the drawer with the letter D and flipped to the cards about demons. “Frickity frak. There must be a hundred entries.” A quick glance at the drawers below confirmed it. There were three D drawers.
“How about curses?” The C drawer wasn’t much better. At least fifty volumes held information about curses. “I would appreciate any advice you could give me, Chaos.” Because I was getting nowhere, which meant bad news for my sister.
She grunted, and I looked up in time to see her fly backward and smack into a bookcase. Really bad news.
“The witch who cursed your bloodline was named Smith.”
“You could have told me that five minutes ago,” I grumbled as I opened the S drawer. Not that it would help, with Smith being such a common name.
I flipped past sage, salt, and slime (ew). “Smith!” Flip, flip, flip. “Huh. There are only three, and they’re all Isabel.”
“That is her.” Chaos’s voice was full of menace.
I yanked the cards from the drawer and ducked between shelves as a fireball whizzed past. It smacked into a case of ancient-looking texts, but instead of setting the entire basement ablaze, it bounced off and returned to Ember’s hand.
That was how fire magic was supposed to work.
Finding the books was easy-peasy, thanks to their librarian’s organizational skills. I tugged them from the shelf and plopped onto the floor. The first one I opened was filled with healing spells, cleansing rituals, and other light magic stuff. I supposed even dark witches needed to lighten their loads from time to time. Playing with evil could take a toll.
“Isabel belonged to your coven before the curse.”
That much I knew, but her name had been struck from the record books. Magically erased so she would never be spoken of again. “What turned her bad?”
“No rush, Ash. I’m having a blast.” I couldn’t tell if she said that with sarcasm or not. You never knew with Ember.
“I found the books,” I called from the safety of the stacks.
“Let’s take them all.” Her sword met clay. The golem grunted.
“Then they’ll know we’ve been here. They could locate them and cause us a mess of trouble.” I flipped the pages.
“Good point.” Slash, stab, grunt. “Continue.”
“A love triangle,” Chaos answered. “Isabel was betrothed to your great-great-great—”
“Who knows how many greats? Got it.”
“Hester, your ancestor, arrived from England, and he fell in love with her, betraying Isabel.”
“Oof. Hell hath no fury.” The second book had tons of potions and spells of the unsavory variety, but nothing about the curse or where the skulls might be hidden. I put it back and opened the next one. “Bingo. This must be the one Cinder used to find Discord.”
I ran my finger along the first page, a journal entry describing Isabel’s pain and her intention. I only skimmed it, but let me just say… She was pissed.
The next page laid out the curse, how she did it, and the ramifications. Like Chaos said, she was supposed to pay with her soul.
Should my plan not work, their wrath will be exerted on my descendants. Return their skulls to them and beg for forgiveness, lest my entire lineage be doomed to hell.
Cinder came here alone. She had to find the book while fighting off the golem and get out undetected. How in Hell did she do it?
I flipped the page. “Good goddess, look at this.” A map. A freaking map!
“Ugh!” Ember grunted before her head smacked the concrete floor at the end of the aisle. The golem dragged her out of my view.
“Shit! I’m coming, Em!” I ripped the map from the book, slammed it into its space on the shelf, and ran toward them. I skidded to a stop when I saw my sister dangling upside down from the creature’s massive fist.
“Let her go!” I yanked the dagger from my thigh scabbard and hurled it at the golem. It hit him in the gut, but it disappeared inside him, his clay absorbing the weapon like a black hole. I grabbed a binding spell from my satchel, said the incantation, and threw it at him. Powder exploded in his face, and he dropped Ember—on her head—to wipe his eyes. He didn’t freeze.
But my sister did.
The creature roared and started toward me. He swung his meaty arm, and I ducked. He clipped the top of my head, but my momentum carried me forward, and I slid toward Ember.
“Time to go.” I hooked my arms beneath her shoulders and dragged her backward into the corridor.
“Use another spell.” That Chaos. Ever helpful.
“If the binding spell didn’t work, I doubt anything else will.” I groaned and dragged her toward the stairs. It was all uphill from here. Literally.
“Let me help.”
“How?” My foot met the first step as the golem prowled toward me. Yep, toying with the weaker one now that the threat was incapacitated. Demons were so predictable.
Chaos took my question as permission. My head spun, and I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, the golem lay beneath one of seven toppled bookshelves. The library had been torn apart…in a state of complete…chaos.
“It won’t hold him long. Run.”
One foot behind the other, I got my sister up the stairs and through the meeting slash ritual room. I was about to drag her through the electrified door when Chaos yelled, “Stop!”
I froze. “What?”
