“I feel like I’m looking at what could have been.”

“And?” The secret entrance clicks into place, halting its rotation.

“You look better in black,” Xaden whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear and eliciting a shiver of awareness despite our current situation.

“This is as far as I can take you,” Jesinia signs. “If I’m gone much longer, someone may notice. According to the others, the normal Archives wards end here, so if you can’t get back in time, you’re safer down there overnight.”

“Thank you,” I reply. “I’ll be in contact as soon as we can return them.”

“Good luck.” She offers us an encouraging smile, then leaves the four of us to it.

Xaden leans into the stairwell. “Watch your step,” he tells us. “There’s a little light coming from the bottom, but we’ll need to keep the rest from turning on.”

“We’re down to forty-five minutes,” Imogen says. Any longer and we’re either stuck and court-martialed…or dead.

No pressure.

“Then we’d better move quickly,” Xaden replies, lacing his fingers with mine before starting down the steps.

The first time you are caught in the Archives after the door seals for the evening will be the last. The complex magics put in place to preserve our texts are not compatible with life.

—COLONEL DAXTON’S GUIDE TO EXCELLING IN THE SCRIBE QUADRANT

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Shadows blanket the ceiling, blocking any mage lights that could flicker on at our presence, so I put my free hand on the wall as we descend the stairs slowly. Every step is a gamble in the darkness, but miraculously, no one stumbles.

Pale blue light blooms at the bottom of the staircase.

“A mage light?”

“There are two guards at the end of this hallway,” Xaden answers, slipping his hand from mine. “Wait here while I solve that problem.”

I put my hand up to signal the others to stop when we reach the final step. The space opens into what looks to be a hallway, but Xaden doesn’t question which direction to take. He moves quickly to the right, lifting both hands. A crumpling sound follows.

“Now,” he says aloud.

The hallway is maybe thirty feet long and little more than a glorified tunnel supported by carved pillars over a stone floor. It smells like earth and metal and feels dank with humidity. At one end, light shines through an open archway. Glancing over my shoulder, I see that only darkness consumes the other possible path.

“There isn’t even a door?” Imogen asks as we hurry down the hall.

“No need with wards that strong,” Xaden comments.

“I can feel them.” The thrum of sharp, intense power grows stronger the closer we get. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and my own power surges in answer to what feels like a hell of a threat.

“We have a few minutes before these two will wake up. I didn’t hit them that hard,” Xaden says as he and Imogen drag the infantry guards to the side, clearing the path.

“Those wards are some uncomfortable shit.” Imogen rolls her shoulders.

“There’s a hum, but it’s not that bad,” Aaric replies as we stare through the warded archway with its intricately carved stonework to the shelves of the small, circular library that lies beyond it.

“That bodes well for getting past,” Imogen remarks. “And you’d better hurry.”

“You’re looking for two journals,” I nervously remind him, even though we’ve gone over this three times.

“There have to be at least five hundred tomes in there.” Aaric’s gaze skims the shelves, and he sighs.

“You’ll have to search—”

“Violet!” Xaden shouts as Aaric grips my hand and strides forward through the archway, yanking me along.

Powerful magic ripples over me as I stumble through, pricking every inch of my skin and twisting my stomach with the feel of a hundred-foot freefall as he pulls me into the library.

He releases my hand and I hit my knees, falling forward and catching myself on my hands. Nausea overwhelms every other sense. My mouth waters and my head hangs as I fight back the urge to vomit.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Xaden snaps from the other side of the wards. “Tell me you’re unharmed.”

“Queasy, but I’ll live.”

Aaric ignores Xaden, dropping to a crouch in front of me. “Are you all right, Violet?”

I force air in through my nose and out through my mouth. “Tell me you knew it would let me through,” I bite out as the worst of the illness passes. “Because it sure as hell didn’t want to.”

“My father doesn’t have anything warded that isn’t worth showing off,” he explains, holding out his hand. “So, I took a chance that you wouldn’t smack into the wards like a wall. And I can’t get through these books in the next forty minutes alone. You’re the one who knows what to look for.”

I ignore his hand and push to my feet despite the smarting pain in my knees from the impact. I turn in a circle, taking the library space in. There are six heavy bookshelves with glass doors lining the circular walls, and a pedestal of cabinetry in the middle decorated with a velvet tablecloth embroidered with the king’s signet. Above us, mage lights emit a soft glow, the illumination catching on the curves and knot-like lines carved into the decorative ceiling about five feet above Aaric’s head.

The scent of damp earth is gone, and it’s considerably cooler in this room than the tunnel beyond the archway. I scour above me, but there are no windows for ventilation or any visible modifications I can see. It’s not just the wards. There’s magic in this room.

“Pull me in. Now,” Xaden demands.

“No,” Aaric replies without so much as glancing in his direction. “The only perk I’m getting out of this whole expedition is knowing how much it must pain you to realize you can’t get to her.”

“Stop antagonizing him and get to work, Aaric. You start to the left and ignore anything that’s not handwritten.” I peek through the archway to see Xaden in full fuck-you mode.

His hands are loose, and shadows rise around him, forming blades as sharp as the one he carries. But it’s the cool, calculating wrath in his eyes that makes me worry for Aaric’s health—which is why I don’t insist he pull Xaden in. “I’m fine,” I promise him.

“I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Then you’d be responsible for the deaths of two princes.”

“Warrick and Lyra, right?” Aaric questions, already pulling tomes from the shelves.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Alic deserved it. He was a bully and forfeited his life by coming after Garrick during Threshing. Though I wonder who it was that told Aaric, since if his father knew I highly doubt I’d still be in possession of my head.”