“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sarah said. “Corra will be fine.”
“She’s a firedrake, Sarah,” I retorted. “She can’t fly without causing sparks. Look at this place.”
“A tinderbox,” Linda agreed. “Still, I cannot see another way.”
“There has to be one,” I said, poking my index finger into my third eye in hopes of waking it up.
“Come on, Diana. Stop thinking about your precious library card. It’s time to kick some magical ass.”
“I need some air first.” I turned and headed downstairs. Fresh air would steady my nerves and help me think. I pounded down the wooden treads that had been laid over the stone and pushed through the glass doors and into the Old Schools Quadrangle, gulping in the cold, dust-free December air, Fernando following at my heels.
“Hello, Auntie.”
Gallowglass emerged from the shadows.
His mere presence told me that something terrible had happened.
His next quiet words confirmed it.
“Benjamin has Matthew.”
“He can’t. I just talked to him.” The silver chain within me swayed.
“That was five hours ago,” Fernando said, checking his watch. “When you spoke, did Matthew say where he was?”
“Only that he was leaving Germany,” I whispered numbly. Stan and Dickie approached, frowns on their faces.
“Gallowglass,” Stan said with a nod.
“Stan,” Gallowglass replied.
“Problem?” Stan asked.
“Matthew’s gone off the grid,” Gallowglass explained. “Benjamin’s got him.”
“Ah.” Stan looked worried. “Benjamin always was a bastard. I don’t imagine he’s improved over the years.”
I thought of my Matthew in the hands of that monster.
I remembered what Benjamin had said about his hope that I would bear a girl.
I saw my daughter’s tiny, fragile finger touch the tip of Matthew’s nose.
“There is no way forward that doesn’t have him in it,” I said.
Anger burned through my veins, followed by a crashing wave of power—fire, air, earth, and water—that swept everything else before it. I felt a strange absence, a hollowness that told me I had lost something vital.
For a moment I wondered if it were Matthew. But I could still feel the chain that bound us. What was essential to my well-being was still there.
Then I realized it was not something essential I’d lost but something habitual, a burden carried so long that I had become inured to its heaviness.
Now that long-cherished thing was gone—just as the goddess had foretold.
I whirled around, blindly seeking the library entrance in the darkness.
“Where are you going, Auntie?” Gallowglass said, holding the door closed so that I couldn’t pass. “Did you not hear me? We must go after Matthew. There’s no time to lose.”
The thick panels of glass turned to glittering sand, and the brass hinges and handles clanged against the stone threshold. I stepped over the debris and half ran, half flew up the stairs to Duke Humfrey’s.
“Auntie!” Gallowglass shouted. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No!” I shouted back. “And if I use my magic, I won’t lose Matthew either.”
“Lose Matthew?” Sarah said as I slid my way into Duke Humfrey’s, accompanied by Gallowglass and Fernando.
“The goddess. She told me I would have to give something up if I wanted Ashmole 782,” I explained. “But it wasn’t Matthew.”
The feeling of absence had been replaced by a blooming sensation of released power that banished any remaining worries.
“Corra, fly!” I spread my arms wide, and my firedrake screeched into the room, zooming around the galleries and down the long aisle that connected the Arts End and the Selden End.
“What was it, then?” Linda asked, watching Corra’s tail pat Thomas Bodley’s helmet.
“Fear.”
My mother had warned me of its power, but I had misunderstood, as children often do. I’d thought it was the fear of others that I needed to guard against, but it was my own terror. Because of that misunderstanding, I’d let the fear take root inside me until it clouded my thoughts and affected how I saw the world.
Fear had also choked out any desire to work magic. It had been my crutch and my cloak, keeping me from exercising my power. Fear had sheltered me from the curiosity of others and provided an oubliette where I could forget who I really was: a witch. I’d thought I’d left fear behind me months ago when I learned I was a weaver, but I had been clinging to its last vestiges without knowing it.
No more.
Corra dropped down on a current of air, extending her talons forward and beating her wings to slow herself. I grabbed the pages from the Book of Life and held them up to her nose. She sniffed.
The firedrake’s roar of outrage filled the room, rattling the stained glass. Though she had spoken to me seldom since our first encounter in Goody Alsop’s house, preferring to communicate in sounds and gestures, Corra chose to speak now.
“Death lies heavy on those pages. Weaving and bloodcraft, too.” She shook her head as if to rid her nostrils of the scent.
“Did she say bloodcraft?” Sarah’s curiosity was evident.
“We’ll ask the beastie questions later,” Gallowglass said, his voice grim.
“These pages come from a book. It’s somewhere in this library. I need to find it.” I focused on Corra rather than the background chatter. “My only hope of getting Matthew back may be inside it.”
“And if I bring you this terrible book, what then?” Corra blinked, her eyes silver and black. I was reminded of the goddess, and of Jack’s rage-filled gaze.
“You want to leave me,” I said with sudden understanding. Corra was a prisoner just as I had been a prisoner, spellbound with no means to escape.
“Like your fear, I cannot go unless you set me free,” Corra said. “I am your familiar. With my help you have learned how to spin what was, weave what is, and knot what must be. You have no more need of me.”
But Corra had been with me for months and, like my fear, I had grown used to relying on her. “What if I can’t find Matthew without your help?”
“My power will never leave you.” Corra’s scales were brilliantly iridescent, even in the library’s darkness. I thought of the shadow of the firedrake on my lower back and nodded. Like the goddess’s arrow and my weaver’s cords, Corra’s affinity for fire and water would always be within me.