Page 55 of The Breaker of Stars

I didn’t comment on the fact that that wasn’t what I asked. That there was a difference between what she thought she should do and what she wanted.

“Okay,” I said.

As we stood, I pulled her closer to me, cupping her cheeks with both hands and kissing her. Her mouth was warm, her lips finally stopping that trembling for just a moment. And for a few seconds, I reminded her—and myself—that neither of us were going anywhere.

We wound back through the eerie fourth level and continued to spiral down the staircase. The lower we went, the more the magic pressed on me. Mystiques were not guiders of magic like Starsearchers. We didn’t use it in the same way, but we were still beings wrought of ether and connected to the earth, as all warriors were. Our blood was laced with that call.

Here, though, deep beneath the surface, it was almost like a great beast was stirring. Like it turned its head toward us.

We descended past the fifth level, past the chancellor’s secret office on the sixth, where Vale didn’t even stop to check that the coast was clear, before flying down to the seventh, and finally hit the eighth. Stronger power crawled along my skin, but still, we saw no one.

Despite the void, I didn’t dare speak. Instead, as we crept down that final staircase—Vale practically floating—I considered the way my senses were awakening.

All magic stemmed from the mountains, seeping from the rocky cliffs and peaks all the way into the earth. It had wound its way into the Labyrinth and the pit in Mindshaper Territory, where Ophelia had been challenged for Thorn’s emblem, and we were much deeper now than we had been then. It made sense that the further we journeyed underground, the more that power would stir.

My boots were silent as they hit the ninth-floor landing.

The imbued ink used to etch the Bond on the back of my neck reared its head, and those threads I’d barely been able to reach lately woke. They were searching for their cause, their source of magic to guard and the network of warriors I was tethered to.

As we paused with our backs to the cold stone wall, I couldn’t help but indulge the Mystique legacy pulsing within me. I pulled a small dagger from under my cloak, desperate to feel the steel in my hand.

Vale tracked the movement slowly, gaze lingering on the metal for a moment. Then, she lifted her stare to mine.

And what lay within nearly sent me to my knees.

“Vale,” I gasped.

The green of her eyes was almost entirely fogged over. Through the haze, galaxies swirled.

She only blinked at her name, her movements slowed. Less present than they’d been even on the fourth level.

“We can’t do this.” I searched the aisles beyond her. “Just stay here, and maybe I can—I can?—”

But what could I do? I wouldn’t know what we were looking for in the archives. She was the one who held the malfunctioning magic and connections to the Fates. I was simply here to protect her.

“We have to see this through,” she said, voice chiming against rock. We’d be caught for sure. “The Fates demand it.”

My hands fisted. The fucking Fates and their entitlement.

“Are they pulling at you, Stargirl?”

She nodded, galaxies swirling with every blink. “They’re louder than ever.”

And though fear turned my stomach over, this was what we needed. The Starsearcher at the fighting rings had said the ninth level of the archives held Vale’s answers. The Fates speaking to her now had to be a part of that. They had to be leading the way to whatever it was we needed.

“Follow them,” I told her.

And without even looking that the coast was clear, Vale turned the corner and floated onto the ninth floor.

I hurried after her, scanning the scene. Every damn level looked the same upon first entrance, no identifiers to tell you how deep you were. It was disorienting and would be easy to get lost down here if you weren’t paying attention.

But Vale drifted past endless shelves without concern.

My eyes snagged on the untitled books. I supposed that was a different form of defense for their private information. An intruder from a foreign clan wouldn’t know where to look for what they sought.

Unless they had the Fates to guide them, like I did through Vale.

Her hands ghosted over each shelf, fingers gently draping across wood and rifling the open books topping the tables at the end of each aisle.

---