Page 79 of The Mirror of Beasts

Nash finally looked up, his eyes scanning me quickly before returning to his work. “You’ve had some real harebrained ideas in your short life …” He looked up again, the corner of his mouth twitching. “That, however, was not one of them.”

That rare bit of praise caught me off guard.

“Are you okay?” I asked Neve, despising the emotion overtaking my voice, the strain. She waved off my concern, still looking a bit worse for wear. “Next time you think about being that brave, remember that no one’s going to take care of your weird bone collection. And I’m going to be very upset.”

She struggled to smother her smile. “Are you … mad at me for getting hurt?”

“Of course I am!” I said huffily. “You’re not allowed to bail on us—”

I clamped my lips shut, glaring at Nash as he pretended not to listen.

“And you,” I said. “You couldn’t have shown up five minutes earlier?”

He scowled. “If you’d just done what I asked, the four of you—”

I stilled, letting the rest of his words roll past me like the rumble of thunderclouds.

Four of us. Four.

I scanned the wreckage of the library again, fear spiking my pulse. The mirror slid from my hands, hitting the floor with a dull thump. Neve sent me a questioning look.

I counted five, but there should have been six.

“Where’s Olwen?” My voice sounded like I was speaking underwater.

Caitriona was in front of me in the space of a moment. “What do you mean? She’s downstairs.”

My pulse sped and sped, until I thought I would double over. “No. She came up to help you—”

Caitriona pushed past me. Her silver hair streamed out behind her like a banner as we bypassed the open doors of the elevator and made for the stairs again. By the time we reached the warehouse, the magic that had burst from the mirror with the hag had settled, and the room was cold and silent again.

“Olwen?” Caitriona called out. “Olwen! Where are you?”

“Maybe she hid when she heard the Children?” I thought aloud. But even I knew that made no sense. She would never abandon the people she loved, even to a losing fight. “Olwen!”

Caitriona went right, heading in the direction of the armoire Emrys and I had hidden inside. A new thread of cold weaving through the air drew me left, and as I made my way through the shattered remains of shelves and cases, I saw something that hadn’t been there before.

Snow.

White flakes floated in the standing crimson pools of champagne, then melted away. More and more of it was scattered over what was visible of the floor, over furniture that had been kicked over and out of the way.

I followed the trail of it, gaining speed with every step, tracing that same icy thread through the darkness of the room until it brought me to a stone wall. There, the snowflakes were drifting into the warehouse not from a crack between the stones, but through the stones themselves.

I held out a hand, pushing it forward, feeling the magic crawl over my skin toward the hidden passage on the other side.

“Cait!” I shouted.

Emrys had been right after all. There was a way out of the warehouse—a little smuggler’s tunnel that opened to a storm-whipped river. The snow shrouded much of the surrounding landscape. I could only make out the scattered trees by their shadowed outlines. The sigils carved into the stone near my feet were the same spell that had concealed the entrance to the warehouse.

I shielded my eyes and, bracing my front foot, leaned out from the edge of the tunnel, wary of the steep drop down to the water. “Olwen!”

The sharp smell of snow filled my lungs, undercut by the river’s earthiness. There was no dock, but the river’s dark water lapped up against two wooden posts marking either side of the tunnel entrance. Loose ropes twirled from each.

“She fought,” Caitriona said quietly behind me.

I spun around. She gestured to the wall beside her, sweeping her hands down to the ground, revealing what my untrained eye had missed. The gray stone was charred black, and chunks of the smooth surface were scattered around her feet. She took a careful step toward me, crossing one foot over the other. Her mouth tightening with concentration as she knelt to touch a groove in the dirt, where something—someone—had been dragged.

Her eyes followed its path, stopping at a spot near my feet. It was only then that distress settled over her expression, carving deep lines in her face.

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