Page 18 of Court of Bone and Amethyst

I spin to stare at the wall again. “I sensed strange magic, just a moment before I realized she was gone. I took my eyes off her for less than a minute. Whatever happened, it happened fast.”

“I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.” Owyn’s gaze grazes over the wall thoughtfully. “Other than the fact that this whole room is humming with power. The air is teeming with it.”

“Yes, I felt that, too. But this was different.”

When I’d last seen her, she was approaching the mural. There has to be some sort of hidden door. I start at the left side, and I begin to walk slowly, running my fingers over the painted stone, looking for some kind of trigger.

“Make yourself useful,” I call over my shoulder to Owyn. “Surely, there’s some sort of tracking spell you can conjure.”

“I already tried that,” he responds, tone wry. “I got nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Wherever she is, or whatever magic you felt, it seems to be cloaking her.”

Another growl. “And that’s all you’ve got?”

“No,” Owyn says. “That’s not all I’ve got.”

The room explodes in a prismatic display of lavender light. My eyes follow as it spins and eddies like tidal pools. It condenses into a sphere about five feet in circumference, and then stretches oblong into a shape that looks like a phantom version of Sarielle, standing over by the entrance of the room. The magic moves along the bookshelves, and I realize it’s tracing her steps. When it reaches the back wall, I step out of the way as it moves past me to the center of the wall. There, the figure stops. The glowing lavender light stretches out and touches the wall before vanishing.

Owyn beats me to the spot where the spell indicated she’d disappeared. I see an amethyst set in the wall and watch as he presses it. It has to be the trigger to the hidden door. The same amethysts marked the doors to the library.

But when he presses it, nothing happens.

I step forward and try, shoving at the stone with all my strength. It doesn’t budge, seemingly a permanent fixture in the wall. Owyn tries a small burst of magic, but that doesn’t produce any better results. A string of curses rises from my lips.

“It appears,” Owyn says, “That wherever Sarielle went, she’s going to have to find her way back on her own.”

Chapter Twelve

Sarielle

For some reason,I’m not afraid when the entrance to the tunnel closes behind me. The feeling in my gut is louder now, pulling, pulling,pulling. I don’t think I could resist it even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. A hard determination fills me, drives me forward.

I keep walking down the candlelit tunnel, soon leaving the library far behind. The ceiling is not much taller than my head, and the walls so close that my shoulders almost brush each side. There is just enough room to avoid the small flames, which glow a pale lavender. They give off little heat, clearly fueled by magic alone.

After traveling for about five minutes, I hear a strange sound and I stop. It comes again, a slow swooshing followed by a crash. I realize it’s the ocean, an amplified version of the sound I heard all night at sea aboard theGolden Hawk. There must be cliffs somewhere ahead, and the ocean beyond them. I begin walking again, but haven’t gone more than a few steps before the tunnel opens up into a small room.

It’s a simple room, perfectly round. Standing in the center is a stone table. The whole space isn’t more than five strides across. On the far side, the tunnel continues, though the candles do not. The tunnel is swallowed by darkness just a few strides in, but it doesn’t bother me, because my eyes have landed on the one thing in the room aside from the table.

A large, leatherbound book that sits in the center of it, resting in a V-shaped holder carved from bone.

The tug in my gut stops. It was leading me here, to the tunnel, to the room, to the book.

I suck in a shaky breath, and I step forward, my fingers brushing over the surface of the book. The leather is a rich brown, the color of autumn leaves. An elegant “O” is burned onto the cover, and a small amethyst is embedded at each corner. Magics hums against my fingertips, and a warmth emanates from the leather.

Taking the cover between my fingers, I turn the first page. The text inside is handwritten, small dots of ink here and there between the elegant script. I don’t begin reading right away, but flip to another spot in the book, then another. Each place I stop at, the handwriting is different, the ink a distinct color. There are dates at the beginning of each entry.

My breath leaves my chest. This is a journal of my family history.

Heart racing, I flip pages until I reach the last entry. My fingers skim down to the signature at the bottom.Renarys Otreyas. My mother.

What surprises me even more is that the entry is addressed to me.

My beloved Sarielle,

Dearest child…well, you will not be a child anymore by the time you read this. You will be a woman, and I will be gone. That is the way of the Book of the Court of Bone and Amethyst. The daughter hears its call when the mother has gone into the realms beyond this life. I do not know how soon you will hear the call, since I have hidden you far, far away. But I know that one day you will return to your home, and you will find this book.

---