Page 23 of Bright Blinding Ruin

I rub my finger against its forehead for a few seconds, and then I go in for a full scratch. On its head, around its ears, under its chin. The cat soaks it all in, its purring intensifying, practically deafening.

Smiling at it, I say, “You’re so cute. I love you. How have you been surviving here by yourself, buddy? There can’t be much to eat.” I pull my hand away from its face and go inside my bag, seconds from offering it some of my food.

But before I can, the cat meows at me and trots away.

“Wait!” I call after it as I get to my feet. The cat looks at me, blinks slowly, and then marches on. It walks through the library like it owns the place, pep in its adorable step. That’s when it dawns on me. “Are you leading me somewhere?”

The cat chirps at me. Unless I’m going batshit, I swear this cat understands what I’m saying.

It leads me to a part of the library I haven’t searched yet. Along the stone wall that makes up the outer edge of the stairwell that goes to the next level of the castle sits a door.Chiseled into the stone, it looks exactly like the one I saw in the library with Frederick and his dad. It’s something I would’ve seen on my last trip here, but I’m almost one hundred percent sure that this wall was just a curved stone wall then, no carved door in sight.

“Holy shit,” I whisper in awe as the cat goes to sit at the base of the carving. My gaze drops to the cat. “Are you… are you the guardian?”

The way the cat stares back at me, I swear it’s laughing at me.

I chuckle. “You’re no ordinary cat, are you?”

The cat literally disappears from my view after that. Like, I literally watch the thing vanish into thin air, and my mouth hangs open in shock. Not what I expected at all. Before I can move an inch, the cat reappears—right in front of my face.

Yeah, as in, the cat is freakingfloating. No wings, no visible magic. Just floating.

It meows again, then headbutts its forehead against mine. I chuckle and grab it out of the air. “You are something else, you know that?” I ask the cat as I hold it against me and rub my face against its fur.

Speaking of, that fur is the softest fur I’ve ever felt in my life. Not hard or itchy or scratchy, just unbelievably soft.

As I hold it, I scratch its cheek and gaze into its silver eyes. “I wonder what your name is,” I say. The cat is perfectly at home in my arms; it doesn’t try to push away and escape like a normal cat—which, obviously, this creature isn’t. It might look like a cat and act a little like a cat, but it’s so much more.

I don’t know why, but all of a sudden, a name springs to my mind, and I say it aloud, “Thena.”

I swear to God, after I say that, the cat smiles at me.

“Thena,” I say again, petting the cat some more. “That’s your name, isn’t it? Don’t ask me how I know it, I just… do, I guess.” There’s literally no explanation for the way that name suddenlypopped into my mind, but it’s right. I know it is. There isn’t an ounce of doubt in me about it.

The cat chirps at me and pops out of my arms. It reappears at the base of the carved door and the next time it blinks, the silver in its eyes glow. Simultaneously, the outline of the door in the stone glows the same hue, and then the door actually swings open for me.

Nothing should be behind it. Nothing but the stone staircase that coils around with the main spire of the castle, but the door opens up to someplace else. Someplace dark.

That’s where I have to go.

I glance at the cat, at Thena, the guardian of Pylos’s undercroft. Her eyes are no longer glowing, but she watches me expectantly. Who knew my love for cats would come in handy? “Thank you.” I give the magical cat one last pet before venturing into the darkness.

It’s like stepping into another world. The air inside the library is stale with no movement and old, dusty books, but the moment I cross the dark threshold, I smell nothing but pure, clean air. A soft breeze twirls around me, guiding me forward, and I go on, a stone path underfoot.

I make it maybe ten feet before a pair of magical torches light up, one on either side of me, further illuminating the way. Their flames are an unnatural grayish-white, the tips of the fires flickering with blue—like Gladus’s magic.

Every few feet after that, another pair of torches light up, mimicking the first. I glance behind me, where the door to the library should be, but it’s not there anymore. It’s gone. The last thing I need is to get stuck here, but I can’t let it bother me yet. I need to find the aether, fill one of the vials around my neck, and then worry about getting back out.

The path is maybe fifty feet long before it opens up wider to a larger, circular area. More magical torches light up around thecircular area, illuminating the dead-end. It seems the undercroft is just a pathway… well, where’s the aether?

I stand after the final set of torches on the straight path, right where it starts to open and widen up. I turn and look around. Past the path I’m on, it looks like nothing. A vast emptiness that shouldn’t exist. Let’s not forget, Pylos’s castle was literally built from a mountain, and all around it is sheer drop-offs that go down who knows how far—it’s the reason why the only way in the castle is that path from the colosseum.

There’s literally no way a place like this can exist, but I guess that’s magic for you.

Then I look down, and that’s when I see it.

The platform is surrounded by liquid. From where I stand, it looks thick and viscous, similar to the reddish liquid I have in one of the vials, from Magnysia. The sea of liquid expands as far as my eyes can see, until there’s no light to reflect off it and it fades away with the darkness above it. The only reason I can see it so well from where I stand is because of all the magical torches that seem to hover in place near the platform.

That must be the aether.

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