Page 44 of Forgotten Monsters
“That’s a relief.”
I glance at her from the corner of my eye. “How did you know I was alive? And are you working in Dark Falls now?”
“I had this recurring dream after I started painting the first piece of my chessboard set. I realized after a few weeks I was dreaming about thefuture, and you were part of it. I told Flynn, of course, but after what happened with the Unseelie… I don’t think he could bear to get his hopes up.”
I sink into my usual seat. “It explains how quickly he accepted my return.”
“As for working here… Rose and I volunteered to tend to the force fields and gardens. We took over Summer Hall, and we tolerate Darkwood’s oversight because it allows us to keep an eye on him.” Lydia slips a few volumes from Beth’s stack and piles them up on the desk. “Elsbeth’s personal collection mentioned the origins of magic, and the center of Dark Falls’ power. The hollows are a plague, of course, but they’re not the worst of it. After the big earthquake, an underworld portal stretched under the school, a horizontal tear that swallows the ground inch by inch.”
“How big are we talking?”
She opens one volume to a hand-drawn map of the academy. “Can you feel the tremble of magic under our feet? It runs under the whole school. We have managed to contain it so far, but the next earthquake might swallow what’s left of Dark Falls and trap the whole state inside the timesink.”
A shiver quakes my body. “That’s…too big.”
She hugs another book to her chest. “Come with me. I have to show you something else.”
We pick up Flynn upstairs and Lydia guides us to the edge of the unending forest. We hike through the autumn leaves to the entrance of the cave Beth showed me before she died—so close to the Underworld tear that changed the course of my life forever.
A geodesic dome protects the area with a special force field, a thick, opaque bronze-gold wall that emits ten times the power of the others.
Hands on her hips, Lydia stares down the semi-transparent surface of the dome. “Whatever you have to do, it starts here. This barrier holds in the balance of the 40-something hollows that haven’t yet breached the perimeter. The other force fields are meant to control the few that got away.
“There’s something down there, at the heart of Dark Falls. Something that could save or destroy us.” Her green gaze bores into me. “And I’m certain we shouldn’t let Darkwood find it.”
She’s right. My instincts scream that whatever is beyond that dome is powerful enough to rewrite history, and we can’t let Theodore Darkwood anywhere near it.
“How do we get past the dome?” The energy from the thick wall prickles my fingertips.
Flynn raises a hand to the barrier, and his arm shakes. A bead of sweat glides down his forehead. “It’s impervious to my powers.”
“It’s not a typical Magisterium enchantment. Its magic signature is different, similar to the spell Elsbeth used to keep Summer Hall warm. The only one that can penetrate it is Darkwood. He controls it with an eight-point star talisman he wears around his neck.” Lydia shows us a picture of the amulet.
Beth’s meticulous calligraphy fills in the margins.
“It’s an amulet made from a unicorn horn,” I breathe.
Flynn runs his hand over the surface of the dome again. “How do we steal it from him?”
“I’m not sure. The inauguration of the new building is in a few days. Darkwood almost never comes to Dark Falls anymore, because of the timesink, but he’ll come for this. Magisterium security will be in full swing.”
I pull my brows together. “Do we really want to move on Darkwood during such a public event?”
Lydia stares down the dome with both hands on her hips. “Allie and Rose went to the unicorns for help. With a bit of luck, it won’t be long before they return, and we can hatch a plan.”
“The unicorns?” A heavy sense of doom hovers in my chest. “There’s still so much I need to know.”
“Let’s go back to the library, and I’ll tell you all about it,” Lydia offers with a smile.
Flynn squeezes my shoulder. “Let’s go. I’m famished.”
17
WAKE ME UP
The underbelly of the library possesses the most mystical quality. Here, in the restricted section, books are alive. They buzz with memory, their spines allowing for a current of secrets to pass through the aisles. I’m sitting in a lotus position at the foot of Beth’s personal stack when the air electrifies with power.
Contrary to the irregular pulses quaking Dark Falls, this power is seductive. Insidious. And frighteningly comforting.
