Page 121 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
Azrael. That grief swells up in me, but now is not the time for it. Except maybe one little thing.
You should be here, I reach out and tell him. Maybe he’s blocked me. I don’t know. But I feel better having sent that message to him anyway.
Carol’s house smells like sulfur and rot, but it’sbeautiful. Gleaming wood and elaborate carvings. Every window is stained glass. Every light fixture is a glorious gold.
I peek in each room I see, looking for books. When I finally make it to the library, it’s the biggest and most beautiful oneI’ve ever seen. It puts full museums in Europe to shame, both in volume and the artifacts she’s no doubt stolen. I shouldbe disgusted.
But the Historian in me, raised in libraries, can’t help a dreamy sigh all the same.
I scan the titles, keeping the archive key in my hand.
What am I looking for? What do I need to know?I ask the library, the same way I ask the archives.
Ifeelsomething move around me, but it’s almost like it starts and then stops. As if it’s hindered by something.
An outside, evil force.
No doubt more wards and locks. I look at the key, wondering if there’s some clue here. But it’s just a key. The room is justa library.
Still, something ishere. I feel it. A dark, lurking presence.
But books are ideas. And ideas aren’t dangerous in and of themselves. It’s what people do with them that causes trouble.That’s never seemed like a good enough reason to restrict any and all ideas to me. I’d rather let the ideas go free and maybe work on restricting the people who try to use them to hurt others.
“Reveal to me, what I should see,” I say.
The world around meripples, but doesn’t quite change. So I do it again, and again, andagain. Still there’s no give.
Iknowsomething exists behind the facade, but my magic can’t reach it. I keep trying, though. I have to do this. I have to succeed.Everything is up tome.
I’m pretty quickly spent. Sweaty and shaking. I’ve no doubt done irreparable damage to my hair, and if I have the energy toget back to the wedding, it will be on nothing more than my own two feet, not a flight or apopof magic.
But I haven’t succeeded yet, and I have to succeed. I squeeze the key in my palm. It got me in here. It must have the answer.I look around, searching for something. Not the books I’m after, but maybe some kind of sign—
Then, there it is.
A little metal... weasel? A lot like the one Carol wore to the house tour what feels like a lifetime ago.
It’s screwed to one of the bookshelf joints, but if I touch it, the metal swings. And when I swing it out of the way, there’sa keyhole.
With shaky hands—both nerves and exhaustion—I shove my key into the hole. Nothing happens. But then I turn the key, and...
The world beneath my feet rumbles. The shelves shake, move, twist, and then turn. They open up the wall into a dark sort ofcave.
And in that cave are even more books.
A stack of books, bound in black leather. There are no titles embossed on them, no authors mentioned. But Ifeelthe evil pumping off them.
I smell it. I taste it.
And still I move forward. I need to protect myself before I open them, I know I do, but—
“You didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” a voice asks me.
It’s a vaguely familiar voice. But only vaguely—
Until I turn and come face to face with my father.
Not Stanford Pendell, but mybiologicalfather.
