As soon as the serpent’s tail submerges, it uncoils from around me so that it can fit through the tunnels. I slip, my hand digging into one of the serpent’s scales just in time, lest I be swept away with the wind and plummet through the tunnels. There’s a cracking turn to the right, and as I look around me through watering eyes—berated by the wind due to the speed at which we’re traveling—I realize we’re traveling through the roots of the tree itself.
By the time we come to a halt, my fingertips are bleeding from clinging onto the serpent’s sharp scales. At the force of the halt, I’m slung off the serpent’s back, my palms splayed out against the bark floor to keep my face from smashing into the ground.
There’s a strange pressure at my fingertips, and a sudden wooziness in my belly. I yank my hands away from the bark, realizing just in time that the bark is sucking the blood from my fingertips.
I stand to my feet, swaying a bit, and wipe my bloodied hands on my trousers. The tree has had enough of my blood.
We’ve arrived in a vaulted foyer. In front of us is a colossal door, its designs made of curling roots.
For a moment, I worry I’ll have to give my blood again to get the door to open, but as if reading my mind, the serpent says, “Admittance to the library requires a sacrifice.”
“I take it that’s one of the rules,” I say.
“Astute,” the serpent says, its tone implying the opposite.
“What kind of sacrifice?”
“A possibility.”
I frown, turning toward the terrifying creature. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. To gain admittance into the library, you must give up a future possibility.”
“Do I get to pick?”
The serpent’s mouth curves.
I didn’t think so. “So what possibility would you have me give up?”
“Something precious.” The serpent slithers toward me, though its back half is still obscured by the tunnel. Again, it licks the air, but only once it gets close.
John once told me that animals can taste fear. I have the eerie suspicion that this serpent’s taste is even more honed than that. It brings its tongue back into its mouth, its eyes darting upward.
“Mm,” it says, as if my fear possesses notes of a fine wine.
“Your fear is not what I would expect, for a girl whose Mate is dying.”
I swallow, my hands trembling.Please don’t take away my future with him.
The serpent bares its sharp teeth. “You may enter the library, should you forfeit the possibility of nursing your firstborn at your breasts.”
My mind freezes, my heart pounding. Can the serpent taste my bargain with the Sister, can it read exactly what I bargained away? Or can it taste my desire to be a mother? The hope I’d thought I’d quashed.
“If I agree, I’m just giving up the possibility of something? Not causing it to happen?”
The serpent nods.
I bite my lip. It’s better than it could be. Since I’m determined not to have children anyway, it’s of little risk to me. Little does the serpent know that I’ve already given up that possibility.
Still, the words hurt on the way out. “I accept these terms.”
A rumbling, and the double doors slide open before me, scraping against the ground and causing it to tremble. It’s dark inside the library, and even a few paces away from the entrance, I can see nothing.
I take a step forward, but the serpent hisses yet again. “Just one more rule.”
I turn over my shoulder and stare down the terrifying creature.
“One does not steal from the library.”
