I conjured water and flung it on the ground, trying to create a direct path that followed the white light flickering in a sea of orange and red. Ten paces into the home, acrackrang through the roar of blood in my ears.
My eyes snapped up to find the ceiling caving in—falling right above me.
“Oh shi—”
A hand yanked me back just as the roof landed right where I’d stood.
“Alice! Change of plans! We have to get out of here!” A sleeve placed over his nose and mouth muffled Hatter’s voice.
As my lungs were burning hotter by the second, I copied him and covered my nose and mouth too. “No! We need the book!’
“We can find another way! It’s not safe. We—”
But I wasn’t having it. Coleti wanted me to have the book. She said she’d beenexpectingme, so I would damn well find it.
I whirled around, doused the flames from the caved-in ceiling, and charged forward before he finished his sentence.
I’d lost the flickering aether light when Hatter saved me, but it didn’t take too long to find it again. It flashed brilliant white in the back left corner of the home.
Right where he found Coleti.
I shook my head. She’d probably been trying to get to it when she passed out from smoke inhalation.
The flames grew hotter and brighter the further I went, but I fought them as best I could. Thankfully, despite his pleas for me to turn around, Henri was following me. His power over water was stronger than mine, and together, we created a trail until I could no longer spot a flash of white light ahead of us.
“The book has to be somewhere in there!” I screamed, pointing to a hutch that seemed to be built into the wall.
The fire licked its wood sides with gusto, making me hope that we weren’t too late.
Henri and I tag-teamed the hutch, drenching the flames with water. The moment my hands touched the wet wood, the door fell away, like it had barely been holding on.
I scanned the inside. Coleti had filled the cupboard to the brim with ceramics and jars overflowing with crystals and rocks, but there was no sign of a book.
“I don’t see it!” I called back to Hatter.
We rifled through opposite sides of the hutch, pulling everything out, examining the objects, and throwing them behind us. And still nothing.
My stinging eyes filled with tears. What the actual fuck? Where had Coleti hidden the book, and why didn’t the aether lend another hand?
Henri was running his hands over the inside of the cupboards when he started coughing and couldn’t stop. He bent at the waist, his palms bracing him against the cupboard wall as coughs wracked his body.
I laid a hand on his shoulder, and he bent lower, moving his hands to the next shelf for support.
“I can’t carry you out of here if you pass out,” I told him. “Go. I promise I’ll only be a few more—”
Hatter rose suddenly, his bloodshot eyes wide as he felt the back wall of the shelf.
“What? What is it?” I pressed.
“A secret compartment,” he replied, and then punched through the wood of the hutch.
A hole leading to the innards of the cottage appeared, and inside rested a single book.
I grabbed the tome and whirled around. “Let’s go!”
Henri followed, and faster than I dared to hope, we were bursting out the front door of the cottage, gasping for breath.
I made it about halfway to Dee and Dum, who were in hysterics on the edge of the lawn, before I collapsed on the ground and began hacking up my lungs. Hatter fell next to me, also coughing.
