Hadrik chuckles as he steps into the light, the white of his hair shining beneath it. “I suppose I know your father well enough to assume he would have told you how to at leastgethere.”
I hum in thought, stepping into the hug that awaits. “Seems cruel to torture me with the knowledge of it, knowing damn well I can’t access it on my own.” Especially now that I know exactly what it takes to open the door.
“Or,” Hadrik says with a pause, pulling back enough to see my face and resting his hands affectionately on my shoulders, “perhaps he knew you could figure out how to get around its…safeguards.”
“I’m afraid I’ve disappointed him then.” Smiling, I gently pull away from his grasp to turn and gesture to the end of the hallwhere Iknowthe entrance to the archives is, even if I can’t see it. “It makes sense that it would be layered with magic. Long ago, mortals, fae, shifters, and sirens might have snuck into the palace to walk these halls.”
Hadrik reaches into the pocket of his trousers, tilting his head in thought as does. “And I wonder if it will return to a time like that again.”
I take in his appearance—one that’s as haggard as I feel and as exhausted as everyone in my family looks. My heart aches as I think of all that he has endured as the very council he is a part of questions the integrity of the man he grew up alongside. The children that he would do anything for as if they were his own.
“I wish there was more we could do,” I whisper. To him. To myself.
Hadrik’s gray eyes soften in the amber light, a sad smile tugging on his lips. “If anyone can figure it out…” He lets the sentence trail off as he opens the hand that had been in his pocket, revealing a silver key.
“This is it?” The metal is cold beneath my fingertips when I lift it from his palm, turning the ornate key over under the light. At the top are three circles laid over each other, and on the bottom are three tines of different lengths. Carved into the metal is a crescent moon overlapped with a flaring sun, the celestial symbol of Void queens past making a shiver run over my body.
“I’ll have you know that it took great effort to retrieve this key.”
I make sure to meet his eyes when I respond, “I know. And if you are found out, I will—”
He shakes his head. “You will donothing, Bahira. I knew the risks involved with taking the key from Kallin’s office, and I willingly accept whatever punishment should he find out. Now, come,” he says, holding his hand back out. “We shouldn’t linger where we might be so easily spotted.”
Laying the key back into his waiting hand, I let him lead the way down the hall, my own fingers curling inwards as the hair rises on the back of my neck when a phantom draft caresses me. “It’s fucking creepy in here.”
“Perhaps part of the archives’ self-defense,” Hadrik muses, his profile falling into darkness between spelled flames. “Or maybe its curious charm.”
“You speak of it as if it’s living.”
Hadrik’s magic, a blend of blue and green, rises to his palm and floods the key, making it glow too. “It is imbued with the magic of Olymazi, a magic even more wild and raw than our own,” he says, lifting his hand to light the hallway. “It has to be sentient in its own way to honor the vows of those who bind their blood to it. To stay in places like this, places suspended in magic even when they shouldn’t be.”
We reach what looks like a dead end, nothing but dark stone in front of us. I brace for something to happen, my heart pounding in my chest. The darkness surrounding us is thick, only broken by Hadrik’s magic reacting to the key.
“The archives are as ancient as the palace. As the Mirror is—was.” I cringe at his correction, Kai’s voice threatening the edges of my mind before I push him out of it.
Above us, a bright white light glitters against the stone. It’s small, about the size of an orange at first, but then the light splits. Two flares arch in opposite directions, curving out about two feet before dropping straight to the floor. In the brilliant light, the outline of a door appears. It’s wide enough for us both to walk through, but Hadrik holds a hand back in warning as he takes a step forward, angling the key over a lock.
“The last time I opened the archives was for your father,” he says quietly. “The night after his coronation.” The lock lets out aclickas he pushes the key in fully before taking his hand off and stepping back.
“He hasn’t come back since?” I ask, my eyes narrowing on the key as it begins tovibrate. “Do you see—”
“Yes.”
Leaning forward, I watch as the vibrations grow stronger, the magic glowing brightly enough that I have to squint my eyes. The key abruptly turns, the sound echoing out and startling both Hadrik and I back a step. Slowly, as if it’s being pulled by someone on the other side, it cracks open and then stops. The white magic sputters out at the same time Hadrik’s fades around the key, plunging us once more into darkness.
“Was thatnormal?” I ask, feeling Hadrik walk forward when his arm brushes mine.
“It wasn’t aslivelythe last time I was here,” he drawls, and I hear the sound of metal sliding against metal as he pulls the key from the lock. “Perhaps, the magic was excited by your presence.”
I snort and put my hands out in front of me, looking back over my shoulder once to make sure the entire hallway hasn’t been left in darkness. The spelled flames lining the walls farther down still blaze as they did earlier. Turning back around, I take another slow step forward, my fingers connecting with the cool metal of the door.
“Ready?” he asks.
“As I will ever be.” Together, we push the door open on silent hinges and step past the threshold into the ancient archives. The air pressure shifts, as does the temperature. It’s colder, enough so that my eyes water as they adjust to the difference.
“One more step,” Hadrik advises. We take it together, and the airsnaps, two flames coming to life in the darkness in front of us.
“What the fuck is this place,” I rasp, brushing rogue strands from my ponytail away from my face. I inhale and immediately get thrown into a coughing fit, my eyes tearing up again fromhow long it takes me to catch my breath. “And what is that gods awful smell?” It is hard to even categorize it as bitter or rotten or musty. It’s some horrific combination of the three, and I’m nowcompletelyunderstanding of why my father only deigned to visit this place once.
