“As am I,” Selene says. “It’s the second reason why I’ve come here.” She pins me with a look. “There is much we don’t know about your order. You are the last, Aurelia. But the old book I loaned Xander spoke of the ancient Boneweavers and the world they came from. Theremustbe more information out there. There was word of a unicorn.”
My heart thumps rapidly in my chest. “Lorian, yes. We don’t know where he and Celeste went after we rescued him. It’s like they disappeared?—”
She nods. “From this world.”
“You know?”
“The Drakos lords collected many old texts,” she says. “There is a lot under the estate if a person is willing to look. But…did you manage to touch him?”
I sigh. “I couldn’t do it. He’d been through so much already under Katerina, touching him felt like a crime.”
“A shame,” she says. “If you could travel between worlds, we may have gained something.”
An old power, a distant memory, brushes over my skin, and I shiver, glancing toward the end of the library. Lyle glances in the same direction but lets me take the lead. “You speak of knowledge under Drakos Estate,” I say. “I think Animus Academy also has…something underneath it too. I came across it one day and asked it to go away.”
Selene’s brows shoot up, as do Xander’s, and they look so much like siblings in that moment. “You’ve never mentioned this,” my dragon says darkly.
I scratch my neck. “It was a bit…well,creepyis the only word.”
“The fact that you have a basilisk as a mate and you still find something else creepy is hilarious.” Selene chuckles under her breath. “You know you have to show us now.”
“It’s over here!” Savage says enthusiastically, marching with Eugene under his arm to the back wall. We all file down, past the stacks to the black wall. I recount my steps, going roughly to the middle of the wall.
“Ashfang?” I ask tentatively. “Are you still there? Remember how I told you to disappear? I’d like you to come out now.”
Power moves along the black brick, raising the tiny hairs on my body before the door fades into existence, black wood under the curved stone. Ashfang’s broad face blinks down at me, eerily alert above the arched door. Savage gasps dramatically while Scythe and Xander unconsciously huddle close to my side. Lyle growls.
“Greetings, Lady Boneweaver,” Ashfang drones. “Dark are the times.”
“Sure are!” Savage exclaims. Eugene gives a croon.
“Everyone, this is Ashfang,” I say quietly. “He is keeper of the door.”
“Hello, sir,” Selene says.
Ashfang bows in his mortar. “My lady dragon.”
“Shall we open it?” Selene asks, raising her brows at me.
“It’s not pleasant,” I warn. “And nobody should be going in.” I glare at Savage so he knows not to go bouncing anywhere. “Ashfang? Kindly open up.”
The gargoyle bows again, and the wooden door groans inward on its hinges. Darkness expands beyond, yawning as the door opens to its fullest extent. A sound like a low, deep hum resonates, and the power makes my heels lift. “It keeps pulling me in,” I say warily. “I don’t like it.”
“I’ve never felt a power like this before,” Xander says. “What on earth?”
“I want to go in!” Savage cries.
“No!” multiple voices say at the same time.
“The power within,” Scythe says, putting his arm around my waist. “Looks like a whirlpool to my shark-eyes. It reminds me of Lorian.”
Suddenly, I feel the likeness of it. “You’re right.”
“It sounds like a portal,” Selene says in wonder, the fair black strands of her hair wafting towards the door. “Aurelia, there’s a portal under Animus Academy!”
“Surely not,” says Lyle.
“No, I think she’s right,” Xander says. “This is how our kind arrived in this world. There were many such portals on each continent, but scientists just assumed they’d all closed over or were so well hidden that no one could find them.”
