Emma glared up at him.
“Hit me, Emma.” His smile widened as he took in her prone body. “You can’t. Can you?”
His finger drew a line down her collarbone to her rib cage. “You. Can’t. Touch. Me.”
He flicked her skin at every word. Emma flinched, and the light in his eyes grew.
“Well, this is going to make things easier. You’re coming with me, Emma. And together, we’re going to finish the ritual you spoiled.”
He pulled Emma to her feet and wrenched her arms behind her. The Library loomed above them.
“You see, I’ve been wondering. Do we really need all the trappings of the ritual? The people, the props. Sometimes, the old ways are best.”
He forced her toward the building.
“I’ve read the histories. The Power has always liked a blood sacrifice. And I’m sure yours will be acceptable.”
CHAPTER 38
Firework flashes filtered through the Library windows, staining the stacks pink and green.
“You probably don’t know this. We’re actually on top of the very source of the Power.”
Richard, Emma reflected grimly, never seemed happier than whenexplainingsomething. She was thankful, at least, that this had distracted him from knife fondling and outlining her death in detail. But if he was going to murder her, he might at least have had the decency not to lecture her on the way.
Richard seemed to take her silence for dumbstruck awe. As he tugged her through the stacks, his voice rose with a true historian’s fervor. “Yes, this very library. The texts say that it was originally the site of a holy spring. A pagan temple to the Power. The founders of the University recognized what it was and built over it. This is where those early members of the Turnbull Society brought their sacrifices. Just imagine.”
The quiet was shattered by a smash. It could not have come fromone of the windows around them, which were all intact. Sound traveled strangely in the Library.
Richard dragged Emma on more quickly, pulling her into a windowless corridor. He used the knife hilt to flick the light switch. Emma saw chipped tiles and noticeboards crowded with flyers for typing services and language exchange partners. It was a distinctly unmagical place to die.
Then the tiniestplishingsound drew her attention to the wall beside them. Set into an alcove was a stone drinking fountain, the kind Emma associated dimly with pictures of Rome. There was a face carved into it, one whose beard and hair fanned out as though drifting in a current. A stream of water poured from his lips into the basin below. The stone itself was curiously smooth and glass-like.
Emma had the opportunity to notice this detail, since Richard had forced her down until she was bent over the basin.
“Yes,” Richard crooned, breath hot on her ear. “When your blood drains into this fountain, it will wash straight back to the Power. That’s how it used to be done, in the ancient times. Through your sacrifice, your pain, the bargain will be fulfilled. And everything will be back to how it should be.”
He twisted a hand into Emma’s hair and pulled, exposing her throat to the knife.
Even resisting the pressure he exerted was enough to send pain singing through her skull. But Emma readied for one last desperate attack, pain be damned—
“—AND I CARED, YOU BASTARD.”
The sound came all at once, as though someone had turned the dial on a muted radio. Jasper stood in the doorway, purple-faced,mid-roar. Sound did, indeed, seem to travel strangely in the Library.
Richard pulled Emma in front of him and pressed the knife to her throat.
The purple drained from Jasper’s face. He looked like a lost little boy. “Come on, Rich. Let her go. Please.”
“This isn’t what you think. I found her here. She must have been hiding, all this time. I was stopping her for you—”
“Liar. I could hear you all the way here, as soon as I got in. Saying weird things about powers, threatening her—”
Richard changed tack. “I had to, Jasper. She was a danger to the Society. She was going to ruin us all, our fathers—”
“Danger to…? The Society’s only a bit of fun, Rich. Come on, it doesn’t really matter.”
“The Turnbull Society is the single most important reason this nation still exists,” Richard screamed, in a high voice Emma had never heard him use. Behind her, he was shuddering with emotion. The blade at her throat trembled viciously.
