We raced to the right side of the room with the statue stomping not far behind, his stony arms extended.
“Excellent,” Kerralyn said. “If you can loosen the knot, the rest might unravel.”
“Might?” Derren cried out, a touch of panic in his voice. “That’s all we’ve got, that somethingmightwork?”
“Do you have any other suggestions?” Kerralyn’s voice lifted a touch too high.
“Run?” he quipped. “Because I’m all out of boots to step out of.”
I’d never attempted anything like this. My magic was mostly directed outward. Shields, strikes, and moving small objects. This felt too delicate for a new magic-wielder like me.
Beams shot from the statue’s eyes, searing ice across the floor, aiming for us.
“Fuck,” Lexie hissed, and we raced across the big open room and took the staircase to the upper level.
The statue cocked his head back and shot more freeze our way, but we ducked, and it hit the wall behind us.
“Any time now,” Kerralyn said from beside me. “Reach out to the knot and loosen it.”
I stretched my mind inside, drawing on the hum of power that had always threaded through my blood. In my mind’s eye, I followed Pherin’s impression, slipping magic between the tangled strands until I came to the knot.
The statue started climbing the stairs, each thud of his stone boots resounding on the treads.
The knot felt tighter than I’d expected, and the moment I touched it, the wards shivered a warning.
Just a little more,I told myself. Instead of yanking, I coaxed, feeding bits of power into the thread, aiming for the bundle in the middle.
A strandloosened.
Another. The knot fell apart like damp twine, and the air in the library shifted.
The statue’s eyes dimmed to darkness. He froze partway up the stairs before he pivoted and shuffled back to his pedestal, resuming his original pose as if he’d never moved at all.
Derren let out a long breath. “That was impressive. Also terrifying. But mostly impressive. Great job, Isi.”
“My little minxpip, who everyone discounts, figured this out. She told me what to do.”
She released a self-satisfied trill.
They all studied her fluffy form.
“When cornered, a minxpip will bite,” Lexie said softly, repeating what she’d told me not long after I arrived. “Even the smallest flame can set the world on fire.” Her lips quirked up. “Or, in this case, unravel magic.”
We returned to the first level, though we remained far from the statue in case he woke once more.
“Where are the books about the Skathes?” I asked Kerralyn.
“In the back.” She hurried across the big open room and darted down a hall that led to an even larger room full of rows and rows of books. Cutting down the middle aisle, she kept going until she reached the end, stopping to peer into a glass case mounted to the back wall.
“They’re gone,” she sighed. “All that and they’re gone!”
A pristine cloth lay across the inside of the case showing only subtle dents where a few books might’ve recently laid.
“Should we start searching the shelves then?” I asked. “We might find other books that could be useful.”
“We can try.” Kerralyn frowned, glancing around.
Lexie strode back down the center aisle, stopping at one row and peering at the books. “Search the place. Look for newer books with titles that look suspicious.” She ran her fingertip along the spines, mumbling in a voice too low for me to understand.
