Something seized her from the inside.
She sucked in a sharp, shallow breath as the zing of magic skipped along her body. It settled across her, cool and soft and welcoming. The aches and pains receded. Her tongue stopped bleeding. And there was something else. A feeling she couldn’t describe, like a new sense. She felt Allaster move beside her—not the way you felt someone touch you, but the way you knew someone was behind you without looking.
Something inexplicably like relief broke across the Librarian’s face, gone as quickly as it had come. He released her and offered her a hand up. “Congratulations, Corynth,” he said. “You’re the new Assistant Librarian of Amorlin.”
CHAPTER 18
KASIRA
EVERYTHING FELT DIFFERENT.
Her body moved smoother, stronger, as she let Allaster pull her to her feet. And where her skin met his, magic prickled. The dusty, aged smell of the cavern was stronger, the sound of her boots grinding across loose gravel sharper. And her mind—she didn’t know how to explain it. She felt aware of something. Connected to it. As though if she just leaned into it, if she just took hold—
“Don’t!” Allaster reached for her too late. She snapped her fingers. The magic enveloped her, and she vanished from the cavern.
She reappeared above the Library, a hundred feet in the air.
The wind stole her scream as she fell, her arms flailing uselessly, the golden spires of the Library rushing toward her like mounted spears. Panic erased reason, and she remembered the magic only when she was nearly upon the Library. She reached for it, trying to fall into it the way she had before, but it slipped away like mist through her fingers.
There was a flash beside her. A hand closed on her arm, and the world turned. She landed atop something warm and solid and blessedly grounded, her heart stuttering in her throat as she struggled to slow her breathing. Someone groaned softly, and she sat up gingerly, only to find herself half on top of Allaster, both of them sprawled across a bed.
“You caught me,” she breathed.
He stared mournfully at the ceiling. “You can get off of me now.”
Her cheeks flushed as she realized she was draped across his hips. She rolled swiftly to the foot of the bed, which was both extremely large and extremely comfortable. Made of dark walnut wood in the four-poster style, it had no headboard and sat directly in the center of a spacious, circular room, its sheer silver curtains tied back by golden tassels.
A silhouette of two massive wings spread across the bed.
Kasira blinked, and it was gone, leaving her to dismiss it as nothing more than the shock of nearly plummeting a hundred feet to her death.
Allaster sat up, rubbing his temples. “What were you thinking?”
In truth, she hadn’t been. The urge to fall into the magic had been so overwhelming, she never actually made the choice to pursue it. Even now, she felt it simmering beneath her skin, a glance away from enveloping her. It was intoxicating in a way she had forgotten things could be.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Allaster demanded. “Does nearly dying amuse you?”
Kasira touched a hand to her face. She hadn’t realized she was smiling, and she quickly replaced it with the indignation Eirlana would take at his tone. “Perhaps instead of chastising me, you could actually tell me how this magic works.”
Allaster’s incredulity only grew, and he slid off the bed with a sigh. “You have to have a fixed point held solidly in your mind when teleporting. A place or a person works best. Without it, you just get spit out somewhere random.”
She surveyed the spherical room, from the sydara vine–laced balcony on one side to the clearly unused writing desk on the other. “And you thought of …your bed?”
“We needed something soft to land on!” he snapped, and she realized with growing delight that Allaster St. Archer wasblushing. It softened him in a way she knew he would hate, and that only made her like it all the more. “You can’t change your orientation mid-teleport.”
She let her tone slide into playful. “And here I thought you were a gentleman.”
He turned a shade darker and spun on his heel for the door. Who knew the great Librarian of Amorlin, the most powerful sorcerer known, could be undone by a little teasing? She filed that away. She may have earned Allaster’s trust, but she still knew very little about him, aside from his general air of disgruntlement and that he had an ego to rival kings.
It was time to start picking him apart.
“Wait!” She leapt off the bed after him. “There must be more to the magic than not teleporting myself to my death. What if I accidentally turn someone into a toad or something?”
He whirled about in the doorway. “You can’t—we don’t—whatexactlydo you think my magic is capable of?”
“Apparently not turning people into toads. How disappointing. What can it do?”
Allaster drew a very slow, very deliberate breath. “You are now connected to the Library. Think of it as one giant organism. If you concentrate hard enough, you can sense everyone and everything inside of it.” He gave her a pointed look, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the magic’s presence.
