I glance at him. “I think so. Why?”
His brow furrows. “There’s a vault hidden in the rock face there. It’s said to house a portion of Hedera’s dragon scale reserves. It would’ve been sealed—heavily warded—but Torbin always did know all the secret passageways. Perhaps he meant to show you the wealth. Not bones or treasure. Gold and scales.”
Instead, he inadvertently showed me a side of himself he probably hadn’t meant to.
I close the book. “Well, I guess we can check that lesson off our list.”
“Do not fret,” Ezra replies, inspecting a scroll from the middle of the table. “There’s no shortage of lessons.”
“Yay,” Nadya says, devoid of enthusiasm as she strolls away from the table.
I take the dragon slayer book back to its respective shelf before perusing more titles.
Nadya meanders by a far shelf, humming as she glances at the spines. Suddenly, a large tome falls from a shelf she just passed, landing with athunkon the floor behind her.
“Oh!” She remarks, twirling to gape at the book. She holds a hand to her heart and looks at me. “Did you do that?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She bends and picks up the fallen book. “It practicallyjumpedoff the shelf.”
When Ezra and I come over to her, I study the cover bound in deep-navy leather with an inlaid sigil gleaming on the front: a silver circle atop a four-pointed star.
“There’s no title,” I say. “What is it?”
“No idea.” She flips the book open. “The text is… strange. I don’t recognize the language.”
“May I?” Ezra asks, approaching her side.
She hands him the book, but he shakes his head after a few moments. “It’s not in any lexicon I know. And I’ve studied thirty-seven.”
Nadya exhales, clearly disappointed. “Maybe it’s nothing. Look at these swirls. There’s no way that’s a language.”
Ezra blinks, eyes darting between her and the book. “‘Swirls’?”
She lowers her brows. “Yeah. Look. Right there.” She points to something on the page.
“I see shapes,” he says. “Like squares and triangles.”
I stand, abandoning the dragon slayer book. “Let me see.”
When I approach them, Ezra holds the book out so I can study the page. Except I don’t see swirls or shapes. “This book must be enchanted. I see a series of straight lines and crosses.”
Nadya’s eyes widen.
Ezra flips a page. “Peculiar.”
“I suppose this book isn’t meant to be read by just anyone.” Nadya runs a hand over the print, shaking her head. “Which means there are secrets in here somebody worked hard to hide.”
Then the clock above the library door chimes the hour, and we all stiffen.
“Time’s up,” Ezra says. “Quickly, put everything back where we found it.”
Nadya takes the book from Ezra, her hand smoothing over the sigil on the cover once more before returning the book to its shelf.
I draw the shutters closed, and we hurry back down the secret hall. The door clicks shut behind us, sealing off the passageway to the library with a quiet finality. We step into the corridor, shadows curling along the stone floor, the sconces casting a dull, golden light. Nadya exhales, rubbing her arms against the chill.
“Well,” she mutters, tucking a curl behind her ear, “we didn’t get what we came for, but at least no one’s chased us down.”
