His fingers dug into my shoulders. “Don’t you understand? It’s not the dying. The Garden will be opened!” His deep-brown eyes were wild with whatever I still wasn’t understanding.
I pushed him back. “Hands off.”
He dragged fingers through his hair. “Sorry. Look, before if you died, that was no big deal. The bracelet got passed on. Now if you die, I would die here too.”
“Uh, it’d always be a big deal to me if I died, but I kind of get where you’re going. Dead is not good. We agree on that. I have no intention of dying anytime soon, so I’m not really seeing your big concern?” But the emotion in Ranth’s face turned my blood to ice. He dropped to his knees and tented his hands over his nose and mouth.
“You don’t understand. This dunghill has transferred the curse from the goldto my skin.” He tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling, as if calling to a greater force. “Now the curse is between you and me. It doesn’t transfer to a new owner. The reason I was in the Garden was to keep the Treessafe. If I diehere, then my bond to the Garden is released, and it would create an opening. Anyone could walk in and get inside. They could get to the Trees.” He rubbed his fingers over the new tattoo.
“Sure, in the Garden with the snake, which will escape and destroy everything. But how do we even know that’s—wait. Where did Harold go?”
The Green Man had slipped out. Now how in the hellebore would we get out of—whereverherewas?
I ran to the door and twisted the handle. It wouldn’t budge.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ileaned my head against the cold glass of the locked front door and focused on my breathing while tamping the panic zinging through my veins. The burn from whatever Harold had done had dissipated, leaving behind a bone-wearying weakness and clouds drifting through my head.
We’d gotten here through the basement of the Marina building, and that’s where we had to get back to. But if Harold had left by the front door, we’d have noticed.
Ranth was trying to open the upper cabinet with the books. “It’s locked with some warding,” he said as I approached.
“Maybe there’s a door behind the bookcase,” I suggested. Like a toddler, I cruised around the tables and counters, but the book Harold had used called out to me. I tentatively touchedthe brittle paper, the pages flexing under my fingers. Searching for answers to what Harold had done, I turned the pages, mesmerized by a handwritten mix of poetry and enlightened instruction. No spell words or even spells. No diagrams and no lists of ingredients.
When I tried to pick the book up, it was stuck. The binding appeared to be glued to the wood table.
I yanked my phone out, breathing relief when the screen turned on. Having no signal was expected. Gleefully, I snapped pictures of all twenty-seven pages. The last one glimmered, and as I paged backwards, the ink disappeared. Now the entire book was blank.
Foxgloves.
Expecting the worst, I checked my phone, but the photos were there. Sometimes tech beats magic, and this was a total win. I looked up. I had no idea how long I’d been working with the book.
Ranth leaned against the bookcase with crossed arms, watching me.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked.
“About?”
“The book? Time?”
“You looked busy. I didn’t want to interrupt you.” He grinned.
“Why aren’t you more concerned? We could be trapped here, wherever this is.” I waved at the room. The reality of that biting into me.
“I’ve been trapped for a long time. That doesn’t concern me. Dying here does. But we aren’t trapped.” He tilted his head as if he were waiting for me to answer my question.
“So, you know how to get out of here?”
“Harold left by the door.” Ranth nodded at the mosaic on the floor. It depicted two cherubs bringing in the harvest to Bacchus.
“What does that have to do with anything? That door is locked from the inside.” I pointed at the way we’d come in.
Ranth uncrossed his arms and walked over to the edge of the mosaic like a leopard padding around an interesting bush. “You really can’t see it?”
“See what?” I hadn’t meant to shriek, but being trapped and Ranth being maddeningly vague irked me. “You mean the piece of art embedded in the floor?”
He nodded, his lips curling up on one side like he was holding back a secret. “And what else do you see?”
