“What happened to the stairs?” I gripe, grabbing fistfuls of her short fur.
“We’re taking a different route up.”
“What about Roane?” I muse, tightening my thighs, focused on not losing my seat. “When will he be back?”
“He’ll return when he’s ready. Usually he’s back by nightfall.”
“I’m sorry…” I swallow hard. “Sorry I disrupted your little family routine.”
“Never be sorry for things that aren’t your fault.”
That makes me smile. “Told you that you’re wise.”
“Yet, do you ever listen to me? No. You’re just like Roane. Stubborn as a horn-headed lizard.”
“And those lizards… do you get them here a lot?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” She clears the top of the path and we find ourselves on the rock shelf marked by the closed library doors.
I release her fur and carefully slide off her back, dropping to the ground. “Thank you for the ride.”
“So what are your plans now? You’ve been outside. Gathered weeds. Got attacked repeatedly. Changed…” She growls. “Changed those metal birds into something else. What next?”
“I want to solve this riddle.”
“Is that what we are to you? A problem to solve?”
“No. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the increasing numbers of monsters and the reason why Roane’s magic is failing.”
“It’s not failing,” she argues. “It’s just too many monsters to handle.”
“And why is that? Look, I want to read the journals of the previous guardians. Search for answers.”
“We could do that.”
I smile, even though I fight it. She said‘we,’and it makes me feel less alone. “Will you help me, then?”
“I’ve always liked answers,” she says. “I hate unanswered questions. Although again, in case you forgot… You need Roane to open the sanctum.”
Damn…
The huge library doors rise before us. Ardruna seems in no rush to enter, using her hind paw to scratch at an ear, and I study the broken statues flanking them. On closer inspection, they appearto depict twisted creatures, half-animal, half-human, like the dark fae.
“We still haven’t seen Talton,” I mutter. “Could he be in the library?” I snicker. “He may be reading.”
She barks a laugh as she lowers her leg. “Not a huge reader, no. Especially not of dangerous, magical books.”
“But he must have hobbies,” I go on. “He may be bird watching. Or monster watching. Or just thinking deep thoughts.”
“We all need our private moments. Just because he’s a bird…”
“I know,” I say, nodding. “He’s probably out there writing a new book. Probably his memoirs.”
She laughs. “I bet they’d be full of complaints about Roane and me.‘They never listen to me,’she pretends to squawk,‘and never give me the good meat scraps for dinner!’”
I giggle. Then sober up. “He must be upset over the way Roane treated him.”
“We’ve been with Roane for a long time,” Ardruna says. “You learn to forgive and move on in a relationship.”
