“I don’t know.”
“But you speak from experience. What happened when you touched it?” I reach for it and he grabs my hand.
“Why the fuck do you have to touch everything I tell you not to touch?” he snarls. “I swear, you’ll be the death of me.”
I turn to face him and what I see in his eyes… is stark fear. It stops me in my tracks. “What happened when you touched it, Roane?”
“You really want to know?” The fear shifts back into anger. “I almost fucking died. This book… it’s the fucking foundation of this world. So go ahead and ignore my warnings, make light of them. Who cares, right?”
Chastised, I bow my head and sigh. “Sorry. I promise I won’t touch it. What about the other magical books? Am I allowed to read them?”
“This isn’t a place of leisure,” he snaps, not appeased. “These books are dangerous.”
“So you’ve said many times. But we need answers.”
He gives me an exasperated look. “To what?”
“To what ails this world.”
“Nothing ails this world.”
I rub my hands over my face. He’s insulted. I didn’t mean to hurt him, to imply he’s botching his job as a librarian, but…
“Are you doing anything different from the previous librarians? I’d like to see their journals. Those can’t be dangerous, can they?”
“Be my guest.” His anger lingers, evidenced by his stiff back and brusque movements as he climbs down the steps, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along. “They aren’t shelved far from here.”
I follow him, skipping to keep up, his grip on my wrist bruising. An apology quivers on the tip of my tongue, but then I’m distracted by a heap of masonry.
A wall of the library has collapsed, shelves and books and all.
“What happened here?” I breathe.
He’s silent, coming to a stop.
“Does it have to do with the crash we heard and the pieces breaking off the columns earlier?”
“It’s an unstable world.”
“Is it?” Yanking my wrist free of his grip, I walk over the rubble and lift a book. The fine chains it was bound with slither off and fall. The pages vibrate.
“Give it here right now!” he roars, leaping after me. “Give it to me…” He staggers backward, face pale, and presses a hand to his head. “Fuck…”
My heart starts to pound. I place the book down. “Roane. What’s the matter?”
His lips peel back and he lets his hand fall to his side. “Don’t worry about me. We should get out of here.”
“And the journals?”
“Of course. The clues and answers. That’s all that matters to you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “That’s not fair. I’m trying to help.”
“You can’t fucking help!” he shouts. “It’s all falling apart.”
Anger is born from pain, Naida always said, mostly when faced with my teenage tantrums, but I don’t know how to help Roane when he won’t tell me what is going on and refuses any help.
I don’t know what to do.
