“I’m starting to notice.” I clear my throat and straighten my long, filthy skirt. “So if you’ll just take me to the library to deliver the book… The book! Where is it?”
Both to my relief and horror, the white lioness approaches, the book in her mouth.
“Get me out of this animal’s filthy maw,” Olm yells. “He has fleas!”
“It’s a she,” I say.
“That’s right,” the raven croaks. “A lioness.”
I realize I’m staring. “Your animals… can speak, too?”
Roane is checking the knives sheathed at his belt, ignoring me. How many does he have? It’s as if his entire belt is hung with leather sheaths.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to speak?” The raven flutters down on the lioness’s back. “I’m not a hermit like Roane.”
“Aline!” Olm shrieks. “Save me!”
What a melodramatic book. I sigh and grimace as I approach the lioness. “May I…?” I grab the book gingerly and tug it free. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the lioness says and the voice is familiar.
I swallow hard. “That was you talking to Roane earlier, wasn’t it?”
The lioness’s blue eyes study me, impassive. “Will you be stating the obvious all the time? You’d better move on. You’re not in your world anymore, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your sweetheart,” I mutter. “And what do you mean I’m not in my world? This place is in a mountain inside my world.”
“Roane…” The lioness turns her back to me. “Will someone explain to this girl the hot water she’s landed in?”
“She needs to go,” Roane growls.
“Nobody can leave this library, boy, as both you and I know,” the lioness says. “So what is your plan for getting her out? You’d better start talking.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
TRAPPED
ADELINE
“Wait… wait.” I glance from Roane to the lioness and back. “Nobody can leave this library?”
“There you go again, repeating what I say,” the lioness grouses.
The fact that these animals are sentient, speaking creatures is doing my head in, but I’m refusing to succumb to madness. After all, I have a talking book in my hands and I’m inside a cave in the mountains that isn’t only a magical library but so much more.
Speaking of which… “What did you mean when you said I’m not in my world anymore?”
Silence stretches. Roane is marching through the city with his pet friends and I have to run to keep up.
“Well,” the raven says, flying overhead, “it’s a question of whether the books are mere doors into other worlds or contain those worlds inside them, like self-contained universes, isn’t it?”
“Is it? That’s pretty philosophical for a bird.”
He squawks. “Hells, girl…”
“Sorry. I’m just unprepared for this.”
The lioness laughs. “You could say that again.”
