I fell on my knees, panting. The box opened, and its contents spilled on the floor around me.
“What the fuck?”
That couldn’t be true. I must have misheard that. No, my friend couldn’t be—if he was responsible for their capture…No. No, it would mean that he had something to do with the prison too, and that wasn’t possible. He cared for our people, and I’ve seen how it affected him over the past few years. I’ve seen his face every time one of them was left on our perimeter for us to find. Every time a scout disappeared.
There had to be something I was missing. Something I didn’t see.
The Warlock—Nomin. Dimitri called him corrupted. Said he had mixed powers. That he was old, and should have been extinct. He looked like a shadow or a blood Warlock, using his own blood to control the smoke that attacked Dimitri. Both these types of Earthwalkers had Hellrisers origin…Was that what Dimitri meant by “corrupted”? But every Warlock had either Divine or Hellriser’s origins…
I grabbed my hair, too many thoughts swirling in my mind. It didn’t make any sense!
A laugh a couple of rows away made me flinch before I groaned, fumbling with the loose pages on the floor to get them back inside their fallen box.
“Yeah, I’ll clean up. No need to get your panties in a twist, you creepy ghost.”
As I placed the box back on its shelf, she laughed again.For fuck’s sakes.
I looked toward the sound. It was between the rows I found Lola crying barely over a week ago.
“Do you have something to tell me?” I asked. She did not answer, but a cold breeze hit my arms, sending goosebumps up my spine.Idon’t like this. Whatever Margaret was, she gave me the creeps. “Do you want me to leave?”
I heard the door lock in the distance.Okay, that’s a no, then.
“What do you want?” My patience was wearing thin. I was exhausted from that little visit in Arc’s mind and it felt like someone was playing drums inside my head.
Another sound, this time like someone was tapping on the wooden shelves, back where I first heard her laugh. Where Lola cried over the book I’ve never seen before, no matter how many times I’ve been skimming the place in the past decades.
I reluctantly made my way toward the echoing sound, unease prickling at my skin. Damn, how I hated the ghost.
“Okay? I’m here. What did you want to show me?”
How dumb did I sound talking to the damn thing? Especially when I stood still for two full minutes in silence, waiting for some kind of response. She was probably just fucking with my head, like she enjoyed doing every fucking day.
As I sighed and turned around to leave, something moved behind me, making me snap to attention.
“This book?” I asked, looking at the slightly unaligned small leather volume.
It moved again, getting closer to the edge. I grabbed it before it could fall and looked at the simple cover.
Nothing was written on it except for what looked like mostly erased old asian symbols. I moved it around, studying the old carvings on the leather with the light.
Thank god every Divine spoke all languages, because finding someone able to transcribe old Korean would be an impossible task.
“Tedregon,” I whispered, reading the unfamiliar symbols. “Okay…What does it mean?” Silence. If I could kill her, I would. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
The book opened and the pages turned on their own, unnaturally fast until the book closed again.
Her answer was clear. “Read it, dumbass.”
“Well, fuck you too,” I grumbled, turning around sharply to leave, only for two more books to fall behind me. “Come on, really? How many books have you hidden here?”
I grabbed them anyway before making my way to the door on the other side of the room, walking past Lola’s desk and ignoring the mess she’d left behind.
The door unlocked and opened just as I placed my hand on the handle.
Looked like I had some reading to do.
Chapter 3
