The royal seal.
Curious, she hadn’t received any party invitations since she had fled court nearly two months ago. She opened the letter and read,
Dear Miss Elizabeth Beatrice Ashcroft,
You are cordially invited to dine with Her Majesty, Queen Rowena Ferdinand the First, on the second of September, with the ladies of the High Court of Rhodea. We dine at six in the evening, a formal affair.
Sincerely,
Her Royal Majesty’s personal scribe.
She was being summoned to Calyx.
She was not being included out of kindness. She was being called on for them all to sneer, gawk, andtalk. She had left the court on purpose, happy with the reprieve. Now, she was being sucked back into the fold.
Her fingers fisted, crumpling the paper.
With a sour mood for the rest of the day, Elizabeth found herself in the library with a book in an effort to escape reality. The windows offered a view of a dark forest, nearly hidden in a blanket of fog. Rain plinked against the tall windows, and as she became more invested in her book, her breathing slowed, and she finally relaxed.
Suddenly, a grating sound began from the other side of the wall.
A muffled grunt and heavy breathing came from the hidden room.
A demon was trying to get into the library.
Chapter 40
The Portal Opens
The torches flickered in the brackets on the wall. The shelf began to shudder and move. She froze, heart lodged in her throat. She had maybe thirty seconds before whatever wretched thing that crossed through the portal was here.
Elizabeth slowly edged away from her seat, looking for something, anything to defend herself with. There was nothing, only shelves and books upon books. She couldn’t fight withbooks.
A raspy snarling and a thrashing sound filled the air.
Dread filled her heart.
She inched away from the entrance to the portal room and down an aisle, backing further into the library. Caspian hadn’t been at dinner, and likely wasn’t in the castle. Unless a servant came running to her aid, she was alone.
She looked around and cursed, for in those precious few seconds, she hadn’t realized she had moved herself further into the library and farther from the exit. The sound of heavy breathing filled the air.
She crept down an aisle and wedged herself behind a leather armchair in a corner, resigning herself to wait and hide until the creature moved on.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the library. They sounded like they were moving farther away from her, and then she heard nothing at all. She strained her ears, but all was quiet.
Elizabeth waited a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief. She waited another couple of minutes before she finally relaxed.
The danger had passed.
Deeming it safe, she poked her head out of her hiding spot and stopped dead.
A lizard-like demon was sitting in the aisle, quietly lying in wait with its spiked hackles raised.
The creature had a horned face the size of a large hound, swishing its forked tail in the air. A globule of spit dripped from its maw.
It growled. The only warning it gave before it pounced.
She froze as its jaws opened, revealing razor-sharp teeth.
