“I trust Ti to hold me more than I trust myself to stay on his back. I’m not very coordinated,” I mumbled, easing my way across the vines.
“So Vulcan says,” she snickered.
I threw her a dirty gesture, and she stuck her tongue out in return as I reached the balcony. The wooden railing reappeared as the basket retracted its vines and raced down to the entry level.
She led me through levels of spiraling stacks, snagging a handful of books on the way, until we came to a small alcove in the center of the aisle where two chairs and a table sat below more of those mysterious glowing lights.
Isla plopped down and motioned me to follow.
Books. So many books. My heart glowed beneath the cloud of pressure smothering it in a relentless shadow.
“Start here,” she said, opening a weathered tome with strange markings on its cover. “I think most of these will be inElvish, but these few are in the common tongue. Histories of maladies and ailments in Lotrennia, going back a few hundred years.”
I nodded, gripped by a determination to figure out what had really happened to the Lady of Tomorrow. We pored over books and scrolls for hours, barely muttering a word to each other. Isla suddenly stopped, head snapping up as if she’d heard a silent alarm.
“I need to go for a few minutes. The master of spells has arrived,” she said out of nowhere.
“How do you know that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said with a wink, and then she was gone.
I slumped in my chair and continued my search until a strange sensation washed over me. Almost like a tug. I cracked my neck, adjusting my posture when it tugged again. What the?—
My eyes scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelves, searching for I didn’t know what. I turned back to my current tome when I felt it once more.
Tug.
