another attack?
We continued through the darkness, our swords and a light ball illuminating the way. Then I saw a faint glow across the cavern. I blinked, kicking in my extra vision. It helped just enough to see what looked like a box, with a glow shimmering through the cracks.
“The book,” I whispered as I skidded to a stop.
“No,” Trsiel said. “We can’t-”
The hell-beast shrieked deep in the cavern, followed by a growl to our left. Something was stalking us, not willing to attack unless we tried for the prize it was guarding.
I tried to judge the creature’s size from its growl. I also tried to judge how injured the hell-beast was. The book was only a couple hundred feet away. If I could just-
If I went after it, Trsiel would follow. I could tell him to continue on, find the exit, forget about me, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d actually do it, no more than I would if the situation were reversed. We were partners. If I took a risk, I took it for both of us.
Shit.
I yanked my gaze away from the box. “Okay,” I said, and I let him continue leading me.
As we jogged, there were a couple of times when I swore I heard something moving in the cavern. I tried not to dwell on it-there were probably lots of things in this cavern, all of them ready to make a meal of us. By the time we reached the wall, I could hear only the growling creature, but it stayed too far away to be seen.
We felt along the walls for an exit. I cast my light ball up, searching the ceiling, but even if I found a hole, we’d never get to it. The growling came closer now, and I could make out a huge, dark form slinking toward us. Then I caught the scrabble of claws on rock. Lots of claws. The mole-foxes, with reinforcements.
We frantically searched for an exit, casting teleport spells with every step, praying for a weak spot. A snarl sounded behind us, and I turned to see white fangs, as big as my forearm, flashing in the darkness.
“Here!” a voice called. “Over here!”
A light ball sparked thirty feet away, illuminating Kristof’s face. He gestured wildly, and we ran toward him. As we drew close, we saw the wall shimmering. The exit-not a hole, but a portal. He pushed us through. We tumbled again, falling into a heap in the darkness.
“They return,” a voice hissed.
“How do they return?”
“They have. No!”
The oni started to shriek. Claws scraped at me. Then Kristof murmured, “Hold on,” and he teleported us out.
We landed on our asses in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by ferns the size of trees. Overhead, a tiny prehistoric primate peered down at us, then raced off, chattering.
Kristof looked around, frowning. “Not quite what I was aiming for.”
I laughed and threw my hands around his neck. “It never is.”
As I hugged him, I felt something like a breastplate under his suit jacket. When I backed up to take a look, he flipped open a button and pulled out a faintly glowing book.
“I believe you wanted this,” he said.
I stared down at it. “How…?”
He pushed the book into my hands. “Consider it my apology, for a somewhat misguided attempt to cure your boredom.”
“Oh, you cured it all right,” I said, grinning.
I took the book and flipped through it. It was indeed a grimoire, filled with spells I’d never seen before. I turned to Trsiel.
“Is this…?”
“Seems to be.” He looked at Kristof. “Thank you for the rescue.”
“But how?” I said, waving the book.
“Trsiel came to warn me that you’d uncovered my plot and might be annoyed with me.”
“When?” I answered my own question. “When you were ‘cleaning up’ your books.”
Trsiel nodded.
Kristof continued. “I was in session, so he left a message. When I got a message about oni and the Books of Moses, I realized that, in following my fake adventure, you’d stumbled into a real one. So I went after you.”
I didn’t ask how he’d found us. Ask Kris to teleport us to the beach, and we’d invariably end up in the desert. His sense of direction is hopeless… with one exception. Ask him to find me, and he can do it with the precision of a bloodhound.
“I arrived as you were fighting the hell-beast. You conquered it before I could be of any assistance, so while every creature in that place was tracking you two, I set out to find the book.”
“And they didn’t notice you stealing it?”
A lift of his brows. “Of course not. I was careful. And I replaced it with a spell that emitted a similar light long enough for us to escape.” He paused. “So, am I forgiven?”
“You brought me a secret spell book,” I said. “You are absolutely forgiven.”
Trsiel cleared his throat. “That grimoire…”
I sighed. “It may be a sacred text, which you must return to the Fates.”
“No, I think you can,” he said. “I have research to do. Just make sure you return it in a reasonably timely fashion.”
I grinned. “Thank you.”
We said our goodbyes, and Trsiel teleported back to the Great Library. I looked around. In the distance, something roared. Something very large.
“Where are we anyway?” I asked.
“I have no idea. But it does seem interesting.”
He pulled back a frond. The little simian from earlier was there, spying on us. Seeing Kristof, it raced off again. I laughed.
“While I’m very tempted to explore,” he said, “you do have that book on a limited loan.”
“Mmm…” I looked around. “I think we can do both. A little exploring. A little spellcasting.” I paused. “Unless you need to get back to court.”
“I wrangled a twenty-four-hour recess to pursue something very important.” He gestured to the jungle and then at the book. “Those look important.” He leaned over to kiss me. “That could be important, too.”
I grinned. “It could. All right then. Twenty-four hours alone together, in a prehistoric jungle, with a secret spell book. I do believe my boredom has officially been cured.”
“Good. So where shall we begin?”
The creature roared again.
“There,” I said. “I want to know what that is.”
He smiled. “Of course,” he said, and off we went.
Thirteen
Prologue
