THIRTY

WHEN ELISABETH REACHED the study, she drew up short, squinting through the smoke that filled the room. Her blood ran cold as she took in the scene. The Codex hovered several inches above Nathaniel’s desk, its pages fanned out, splayed at such a hideous angle that it risked breaking its own spine. Embers danced along the edges of the pages, and the cover’s leather bubbled like boiling tar.

Nathaniel appeared next to her, his shirt pulled over his nose to block out the smoke. “It looks like it’s being tortured.”

That was precisely what Elisabeth feared. “I have to go in,” she said, starting toward the grimoire.

He caught her arm. “Wait. We have no idea what’s happening. You could get trapped in there.”

His face was pale. Regret pierced her like a blade. She would give anything to reverse time, to be back upstairs with him, her troubles far away.

“You’re right, but we have no other option. If Ashcroft is torturing Prendergast, I must stop him, or at least try.”

He opened his mouth to object, but she didn’t hear what he said. She had already reached out and taken hold of the Codex, its cover searing her hand like a hot iron even through the bandages, and the world was spinning away.

She appeared in Prendergast’s workshop with a stumble, almost slipping on the wet floorboards underfoot. The room looked as though it had been through an earthquake. The table lay overturned on its side; cracks splintered the ceiling beams. A tremor shook the dimension, and jars slid down the buckled shelves and shattered, spilling their slimy contents across the floor.

And this time, she hadn’t come alone. Nathaniel’s hand gripped her arm. Silas stood beside him, holding his wrist in turn. They exchanged looks. Either Prendergast had let them in on purpose, or he was no longer able to keep them out.

“Oh, wonderful,” Prendergast said weakly. “More visitors. Forgive me for not getting up and offering you tea.”

He lay crumpled on the floor between the leaning shelves, as though someone had thrown him there like a discarded rag. Elisabeth dove to his side. His complexion was the color of porridge, his face contorted with pain.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s Ashcroft?”

Prendergast dissolved into a fit of coughing. When he recovered, he gasped, “You’ve just missed him. We had a delightful chat.” Elisabeth bit back her frustration as more coughs wracked his thin frame. “Help me sit up, girl,” he panted at last. “That’s it. I want to see what he’s done to my . . . oh.” He fell silent. She followed his gaze. Across the room, embers smoldered along the broken edges of the floorboards, exactly like the Codex’s pages. Ashes swirled away into the void.

“The dimension is collapsing,” Nathaniel provided for Elisabeth’s benefit, coming into view. “We can’t stay here long. A few minutes at best.”

Prendergast’s eyes widened. “You. You’re a Thorn.” He turned to Elisabeth and spat, “Are you mad, bringing someone like him along? Have you any idea who he is?”

Nathaniel tensed. Reflexively, he ran a hand through his hair—trying to make the silver streak less visible, she realized. “You weren’t a friend of Baltasar’s, I take it.”

Prendergast sneered. “Certainly not, demons take him. Those of us with any sense stayed as far away from him as we could. Even Cornelius wouldn’t touch him. And you’re the spitting image of him, boy.”

Nathaniel looked sick. Elisabeth couldn’t let this go on. “We need to know what happened,” she interrupted. “Is Ashcroft coming back? I don’t see why he would have left, unless . . .”

She trailed off. Prendergast wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Unless you told him your secret,” she finished.

“In my defense,” he said, “pain is considerably more persuasive when one hasn’t felt it in hundreds of years.” He shrank from Elisabeth’s expression.

“What did you tell him? We need to know!”

“If you think I am going to allow the truth to fall into the hands of a Thorn—”

“It doesn’t matter! It’s over!” She resisted the urge to shake him until his teeth rattled. “All of this, everything you’ve done”—she waved at the workshop—“will have been for nothing if you don’t help us. Nathaniel is here to stop Ashcroft. Whether you believe that or not, you’re almost out of time. This is your last chance to make things right.”

Prendergast’s head hung. His mouth twisted into a grimace. Several seconds passed, and then he seemed to come to a decision. “Watch closely,” he instructed sourly. “I don’t intend to repeat myself.”

He yanked six rings from his gaunt fingers. While Elisabeth and Nathaniel watched, perplexed, he started arranging them on the ground. Understanding dawned as he set the final ring in place. The shape was as familiar to Elisabeth as the back of her own hand. One ring in the center, the five others spread around it to form an evenly spaced circle.

“What pattern have I made?” he asked.

“The Great Libraries,” Elisabeth answered, at the same time Nathaniel said, with equal certainty, “A pentagram.”

Silence fell.

Elisabeth looked again, more closely this time. In her mind’s eye she drew lines between each of Prendergast’s rings, connecting them to create a star inside the circle. The shape was a pentagram. But it was also a map of the Great Libraries. It was both.

Dread slammed into her, knocking the air from her lungs. “Counterclockwise,” she whispered. When Nathaniel looked at her, she said, “Something has been bothering me all day, ever since Katrien’s map arrived. I know what it is now. The attacks on the Great Libraries are occurring counterclockwise. Knockfeld, Summershall, Fettering, Fairwater. Then Harrows. The pattern reminded me of when I lit the candles for Silas’s summoning.”

“Go on, girl.” Prendergast’s dark eyes glittered. “You’re almost there.”

She turned to him and said, “Cornelius built the Great Libraries.”

“Yes. He constructed them to form a summoning circle.”

Elisabeth’s mind reeled. She wondered, distantly, if she might be ill. She didn’t want to believe Prendergast. If he was telling the truth, the Collegium had been founded on the darkest lie imaginable. Her own life, a lie. The magic that flowed through her veins, the beauty and majesty of the Great Libraries—could it all have been for this?

She spoke haltingly, stumbling onward. “The Maleficts—Ashcroft intended for them to be defeated, didn’t he? That’s the point of the sabotage. He’s using them in place of candles.”

Prendergast nodded. “A ritual this size calls for more than wick and wax. When a Malefict is destroyed, it unleashes a vast amount of demonic energy. Position a sacrifice of that nature at each point of a pentagram, and one ends up with sufficient power to breach the veil for a greater summoning.”

Elisabeth’s nails dug into her palms. Once more she felt the effort of driving Demonslayer into the Book of Eyes, saw the gouts of ink pour forth as she twisted the blade. A crucial part of Ashcroft’s plan, carried out by her own hands.