There was no atmosphere of warmth or welcome to indicate the presence of friendly, well-treated grimoires. Instead a clammy sense of watchfulness prevailed, and the air stank of wood polish and mildew. Unlike the other Great Libraries, no grimoires sat out in the open; every bookcase was enclosed behind an iron grate. Hisses of fury rang out from the shelves as they passed. She felt as though they were walking through a darkened courtroom, enduring the censure of its unseen judges.

“No grimoires lower than a Class Four here,” the warden explained, seeing Elisabeth’s expression. “High-security texts only.” He sounded proud.

Without warning, a shudder traveled through the marble tiles beneath their boots. More gears, she thought, until a muffled howl rose up from the floor—a sound that was neither human nor machine.

Nathaniel drew in a sharp breath. “What was that?”

“Captive Malefict in the dungeon. Class Eight.” The warden gave him an unpleasant smile, clearly enjoying the rare opportunity to enlighten a sorcerer. “It guards the entrance to the vault. Sometimes, we use it for practice.”

The remark disturbed Elisabeth, but she dared not offer her opinion. They ascended a narrow, spiraling stair, lightless and creaking, and emerged into a similarly narrow and dreary hall, at the end of which the warden rapped on a door, opened it, and stepped aside.

As they entered, the warden touched her arm. She tensed, but he only muttered, after a hostile glance at Nathaniel, “The Director is hard of hearing. Helps if he can read your lips.”

He pitched the advice for her ears alone. It took her a moment to understand why. Nathaniel was a sorcerer, an outsider, untrustworthy. She couldn’t explain the rush of anger she felt toward the warden in response. Not so long ago, she had believed the same as him. But she did not want to be this man’s ally and confidant, even in his own mind, leaving Nathaniel the odd one out.

A fire burned low in the room ahead, gilding the heads of the deer, wolves, and boars mounted on the walls, their plaques taking up almost every available inch of space. The figure who stood facing the fire resembled a beast himself: tall and broad, with a thick fur draped over the shoulders of his warden’s coat. Wind rattled the loose casement of his tower window, letting in drafts that ruffled the papers on his desk.

She and Nathaniel stood in the doorway like children summoned to a schoolmaster’s office, waiting for Director Hyde to turn around. Nathaniel shifted, unable to conceal his impatience.

Finally, the Director spoke. His deep, rumbling voice reminded Elisabeth of a bear. “The Great Library of Harrows has never been breached, by man or by grimoire, in the three hundred years since it was first carved from the mountain. It has weathered tempests and broken every siege brought to its gates. You say there is going to be an attack tonight. How would you come to know such a thing, and why should I believe you?”

Before she could stop Nathaniel, he took one long stride toward the desk. “Sir, no doubt the warden has told you our names. Given the Chancellor’s attempt on our lives, and Miss Scrivener’s previous involvement—”

A floorboard squeaked as Director Hyde turned. Nathaniel fell silent, and Elisabeth froze. Hyde’s face was more scar than skin, lacerated by brutal claw marks that Elisabeth would not have thought survivable. Peering out from this landscape of ravaged flesh, his eyes were bright, hard, and above all—suspicious. His gaze raked across Nathaniel’s mouth. He had turned quickly enough to hear, or see, the end.

“What’s this about the Chancellor of Magic?” he growled.

At first the question made no sense. Then, making a quick mental calculation, Elisabeth’s heart sank. She turned to Nathaniel. “No wonder the warden didn’t recognize our names,” she said under her breath. “They haven’t heard the news. The Collegium must have dispatched a rider to all the Great Libraries right away, but the message won’t reach Harrows until later tonight.” Uneasily, she looked back to Hyde. “They don’t know about Ashcroft.”

“Damn it all. I didn’t think of that. If only we’d brought a newspaper with us . . .” Nathaniel cleared his throat and continued in a louder voice, “Director, allow me to explain. Chancellor Ashcroft is a traitor. The night before last, he was unmasked as the saboteur.”

Hyde glanced back and forth, taking in the ease of their exchange. We’re being too familiar with each other, she realized. No respectable librarian would ever speak to a sorcerer the way she had, much less a magister. As if he were a friend—an intimate. But surely that didn’t matter as much as the news they carried. Surely Hyde was taking them seriously. . . .

At last he said, “Scrivener. I know your name. You’re from the Great Library of Summershall.”

She nodded, setting her jaw against a quaver of foreboding. “The Chancellor took me captive in his manor,” she explained. “While I was there, I overheard his plans. The rest of the story is complicated. But Nath—Magister Thorn is telling the truth. A rider will arrive from the Collegium to verify everything.”

“Everything, including the imminent attack on this library?”

Nathaniel shot Elisabeth a look before he answered. His expression had become increasingly guarded. “No, we discovered that ourselves and came directly. We didn’t have time to alert the Collegium. The Chancellor is sacrificing the grimoires as part of a ritual. I assure you I’m not exaggerating when I say that the fate of the entire kingdom is at stake.”

“Please, Director,” she broke in. “Harrows is the final step in the Chancellor’s plan. You already knew that the saboteur was likely to target this location next, given the pattern of his attacks. He could be infiltrating the library even now.”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Hyde stepped around the desk, the floor creaking beneath his weight. His shadow fell over her, as frigid as the draft from the window. When he next spoke, his voice was dangerously quiet.

“And how is it that you’ve managed to reach Harrows more quickly than the Collegium’s fastest riders? Not you, Magister Thorn. I want Scrivener to answer me.”

She swallowed. “Magic,” she said, her voice trembling only slightly. “We used magic.”

His face darkened. “Are you saying you have dabbled in sorcery, Scrivener?”

She couldn’t take it back. She raised her head, meeting his eyes. “Yes. And I would do it again if I had to.”

His fist seized the front of her cloak, bunching the fabric in his huge, scarred fingers, and lifted her from the ground.

“Let go of her,” Nathaniel snapped. There came a scuffle and a rattling of chains; he had lunged for Hyde, and the warden keeping watch had seized him.

The Director paid Nathaniel no mind. His eyes roved over Elisabeth’s face from mere inches away, full of disgust. Shame burned within her—shame as real, as physically painful as the lash of a switch—but she didn’t look away. The Collegium’s teachings held power over her still; perhaps they always would. She had grown around them like a sapling around a nail, taking the foreign part into the core of herself, no matter how poisonous. But she had not been through everything she had, fought and suffered, to yield to this man’s will like a chastened apprentice.

“You’ve been corrupted,” he growled.