“If that’s true,” said Elisabeth, “then we’re all corrupted, and have been from the start. You know that the libraries we serve were built by a sorcerer. Have you ever questioned why?”

A scowl answered her. Of course. This was not a man who asked questions. He’d followed orders his entire life until he’d eventually become the person giving them, one identical cog swapped out for another to keep the library’s machinery running the exact same way it had for centuries.

Even so, she couldn’t give up hope of breaking through to him. “Have you ever seen a summoning circle, Director?” she pressed. “No—I don’t suppose you have, but surely you can imagine—”

“Silence!”

Spittle flecked her face. She choked on her words, stunned into obedience as his other hand came up, roughly, and seized a hank of her hair. Too late, she understood what he had been looking for, and what he had found. Silver gleamed between his scarred fingers.

“You bear a demon’s mark,” he snarled.

Silence. Hideous silence, in which she heard the rasp of the warden’s indrawn breath.

“Director,” Nathaniel interjected sharply, a note of real panic in his voice, “I speak on my honor when I say that Miss Scrivener’s mind remains entirely her own, that this situation is far more complicated than you can possibly—” He stopped there with a grunt, as though the warden had kneed him in the stomach to shut him up.

Elisabeth barely heard. Too late, too late, too late. If only she had remembered to snip off the silver lock . . .

Hyde’s features twisted in revulsion. With a great heave, he threw her to the floor, sending her sprawling. She landed poorly, and cried out when the shackles cracked against her spine.

“Elisabeth!”

“I will listen to none of your lies,” the Director ground out. “You are a disgrace to the Collegium, girl. Corrupted. Tainted. Addled by demons.” Each word struck her like a kick to the stomach.

“Have you gone completely mad?” Nathaniel roared. “She risked her life to come here! She’s trying to save you, you imbecile!”

Hyde whirled on him. “And you, no doubt responsible for leading the girl into darkness. I have seen enough of this vile display.” To the warden, he said, “Take them to the dungeon. They cannot be trusted. Only time will tell whether they are telling the truth, or are involved in the sabotage themselves.”

Through a haze of misery, Elisabeth felt the warden wrestle her upright and march her out the door. Judging by the storm of invectives that followed, Nathaniel was being treated similarly. She had never heard him so angry. The air even held a faint tang of sorcery, as though his rage was nearly sufficient to overcome the iron.

They were taken back down the spiral stair and past the shelves, down a few more times, and soon she stumbled over the roughly hewn stones of a dungeon passage, averting her eyes from the sputtering torches. Metal clanked; then she was shoved forward into a cell, bare aside from a bucket in the corner and a scattering of straw on the ground. Nathaniel received such a hard push that he went down onto his knees, unable to catch himself with his hands bound. The cell door slammed shut.

The warden paused before he turned away. He regarded Elisabeth expressionlessly, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“It isn’t too late to stop this,” she said, gathering her strength. “There’s still time—”

“I don’t speak to traitors,” he interrupted. Then he left without another word, his boots echoing down the corridor into silence.

THIRTY-TWO

FOR A MOMENT Elisabeth stood frozen, too shocked to react. Then she threw herself against the bars. She spun around and felt at them with her bound hands, scrabbling for a loose piece of metal, crumbling mortar, a rusty hinge—anything she could use to break them out of the cell. She was stronger than an ordinary person. If only she could find a weak spot—

“Elisabeth, stop.”

Nathaniel might as well have spoken a different language. She gritted her teeth and yanked harder, even though doing so sent a spike of pain through her injured hand. A wildness filled her, taking over her body, the same as when she had struck down the fiend on the pavilion, or the time she had destroyed all the mirrors in Nathaniel’s house.

After tonight, she would never be able to enter a Great Library again. But that wouldn’t matter if Ashcroft succeeded, and there were no libraries left to speak of. She didn’t know who made her more furious in that moment, Ashcroft or Director Hyde. To think that the world could fall to ruin due to the decisions of a single small-minded man in charge—that that was all it took to doom everyone—

“Elisabeth!” Nathaniel exclaimed.

She whirled on him, suddenly remembering, with glorious clarity, that the warden hadn’t confiscated Prendergast’s vial. “Can you use that to free us?” she demanded.

He was breathing hard, staring at her. It took him a moment to grasp the object of her question. “No,” he said. “Not while I’m wearing iron. Listen,” he went on, but she cut him off, turning back to the bars.

“It was after midnight when we fought Ashcroft,” she said. “The Collegium couldn’t have sent someone any earlier than that. The rider won’t get here for hours.” We’ll be stuck in a dungeon as the kingdom goes up in flames.

“Elisabeth. You’re hurting yourself.”

“No, I’m not.” After that first stab of pain, she’d felt fine.

Nathaniel pushed himself between her and the bars before she could start again. “Look at your hands,” he said, his expression strange.

She twisted to look over her shoulder, raising her hands as best she could within the confines of the shackles. The dim light of the torch down the hall traced over her skin, and she saw that Nathaniel was right. Blood darkened the bandage on her palm. She had torn two of her fingernails nearly off.

“Sit down.” His shoulder pressed against hers, herding her toward the back of the cell. “Take a moment to rest.”

She stumbled along reluctantly. “We never discovered how Ashcroft is carrying out the attacks. If he’s working with someone, or—” She stopped, disturbed by how little they actually knew. “We have to be prepared for anything.”

“And you won’t be if you hurt yourself trying to wrestle a cell door. Honestly, Scrivener. We don’t need to escape on our own. Silas will come rescue us.”

Silas. She had forgotten. “But how will he know we need help?”

“He’ll just know. He always senses when I’ve gotten myself into trouble.” Nathaniel grimaced as he eased himself down the wall, sitting awkwardly with his bound hands, his shoulder tipped against the stone. “Sometimes I wonder whether he simply assumes I get into trouble by default when he isn’t around to keep me out of it, but I prefer to credit his supernatural intuition.”

Guilt sank claws into her body. Nathaniel should be the one resting, not her. Distressed, she crouched beside him. A moment later, he slid sideways a few inches until his shoulder rested against hers.

The frenzied energy drained from her muscles, leaving her weary and cold. Their breathing was the only noise in the dungeon’s subterranean silence. She remembered the silence well from Summershall—the oppressiveness of it, the way it played tricks on the mind. She couldn’t imagine how much worse being imprisoned alone in this place would feel, knowing that the kingdom’s highest security vault lurked somewhere nearby within the labyrinth of stone, its slumbering inhabitants powerful enough to destroy entire cities if released. . . .