Above them, angel statues stretched and sighed and unfurled their wings. Their serene faces turned to appraise the battlefield. One climbed down from her perch and bodily flung a fiend aside. Another emotionlessly seized the corner of a sculpted cornice and wrenched it from the library, then hurled it down with enough force to squash a demon flat. Saints and friars joined the battle, swinging everything from marble incense burners to petrified scrolls. Gargoyles clambered from their timeworn posts to meet the fiends head on.

Howls of pain filled the night as the battle’s tide turned. This was like the spell Nathaniel had used in Summershall, but magnified a hundredfold. He hadn’t just made the Royal Library’s statues come alive; he had created an army to fight at his command.

Gaping openmouthed, Elisabeth almost didn’t notice the fiend barreling toward them until it was too late. She clumsily deflected its snapping jaws, only to see its claws swiping toward her from the other direction. Then a gonglike peal rang in her ears, and the fiend was swept away, trampled beneath the flashing bronze hooves of the pegasus from atop the tower. Victoriously, it tossed its mane and reared. The ground shook when it crashed back down, sending cracks spiderwebbing through the cobblestones.

“That should keep them occupied,” Nathaniel said. He climbed to his feet. Then the color drained from his face, leaving him ghastly white.

Elisabeth caught him before he collapsed. Heat radiated from his body, even through his coat, as though he were back in the throes of a fever.

“Too much magic,” he slurred, his eyelids drooping. “I’ll be all right in a moment.”

Her chest twisted into a knot. Just hours ago, he’d barely been able to get out of bed. Since then he had transported them across the kingdom not once, but twice. He had called forth fire and lightning, and awakened an army of stone. It was a miracle he’d remained standing for this long to begin with. “Can you go on?”

“Of course I can.” He gave her arm a feeble pat of reassurance. “I may be useless, but my good looks might prove critical for morale. Silas?”

Appearing out of nowhere, Silas shifted into a cat and sprang onto Nathaniel’s shoulder. Nathaniel took a fortifying breath and straightened, suddenly looking much improved.

“Silas is the conduit to my sorcery,” he explained, grinning. “At times like this, he’s able to lend me some of his strength.”

Elisabeth could have kissed Silas, but the look in his yellow eyes suggested that no one had ever dared that and survived. Once she was sure Nathaniel could stand on his own, she took the steps two at a time, dodging a fiend tumbling down in the other direction. The battle had lost them precious minutes. She didn’t allow herself to consider that they might already be too late.

The sight that awaited her at the top of the stairs drew her up short. A grand hallway led to the atrium, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases that reflected on the polished tiles. But at the end, where the archway should have been, there lay instead an expanse of cobalt sky spangled with stars. Displaced books floated weightlessly around the edges of the portal, which looked as though it had been slashed across the library with a knife. As she watched, a green-scaled imp clawed its way through and skittered up the shelves, peering down at them with glistening onyx eyes.

“That’s a rift into the Otherworld, isn’t it?”

“Most likely one of many,” Nathaniel panted, reaching her side. “We need to find another way in.”

“There isn’t another way. Not without a senior librarian’s key.” The keys from Harrows still jangling in her pocket wouldn’t match the Royal Library’s inner doors. She glanced around, taking in the adjoining hallways that stretched to their left and right. Those merely led to study chambers, meeting rooms, the storage closets from which she had fetched her mop and bucket every morning. . . .

She sucked in a breath. “I know where to go. Follow me.” She plunged around the corner without a backward glance.

Nathaniel was close on her heels. “If you’re going to smash through another bookcase, make sure I’m out of the way first.”

“I won’t have to,” she said. “I’m going to ask it nicely.”

Ignoring his look of bemusement, she cast around for a familiar set of shelves. If only she had been paying more attention that day. Where exactly had she and Gertrude been when it happened? She pressed onward, racing past more rifts, which twisted across the corridor’s walls and ceiling like gashes left by an invisible monster’s claws. Everywhere, the Otherworld’s influence seeped into the library. Busts of old Directors had lifted from their pedestals, floating at surreal angles. Candles hung in midair, and curtains billowed in an unfelt wind. She tried not to think about why the library’s bell wasn’t ringing, why the halls were empty of people; it was too easy to imagine the librarians drawn into the Otherworld’s starry vastness, never to be seen again.

There. That was where the shelves had sprung open, revealing a secret passageway. Unsure whether there had been any specific action on her part that had triggered it, she flattened her palm across the grimoires and pressed her forehead to the spines.

“Please,” she gasped. “Let me in.”

Warmth pulsed through the leather touching her skin. A rustle ran through the grimoires, as though they were whispering to each other, carrying a message outward. She stepped back, and the panel swung open.

Nathaniel laughed in amazement. When she looked at him, she found him watching her, his eyes shining. It was the same way he had looked at her at the ball, when he had seen her in her gown for the first time.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I knew you talked to books. I didn’t realize they listened.”

“They do more than just listen.” The floorboards creaked as Elisabeth stepped inside. She breathed in and out, tasting the dust in the air, then closed her eyes, envisioning the Royal Library as though it were her own body, its lofty vaults, its secret rooms and countless mysteries, the magic flowing through its halls.

“We’re here to stop Ashcroft from summoning the Archon,” she declared to the walls around her, feeling far less foolish than she’d expected. She knew, somehow, that something was listening. “What he’s doing—it will destroy all of us. I know it’s already tearing you apart. Can you take us to him?”

She had never tried that before: speaking not to just one book but to all of them, petitioning the library itself for aid. She had no idea if it would work. A breeze wafted past, stirring a cobweb against her cheek like the caress of an insubstantial hand. And then—

A shiver ran through the floor. Her eyes flew open as the wood of the passageway creaked and groaned. Around them, the boards rippled like pressed-on piano keys, warping the shape of the walls. The transformation swept forward, dislodging clouds of dust, opening a path that hadn’t been there before. The passage was rearranging itself. Showing them the way.

She set off at a run. “Come on!”

Beside her, Nathaniel conjured a weak flame to light their steps. Worry lanced through her at the flame’s feeble appearance, but other than that, Nathaniel seemed fine. Whatever Silas was doing was working.

The passageway reconstructed its shape continuously before them, sending them careening around so many corners that Elisabeth couldn’t guess where they were headed. She wasn’t certain if it was her imagination making her feel as though the library’s magic coursed through her body, too, propelling her steps and expanding her lungs, an exhilarating sensation, as though she had become something more than human.