Page 198 of The Night Firm
"I didn't think so."
I kneel down again, studying the handprint. "Maybe if I channel my power into this?" I say, thinking out loud.
Pressing my hand against the cold metal, I rotate through my elemental powers, but none of them work, and I'm getting a headache.
"This was a long trip for nothing," Racul says under his breath.
"You can shut it now," I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. There's one thing I still haven't tried.
Closing my eyes, I channel all six elements at once into the door, and finally I'm rewarded with a series of clicks and the sound of grinding as the cool metal beneath my palm falls away, revealing a long ladder into a dark hole.
"About time," Racul says.
I scowl at him. "How long did it take you to get in?"
He doesn't respond to that, but instead peers down into the darkness. "Ladies first," he says.
"Age before beauty," I say, and he frowns, but begins the decent.
I'm not ashamed to say that if there's a trap in there, I’d rather let him deal with it first.
"All clear, you can come down now," he shouts from below.
I descend quickly, cheating with some magic. It's dark and dank and I wonder how any books survived in these conditions. I hold out my palm and produce an orb of light to guide us through the tunnel. I have no idea if dragons can see in the dark, but it doesn't seem to be one of my superpowers.
We arrive at another door at the end of the long hallway, and it has another handprint on it. I sigh at the excessiveness of it all and use my palm and magic to open it.
It's pitch black within, so I shoot hundreds of orbs of light into the room to illuminate our way, and we both gasp at the same time at what we see.
The library is huge, and was clearly lined with thousands of books and scrolls. But it's been ransacked. If I didn't know better, I'd say tomb raiders have been here.
Everything is torn apart and all the books and whatever artifacts may have been preserved in the glass cabinets are gone.
Racul walks in, his eyes wide. "Who could have done this?"
"Logically, if only the Fates and your mother could gain access, and the Fates have been gone for thousands of years…then… "
His face is grim at the thought. "She did this to cover her crimes."
Oh right. "Speaking of, I meant to tell you. I have a Memory Catcher of Lyx's death. It wasn't your mother."
"Show me," he says.
I pull it out and play it for him. He watches silently and when it's over he just shakes his head. "I still believe she is behind it. Somehow. Maybe she is controlling the creature?" he asks.
"Or maybe she didn't do it, and we need to be looking at this differently. Do you know what manner of being this is?" I ask.
He shakes his head. "I have never seen something like that in my life. It appears to have traits of a dragon and maybe a unicorn, but that does not make sense. Our species cannot interbreed. It is impossible. Besides that, it is clearly the product of some great evil, which neither dragons or unicorns are."
His logic seems a little self-serving and flawed, but I can’t deny this creature seems to defy the natural order according to everyone who knows about such things.
"Let's look around," I say, disappointment flooding me as I realize I'd hung all my hopes on finding answers here, and now they were as useful as dead butterflies pinned to a cork board for display. Still, I hold onto what optimism I can summon. "Maybe we will find something."
He looks as doubtful as I feel. The place, after all, has been well and truly ransacked, but still we begin sorting through the scarps that remain.
There are a few books left, but they offer nothing useful. I'm not sure why they were kept here at all, to be honest.A History of Cheese in Northern Europe, for example, which looks brought over from my world. Like, okay, thanks. That's super-secret shit to save in an underground Ancient Library. Still, I add it to my bag in case Elijah finds it interesting.
I spend another hour scouring every inch of the place, and in a dusty corner under a thick coating of cobwebs I discover a trunk that looks promising. "Racul, check it out."