“Though many divinations do not speak in literal terms,” Librarian said, “this one does appear to describe a mirror. Would you like me to research it for you, young Lark?”

  “I would appreciate any help you can give us,” I told him, accepting Griflet’s delicate weight back into my hands. “Thank you.”

  “Young Lark?” Librarian queried as I started to head back to the others. “Is your brother here as well? I would be quite glad to see him, too.”

  “No,” I said quietly. “He’s not.”

  * * *

  I wound my way back through the stacks, retracing a path I’d taken thousands of times. The smell of varnish and old paper filled my chest, easing some of the tightness there. I slowed for a moment, leaning against a shelf, trying to gather my thoughts. A warm light filtered through the bookshelves to my right, demanding my attention.

  The mass of amber had been the entry fee for a member of the guild a century ago, who was remembered only for dying on his first vault job. I wandered over to it, drawn, as always, by its honeyed glow. Instead of sitting on the floor, the way I had as a kid, I stooped down, examining the bodies of the spider and scorpion, imprisoned forever by their fate.

  Merlin’s words rose again, whispering through my mind like smoke. As I capture all in my glare…

  I straightened, electrified by the realization. I looked at Griflet, who stared back up at me like I’d grown snakes for hair. “It can’t be that easy…”

  The library blurred around me as I hurried back into the central chamber, shooting across the room like an arrow. I was almost breathless by the time I reached the others.

  They made for a cozy scene in front of the fire. Neve had taken up one of the oversized leather wingback chairs, her feet tucked up to the side as she pored over an Immortality, devouring each word, oblivious to the way Caitriona was watching her from the tufted couch, A Journey through Welsh Legend unopened in her lap.

  Olwen sat cross-legged on the floor, three separate books open in front of her, but she was far more interested in playing with a nearby lamp cord, marveling as she clicked it on and off, on and off, on and off.

  “Remarkable…,” she whispered. “Oh!”

  She jumped, first at the sight of me, and then at Librarian as he clomped by across the room. Headed, I knew, to tidy up the atrium before retiring for the night in his office. “When you said he was very human-like, I didn’t—”

  The words burst out of me. “I think I know what the Mirror of Beasts is.”

  Neve blinked. “Librarian knew?”

  “I do occasionally—like, once in a blue moon—actually figure things out on my own,” I said, ignoring the way the library cats were gathering in the shelves above us, hissing again. Griflet burrowed down in my jacket pocket and stayed there.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “So what is it?”

  “I think it’s something we call the Mirror of Shalott,” I said. I honestly couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it immediately. “The frame is carved with beasts, of this world and of the Fair Folk.”

  “Shalott?” Neve glanced at Olwen and Caitriona, who looked just as confused. “Why do I know that name?”

  “There’s a famous story—a poem—about a woman, the Lady of Shalott,” I explained impatiently. This was why Cabell had always been the better storyteller—I just wanted to get to the point. “She was trapped in a tower, cursed to view the outside world only through a mirror’s reflection. When she escaped the tower, the curse killed her, and she was later found by Lancelot floating down some river toward Camelot.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you have a real way with words?” Neve asked wryly. “I’m so moved, I could cry.”

  Olwen, however, looked genuinely distressed. “What an awful tale.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. As per usual, the real story is even worse,” I said. “Unlike the poem, this all happened shortly after the death of Arthur and the fall of Camelot. The titular lady was a love rival of a sorceress. They both had their hearts set on the same knight, so the sorceress trapped her in the mirror to get rid of the competition.”

  Caitriona’s face darkened. “Oh, really.”

  “Maybe Miss Lady of Shalott deserved it,” Neve said, holding up a finger. “Did you ever think about that?”

  “She deserved to be trapped in a mirror’s cold void?” Olwen asked, aghast.

  “Considering most Immortalities refer to it as ‘that regrettable Shalott affair,’ the consensus seems to be that she didn’t,” I said. “And that’s why someone came around and released her.”

  Eventually.

  A few centuries later.

  “Think about it,” I told them. “What if there is no way to destroy a soul after all, and that’s why the corrupted ones are sent to be imprisoned in Annwn and why Morgan and the others were only able to destroy Lord Death’s physical form? Wearing the crown of Annwn grants him unlimited access to death magic there to sustain his soul. Maybe the only way to truly stop him is to imprison him.”

  “What’s so special about the mirror?” Olwen asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What is it about that mirror that can’t be replicated by placing the same spells on other mirrors or objects?” she asked.

  “Well, if you believe the Immortalities, it’s been lost long enough that no one’s been able to figure out and replicate the spellwork on it,” I said. “It might have been made by the Goddess, or created in—”

  I barely stopped myself in time.

  But they knew.

  “In Avalon,” Olwen finished softly. “Or one of the Otherlands belonging to the Fair Folk. They have superb craftspeople.”

  I nodded.

  “Ooooh,” Neve said suddenly, slamming the Immortality shut. “What if this is what Lord Death believes the sorceresses have? He doesn’t know what the mirror is either; he just thinks it can destroy him, so he needs to destroy it first?”

  Olwen let out a thoughtful hum. “But Morgan and the others offered him something he already knew about—something he desired so greatly he was willing to let them kill his most loyal servants.”

  “Good point,” Neve said. “Maybe it’ll become obvious when we find the mirror—I can write to the sorceresses about it and have them start searching too. Maybe Madrigal would be willing to help again?”

  “Absolutely not,” Caitriona said. “This is something we do on our own.”

  “But why?” Olwen asked. “Why not get more people searching for it?”

  “And risk them betraying us?” Caitriona sent me an imploring look.

  “Sorry,” I said sincerely. “But I do think the sorceresses have just as much reason to want him trapped in the mirror as we do. Whether or not they’ll actually help is another question entirely, though.”

  Caitriona sat back against the couch, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Together to the end,” Olwen reminded her.

  Caitriona sighed and nodded.

  I understood her worry. I did. But the sooner we or the sorceresses found the Mirror of Shalott, the sooner I’d be able to extract Cabell from whatever magical hold Lord Death had on him.

  And never see Emrys Dye’s face again, I thought, though it was cold comfort.

  “Talk to Librarian,” I told Neve. “He has a way of sending letters to the sorceresses.”

  “Do you have any idea of where to begin looking?” Olwen asked me.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve heard rumors that one of the European guilds has it, but nothing concrete.”

  Puzzling it all out felt good—like we were finally accomplishing something after two days of desperately trying to get off the back foot. But there was a nagging feeling at the edge of my mind that something was missing.

  Or not something, but someone. The person I’d gotten so used to bouncing ideas off in Avalon, when everyone else had turned their focus elsewhere.

  “Uh,” I began. “Where’s our traitorous not-friend?”

  “Emrys?” Olwen asked. “He said he was going to do some of his own research.”

  “Did he,” I said darkly, handing Griflet over to Neve. “I’ll be right back.”

  I’d only been down in the library’s lowest level once, while playing a game of midnight hide-and-seek with Cabell.

  After he’d caught us slinking back up the stairs like the tiny fiends we were, Librarian had explicitly asked Cabell and me not to go down there again. Truth be told, the guilt had been less of an impediment than the steel lock he added. The stupid thing had been vexingly impossible to pick.

  This time, the door was left open.

  A knot in my gut I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge began to tighten. If the little weasel wasn’t down there…

  What does it matter? Let him have run back to Madrigal with Merlin’s prophecy. Good riddance. It would only show this had never been about amends. I would gladly be proven right.

  I shook my head and stepped through.

  Seven years ago, the basement had been crowded with towering stacks of wooden crates and wilting boxes with empty shelves waiting to be filled. I hadn’t been able to stay long enough to explore; the chamber stank to high hell of the poison they’d recently used to annihilate the dynasty of rats battling the Hollowers for ownership of the building.

  Back when the library was a sorceress’s vault, this had been the central chamber, and it still bore some signs of that: the clawed-out curse sigils on the walls, small alcoves where each treasure had been carefully stored, a chandelier made of unidentifiable bones, and a long, winding staircase in the shape of a massive serpent.

  I descended slowly, taking a quick look around to get my bearings. It was just as cold and dank as I remembered, but the Dyes had improved the space, throwing old, faded rugs over the cracked mosaic floors and installing candle-like sconces on the walls that flickered on when I passed a motion sensor.

  Gone were the boxes and crates, and the empty shelves were now aligned in neat rows, filled to bursting. Immortalities—leather-, skin-, and scale-bound—were chained to the shelves. The air was choked with the smell of decay and old blood.

  And there were…so many. So many more books and Immortalities down there than I remembered or imagined.

  The tension in my stomach released with my exhale.

  Emrys stood at the far side of the room, his hands braced against a gorgeous old desk. His lips moved silently as he scanned the book in front of him, assisted by the light of a Tiffany lamp.

  “You…” I stopped on the bottom step, outraged. “You bastards.”

  “That’s practically the family motto at this point,” he said idly. “You’re going to have to be more specific with your grievance.”

  The sheer amount of material they were hiding down here was staggering, but it was all the more infuriating to know that this collection was just overflow from the even larger one at their estate. Immortalities and relics completely lost to the rest of us.

  I snaked through the shelves, trying to capture in my memory the names listed beneath the Immortalities.

  “Haven’t you been down here before?” Emrys asked, leaving his work to walk along the far end of the shelves, watching me. “I would have thought you’d sneak down here just to prove a point.”

  “Not since its esteemed days as a rat graveyard,” I said. “Was the point of keeping this collection here just to remind the rest of us that we’re powerless peasants?”

  “I’ll try to remember to ask my father that before I eradicate whatever is left of his shriveled soul,” Emrys said.

  He returned to the desk, and with one last, long look around me, I joined him.

  “You can’t kill what’s already dead,” I reminded him. That had been one of Nash’s favorite lines during ghost stories.

  “I know,” Emrys said, running his finger down the book—some sort of log—in front of him. “That’s why I think we’re looking for the Mirror of Shalott.”

  My lips parted, annoyance stinging me like a wasp. I moved to the other side of the desk, facing him. “You did not figure that out.”

  He only smirked.

  “When did you know?” I demanded.

  “I suspected it right away because of all the creatures on its frame,” he said, turning the record around and leaning toward me. “But I wanted to find out who currently has it before I brought it to the group.”

  Liar, I thought, the word echoing in my bones. If I hadn’t come down here, if I hadn’t seen what he was looking for, would he ever have told us his theory? Or would he have slipped away before we’d realized he was gone?

  I held his gaze, suddenly aware of how close our faces were. “Are you sure it wasn’t to beat us to it?”

  His frown deepened, and for a moment, just one, I could have sworn his gaze dropped to my lips.

  I felt that glance everywhere, a flush of heat spreading from my core. Shadows gathered around us until the Immortalities, the walls, the desk, everything but him, faded.

  “Were you worried I’d left again?” he asked, his voice low. Warm. He was watching me through his lowered lashes, his throat bobbing as he leaned that little bit closer. I barely heard him say, “And here I thought you didn’t want me around…”

  His breath mingled with mine. My heart fluttered in my chest, like a small bird trying to break from its cage. His lips moved, shaping a word without giving it voice.

  Real. The word winged through my mind, breathless. Real.

  But then Emrys straightened, pulling back. Tapping a finger on the open book in front of him, he returned his attention to the page, letting out a thoughtful hum—as if it had never happened.

  As if I weren’t right there in front of him, like a discarded thought.

  In that moment, with the color burning high in my cheeks, I wasn’t sure who I despised more: him, for all his little games, or me, for letting him win that round.

  I blew out a hard breath through my nose and looked down at the page. It was labeled MIRROR OF SHALOTT at the top, and two different hands had written dates and names beneath it.

  January 1809–June 2000 Laurent Perreault, Paris Guild—Attic of home?

  Sold August 2000 to Edward Wyrm, London Guild—Rivenoak

  “My forefathers may have been at home here with the rodents,” Emrys said, “but even I can admit they kept good records.”

  “God’s teeth,” I said. “Wyrm?”

  “Good old Wyrm,” Emrys confirmed. “I seem to remember he and Nash had some kind of tiff…?”

  “That’s a very nice way of saying that Nash used him as a human shield while opening a vault and cost him a kidney,” I said.

  “Is that all?” Emrys asked dryly.

  “It was such a stupid thing for Wyrm to be upset about,” I said, glaring at the paper. “He has a second, perfectly fine one.”

  A smile ghosted Emrys’s lips. I forced myself to look away.

  “Don’t you dare laugh,” I warned him. “He banned us from entering Rivenoak in front of his whole guild.”

  “I know,” Emrys said. “I remember.”

  “You remember?” I repeated, feeling the mortification of that moment wash over me anew. “You were there?”

  He nodded. “And for the record, he later got drunk and admitted it wasn’t Nash’s fault at all. He triggered the curse and wasn’t fast enough getting away. And Nash let him lie to spare his pride. He’s an arrogant ass.”

  Emrys could have knocked me over with a flick of his fingers. Nash not being at fault for once was one thing, but Emrys telling me that was almost…kind, which made it all the more confusing coming from him after the day we’d had.

  Well, I consoled myself, the gods might have hated me enough to allow him to witness that first degrading moment, but at least they’d spared me the second.

  Emrys’s brow furrowed, as if he sensed my thoughts. “…Why do I get the impression that’s not the only reason you despise him?”

  “I need another reason?” I shot back. He didn’t really care, and I wasn’t about to give him another little dagger to gut me.

  I hadn’t let myself think of what had happened with Wyrm in years, content to let it melt away in the bitter sea of resentment I felt toward my own guild after they’d abandoned Cabell and me as children.

  I was grateful, then, that I hadn’t let my guard down enough to tell Emrys the full story of the years we’d lived in the library. How, a few weeks after Nash’s disappearance, Wyrm had contacted Librarian, asking if he could come and speak to Cabell and me. How he’d shown up in all of his finery, smelling like expensive wood, and sat with us in front of the fireplace. How Wyrm had told us in a revoltingly gentle voice that we would be coming to live with him at his palatial estate, and wouldn’t that be just wonderful?

  At the time, at all of ten years old, I’d been willing to overlook everything that had happened in the past because I was so angry at Nash myself, and because Wyrm was promising all of the things I couldn’t: that we would never go hungry, that we would never have to sleep rough out in the bitter cold, that we could go to school and not have to travel from town to town every few days. That I wouldn’t have to watch my brother suffer, and see every day that I was failing him.

  Looking back, I knew better than to believe in the fairy tale he was selling. I really did. But I’d been so desperate for it to be true, to believe that someone could care, and that things could get better for us, that I’d gone along with it. I hadn’t noticed the subtle line of questioning about where we’d recently traveled with Nash, about what he’d been looking for, that Wyrm threaded through all of his promises. I didn’t know back then that he had been looking for Arthur’s dagger too, and that he’d have no qualms about using two children to dig for information about it.

  What I knew was that he’d told us to pack our things and wait for him to return in the morning, and we had. We waited all morning.