Chapter 88

Blakely

By some miracle—by miracle I mean Orion—we made it to the center of the maze.

I’d been hoping we’d stumble upon Ismene herself stocking the shelves or doing some other menial task, but we had no such luck. Instead, we found a large swirling staircase descending into a dim, torch-lit darkness.

Having no other choice, we clamored down them, pressing our backs against the wall hard enough to bruise whenever a wandering Librarian passed by.

At this rate, the scent of dirt and dust had all but clogged my nose, and I was almost certain the tremor in my hands had become permanent. I wanted so badly to tell Orion what I’d seen. Tears had streamed from my eyes as we ran, clinging to my throat and neck in sticky rivulets.

There had to be hundreds of levels to the underground library, each one packed with moving shelves full of books. Some glowed as Lina’s had, while others pulsated with darkness, or shot off sparks that danced silently in the air.

The Librarian’s were everywhere, o