CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Caitlin sat on the floor between the stacks in the dark, silent library, bleary-eyed, her back against the metal frame and every muscle in her body aching as she hunched over a stack of books in her lap. It had been a marathon of reading, and books were strewn everywhere, as if an avalanche of them had fallen down upon her. Her eyes were blurry and she rubbed them again, determined to keep going.

Caitlin read beneath the dim emergency light, as she had been for hours, ever since the library had closed and its lights had shut down. She was grateful that she had not been detected, and she was determined to make the most of it, tearing through volumes, devouring them from the second the doors to the main library finally slammed close.

Caitlin had had a long and lonely night, squinting through book after book, searching for any clues, anything she could find. She waded through volumes on lost cities, lost races, lost civilizations, reading the most fantastical things, most of it legend,