“The binding circle does a fine job of that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Well, if you won’t, then eventually you will have to make a decision: would you rather leave me to rot in this cavern, or break the circle so Sairche can have me? How do you punish me, then? How do you make certain I regret all that I suffered for you, all the tears and blood the erinyes made me spill instead of handing you over? I nearly died a dozen times over so that you can swan around with that shitting paladin and act as if I’ve ravished you by claiming a few drops of blood.”
Farideh blushed to her temples. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say any of that. I’ll find a way to get you free.”
“You don’t have time to find another solution.”
She didn’t. There were already too many pieces hanging over them-the Book and the strange texts and the arcanist and the Shadovar. She needed the pact and she might even need Lorcan. Farideh bit her lip. “What do I have to do?”
“Give me your knife.”
She pulled out the blade, but when he reached to take it, she shook her head. “Tell me where to cut,” she said. “I’ll do it myself.”
“I suggest the elbow,” he said. “The skin is thin and no one will remark on the scars. Just a nick will do. And then you will have to hand me the knife. You’re not the only one who bleeds this time.”
Farideh pressed the tip of the blade to her skin, harder than she would have expected, until it broke the golden skin and freed a trickle of blood that smeared the knife. She grimaced at the pain that shot up her arm, but handed him the knife, hoping she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
Another terrible mistake, a little voice corrected.
Lorcan slashed his own arm, black blood smearing the knife blade. “Break the circle,” he said, considering the mix of fluids. “This has to go quickly.”
With one pointed foot she smeared the neat silver runes into nothing. The magic sputtered and collapsed, as the Hells’ powers swelled around Lorcan. A steady stream of Infernal seemed to wind around them both like a serpent. Her brand started to throb. The blood burst off the knife’s blade in a cloud of droplets, so fine she hardly felt its spray across her face and arms.
Lorcan drew her against him. She forgot to breathe.
The spell pulled and for the first time, Farideh felt the lines of magic that wrapped around her, as they stretched, tighter, farther, thin and sharp as wires in a net so fine it would have caught sand off a lake bottom.
Her sight shrank down to only Lorcan’s black, black eyes. The pulse of the Weave grew stronger, harder to ignore, and it was harder to imagine she hadn’t always felt it. Her breath quickened. Her own heart raced. Adrenaline stirred her thoughts into a blur and she was certain the spell would break and she would break under it, pushed over an edge she hadn’t known was there.
Then suddenly, all of it vanished, and a great, gasping breath rushed into her. A wicked smile played across Lorcan’s mouth. Dahl stood behind her, his sword drawn. Even Mira had broken away from her books.
“It’s fine!” Farideh gasped. The sensation of the net faded from her skin. “It’s fine.” She brushed her shaking arms to be certain. “Did it work?”
Lorcan spread his hands. “No Sairche.”
“Good. All right.” Farideh swallowed against the knot in her throat. “I need to … I’m going to go with Dahl. So promise me you won’t do anything while I’m gone.”
Lorcan shook his head. “I’m bound to you and you’re bound to me. You aren’t going anywhere alone.”
“We don’t have time to argue this,” Farideh said, turning to go, needing to be away from him. “Just wait until I get back, and-” She had gone no more than half-a-dozen steps before the sensation of the net cutting into her skin flared again and made her catch her breath. Behind her, Lorcan yelped and hit the floor.
“What was that?” Farideh demanded.
Lorcan scowled up at her. “I told you. You’re bound to me and I’m bound to you. We’re sharing the protection. If you try to go without me, the spell will pull.” He stood, still looking furious. “Though apparently it remains your protection. Wherever you’re going, I’m coming too.” He glared at Dahl. “Like it or not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The shelf where Dahl had found the strange list of succession held book after book after book of things and places and people who lived long after the arcanist had built the library, ending with a collection of bindings that could only have come from the current expedition. More, Farideh thought, than could be accounted for by someone forgetting a book they’d brought in or playing an ill-conceived prank.
Specifics of the Zhentarim cells and leadership along the Sword Coast and beyond. A dictionary of Tymantheran Draconic with notable gaps. A detailed and scattered text of strange secrets and underground knowledge set over the last twenty years that had the cadence of Tam’s voice. A red-bound volume, in several hands, describing the current state of the city of Neverwinter lay open on Farideh’s lap.
“Lords and gods damn it,” Lorcan swore. Fire bloomed in his hands, illuminating the face of the ghost who’d taken on Havilar’s form, skulking up the aisle. She bared her teeth and turned insubstantial again. The creatures had tailed them here, taking Brin and Havilar and Farideh’s shapes, mocking them and trying to block their path, trying to herd them back to the arcanist. Then Lorcan had casually thrown a ball of fire at the one that had Farideh’s shape, setting a rack of scrolls aflame and wounding it badly. The ghosts were more circumspect after that.
Farideh hoped they weren’t giving Havi and Brin more trouble. Dahl set the book back on the shelf and wiped his hands on his breeches. “Shadar-kai’s,” he said, grimacing.
“It doesn’t seem as if it takes every stray thought,” Farideh said. “At least there’s that.” She pulled down a book as thin as her ring finger, bound in deep crimson. Mechanics of the Infernal Pact. The frontispiece read, above an illustration that resembled a shirtless cambion reaching for the title. She slammed it shut and shoved it back where she’d found it. She didn’t want to know which of her thoughts the magic had deemed important. “But it’s enough. We’re going to be looking forever at this rate.”
“Oh, shit and ashes, kill me now,” Lorcan said. Farideh bit her tongue, still furious Lorcan hadn’t told her how the spell would end. If Lorcan had to stay six steps from her always, she wasn’t sure if she would die first of anger, embarrassment, or want.
He was much easier to deal with, she thought, just as furious with herself, when he was just a rosy memory, wasn’t he?
“You could have stayed in the circle,” Dahl told the cambion. He took a step back, staring up at the enormous, half-filled shelves. “So the Book and the ghosts are working together to fill the library. And then they kill anyone who finds it.” He shook his head. “I wish I knew what that thing was. Like a mummy, but too powerful. Like a lich, but dumb. Like an eidolon, but made of flesh. I don’t doubt it was the arcanist, but what did he make himself into?”
“The Book would know,” she said. “It would know about the scroll too.”
“And then it would know we were making a run for the vents. And then the ghosts would know.” He sighed and glared at the spines in front of him. “I should have asked the Book about Emrys from the start. We should have asked about the page.”
Farideh turned around. “We didn’t have a reason to.”
“All the same …” Dahl frowned at Lorcan. “What are you looking at?”