Page 39 of Knave

“Maybe not this second though,” Ferris growled, carrying her out of the lake and placing her on her feet.

Mouse shoved on her clothing and boots, not worrying about plaiting her hair. At least the Jabberwocky was taking care of a rogue werewolf so they wouldn’t have to use loud bullets again.

Snatching their backpacks, they bolted for the castle, keeping as close to the trees as possible. Once inside, they darted up the stairs and down the hall toward the library. Her heart slammed against her rib cage, her chest heaving as they reached the room. She bit her lip, staring at the doors of the library for a moment before deciding on shutting and locking them. With the doors closed, it would give them a little more time to hide if they had to.

“You don’t have to shut them,” Ferris said gently.

To give them more time wasn’t the only reason she’d done it. Mouse also needed to face her fears, and perhaps it was being trapped behind the boulders that had done it, or knowing that while being with Ferris, he would always try to get her away from danger. Either way, she now knew she could survive inside a room with the doors shut. They’d been wide open when she’d first left the Ruby Heart Palace, then cracked, and now this was the final step. As for the library, it wasn’t the same one where she’d been hurt—these weren’t the same books that had surrounded her, and this man … this man was nothing like the one who had broken her. She grasped the strength within her, taking even breaths. “I’m all right. I have you with me in here and I trust you, Ferris.”

“I trust you too, luv.”

But then she remembered how she’d attacked him, which was more recent—one memory that wouldn’t easily go away. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” she murmured. “I’m still unpredictable.”

He cocked his head and blinked at her as if she were mad. “Do you feel like you want to attack me now?”

“No,” she said slowly.

“Maybe you should.” He took a step toward her, pushing a lock of wet hair behind her ear. “It led to good things, didn’t it?”

“Ferris!”

“Shh!” He put his finger over his lips while smiling. “This conversation is over. We have work to do.”

Mouse rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop grinning as she pored over the spines of decaying books. She didn’t know if the queen, king, or both of them had read the tomes, but most were mundane and about building things. A bright blue spine caught her attention with the wordsBeast of Wonderlandwritten on it in gold cursive. She wiped the dust from the cover and flipped through the yellowed pages of the thin book, filled with mostly drawn pictures of the Jabberwocky. Badly, she might add. Her finger followed the lines as she read over a few facts about the creature. The beast had first been spotted in Wonderland centuries ago and was the only one of its kind. It had been caught once by the royals, but was untrainable, even when provided vampires or humans to eat. The Red Queen wanted to use the Jabberwocky against other territories, but the attempt had failed.

So, the Red Queen had truly caught it once then…

“It doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Mouse wrinkled her nose, showing him the page. “How can the Jabberwocky be the only one? It still had to be born from somewhere, right?”

Ferris shrugged. “Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster. The States have Bigfoot. And Wonderland has the Jabberwocky.”

“The what?” She frowned, not understanding what in the world he was talking about.

“Right. You’reolderthan me.” He smirked. “And you haven’t hung around the mortal world enough to hear about those cryptids. But I guess the Jabberwocky wouldn’t be considered one anyway since it’s proven to be real.”

“Our next quest when this is over will be for you to teach me about what a cryptid is,” she pointed out, smiling to herself as she returned to scan through the remaining pages. “Bollocks, there’s nothing useful in here!”

Mouse went to slide the book back on the shelf, but then the urge to make the row even nagged at her. One of the tomes at the edge of the row continued to stick out a centimeter and she shoved it in when a click sounded. Scowling, she pulled out a stack of books and found what looked to be a small silver key inserted into the inner wall shelf. The metal was about the size of her fingernail and matched something on the back of a wind-up toy.

“There’s something here.” She beamed, brushing her fingertips against the metal and cranking it to the right.

A grinding noise filtered into the room and the shelf shook, the tomes rattling. Mouse took a step back, the bookshelf opening toward them like a door. Her eyes widened as she met Ferris’s gaze.

He rubbed the back of his neck, a satisfied smile on his face. “Let’s hope we just struck fucking gold.”

Chapter Seventeen

Ferris

Darkness swallowed Ferris and Mouse. The secret door only spilled light into the passageway for so long before they had to rely on their vampiric eyesight. Cobwebs hung down from a white ceiling, crisscrossing along their path. Deep green and gold foil wallpaper lined the walls and a matching carpet softened their footsteps.

“How far do you think this goes?” Mouse asked when they’d been walking for nearly three minutes.

It was impossible to tell which direction they were going anymore—if the floor slanted up or down, made gradual shifts to the right or left. The outline of the door leading back into the library had vanished from view. For a moment, he found himself eager to make it to the other end—not because he was afraid, but because exploring the palace was becoming more like a treasure hunt by the hour. “That’s a very good question.”

Mouse thought for a moment, sweeping away cobwebs from where they looped across their path. “It almost feels like we’re going to the pits of Hell…” She wiggled her fingers in the air and smiled.

“Except without fire.” He grinned, plucking another web from her hair. Nothing had ventured down this hallway in ages, judging by the amount of strands weaving across the passageway.

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