Page 41 of Fractured
Nothing but a thick layer of dust.
“You’re searching for what you need to know to walk out of this room.” The lynx was suddenly in front of me.
“And how do I find out what I need to know?”
“Books.”
I pressed my lips. “You heard me just now when I told you that the books are empty, right?”
The lynx walked backward a couple of steps. “The right one won’t be.”
Laughter burst out of me. Really fucking hilarious. But what other choice did I have other than to stand up and make my way toward the longest desk and the biggest shelf behind it?
“This is nuts, Vair. Fucking nuts. You bring me here and you tell me that this place is sentient and that I need to findsomethingwithout giving me a clue what it could be!” And I was still laughing because I’d cried enough. Before, and while I’d eaten, too—no more tears were left in me, not right now.
“I cannot tell you what I do not know,” he said, following me to the shelf, and he sounded confused again. “But the palace will. It will know.”
With the book I’d grabbed in my hands still, I turned to him. “Knowwhatexactly?”
His wide eyes glazed over for a second, like nobody was home. “Whether to keep you or let you go.”
Keep me,he said, like I was a fucking pet or something.
And what the hell could I do to a fuckingbuilding?
Nothing at all, that’s what. So I held in the scream of frustration that had built in me, and I opened the dark green covers of the book. Empty.
I couldn’t tell you what went through my head specifically. Not one thought or image stuck as I went through every single book on that table, then proceeded to the ones on the built-in shelves on the stone wall. Everything just tried to get hold of my attention all at once. Image after image, sound after sound—of blood and laughter and shimmer and kisses and screams and magic—it all had turned into chaos in my mind.
Blank page after blank page mocked me each time I picked up a new book. The lynx remained in the room with me, moving from one side to the other almost completelysoundlessly, yet I knew where he was now at all times. I knew that if he spoke, I’d hear my own voice in my ears—and maybethat’sthe reason why I was in such a chaotic state right now. Little had made sense to me since I crossed through the Aetherway and into Verenthia, but this definitely took the cake.
Hours could have passed—or mere minutes. I went through the first three rows of shelves, opened every book in them as if I didn’t know they would all be empty, and my arms were tired. My legs were tired. My fucking mind was tired.
I fell against the edge of the table, eyes squeezed shut tightly. “Here’s a plot twist for ya, Vair—this room never plans to let me go. It plans to keep me here forever.”
No laughter came out of me because when I said the words, I realized, they could very well be possible.
Fucking hell, I could beheldby a fucking building indefinitely.
“Ask yourself this, then—whywould it?” The lynx sat on his hind legs to my side, and I’d already gotten used to the way he moved by now, I realized. How he…took his time with every movement of his body, either intentionally, or because he…forgothow to move and had to figure it out as he went?
That’s what it seemed like to me.
“You tell me. You brought me here,” I said.
“The Ice Palace has no intention of keeping you here forever if this isn’t where you belong.”
“Buthowam I going to convince it that I need to get out of here? Ineedto get out of here, Vair!” Fuck, I needed to find Rune before it was too late.
“Ask it,” the lynxsimply said.
My mouth opened and closed.Ask it,he said. That’s all—ask a fucking room.
All right then. Fine. “Give me a book that isn’t empty.”
The words left my lips in a rush, and I didn’t actually think it was going to work.
It did.
