Page 136 of At the Mercy of Midnight
“But I’ll remember that…” he murmured, voice deadly low. His fingers gripped her waist tightly, his breath warm next to her ear.
She suppressed a shiver, swallowing as he released her and stepped away. He sauntered past like it had never happened.
She watched him go, needing a deep, calming breath before she followed and was finally able to take in the sights before them.
They stood beneath a carved archway of dark, obsidian stone, etched with runes that faintly glowed with a purple light. She could feel the magic emanating from them, a hum in her veins, a call to her heart.
The chamber beyond appeared vast, cloaked in shadow that was broken by only a few scattered arcane lamps sitting on tables.
They moved through the archway into the chamber in perfect silence, as though quiet was demanded by the place.Amelia gasped softly as she looked up, the vaulted ceiling lost to darkness. Black stone columns rose like ribs inside a body from the floor to unseen heights, each carved with runes of protection, of knowledge.
The air was cold and dry but charged with a magical signature that set her teeth on edge, the small hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
Long, curved shelves spiralled outwards from the main chamber, like a labyrinthine structured weighed down by tomes, scrolls, and relics. The entire place seemed to breathe in time with something. It simply feltalive.
Amelia picked up an arcane lamp and held it high, peering into one long, winding set of shelves. It was immense, this place. Who knew what kind of knowledge and secrets it was keeping to itself.
“We need to find the section for Mythic Histories,” Amelia whispered to Silas, raising the lamp to the golden plaques set into the ends of the shelves. “Lyana said it would be hidden in a false panel of the third shelf in that section.”
“Okay,” Silas said, taking up a lamp for himself. They split up to speed their search.
She passed numerous shelving and odd statues, the strange darkness in the place casting an ominous atmosphere.
At the end of a section on ‘Blood Rites and Rituals’, Amelia saw something that immediately caught her eye. A small book sat behind a glass panel, the title screaming at her. She sucked in a sharp breath, an idea occurring to her at once.
She licked her lips, glancing over her shoulder. Silas was across the room, holding his lamp to a golden plaque. Amelia turned back, sliding the glass panel open. She reached in tentatively in case magic surrounded the small book. When nothing stopped her, Amelia plucked it up, quickly shoving itinto the inner pocket of her cloak. She replaced the glass and continued with her search.
It took a few more passes for her to find it, but when she did, Amelia almost couldn’t believe it had taken her so long. The Mythic Histories section seemed to call to her as she stared down into the long corridor of shelving.
“Finley,” she called softly, and in the next moment, he was by her side, peering into the depths.
They moved inside, the shelves parted in sections and interrupted by carved statues of robed people without faces. Amelia blinked at them, a sense of trepidation settling over her. The area was heavy with a strange silence, each of their steps echoing for a beat too long, their breaths misting the air ever-so-slightly. The entire chamber felt cold and unwelcoming, like it knew they didn’t belong.
In the third row of shelves, she began feeling around the panelling on each piece of wood that sagged under the weight of the sacred texts, looking for one that might shift under her touch.
Silas was doing the same behind her, poking and prodding at the wood.
“She didn’t tell you anything more specific about where to find it?” he asked.
She didn’t answer him, her fingers falling into a slight gap in the wood beneath a thick tome on ‘Pre-Monolithic Magical Myths’. She pressed inwards, and a hollow click sounded softly, the panel giving way as she gasped in a tiny breath at the discovery.
“Here,” she whispered, and Silas was by her side in an instant.
Inside was a small, brown leather journal. Dusty and worn, the cover bore no title.
She opened it, staring down at the first page.
“It’s Bane’s,” Amelia confirmed, seeing his name scrawled tidily at the top of the page. She turned the pages and they both read.
The ink was faint, but the script was unmistakably notes on a midnight ritual at a full moon. A Midnight Rite, he called it, one of transference, soul anchoring, magical connection, and finally…separation.
Her breath hitched.
This was it. This was what they needed to know.
Amelia turned her head, finding Silas’s eyes moving across the page at a blazing speed, his face drained of colour in the golden darkness. She hastily shut the book with the echoing crack of a snapped bone, pausing his perusal of the ritual that, by all intents and purposes, was meant to erase him.
His eyes lifted, meeting hers.
