Page 60 of Mortal Blood
“No-one. I was in the library with Ling. We found this.”
I held the book out and he frowned like he was trying to do advanced calculus in his head.
“And…there shouldn’t have been a book in the library?”
“Not the book, what’s in it. We found what we were looking for, Cole. There was a student who was also an alpha before. It’s all in here.”
At once, he was all business.
“We need to show Blaine.”
“But…we can’t take the book out of the academy. It belongs to the library.”
Cole barked a sharp laugh. “You’re about to defy the council by leaving the groundsagain, and you’re worried about stealing a library book?”
“Yeah, well, books matter. What?”
He shook his head ruefully. “Don’t ever change, princess.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good. I promise we’ll have the book—and you—safely back by morning.”
“You’d better,” I warned him. “Because if you get me banned from the library, you can go and bunk with Jax for the rest of the year.”
If, that was, Jax wasn’t too busy bunking with my friend.
*
When night fell, we slipped out into the grounds, book hidden inside my backpack and carefully wrapped—because that thing was older than half my bloodline, and I wasn’t about to let it get damaged on my watch. Under the cover of darkness, we made for the gap in the wards, and slipped over the wall. Too bad I couldn’t shift on command—myowncommand—because that would have come in handy right about now. Instead, I was sidelined while Cole shifted, and then had to scramble onto his back. Still, at least it was easier to carry the backpack in a form with arms, which was probably a large part of the reason it made it to the Wandering Willow in one piece.
Once Cole had shifted back and reclaimed his clothes, we headed to the old inn and pushed open the door.
“Greetings, wary—” Aodh cut off midway through his customary greeting and he blew out a breath. “Come in, quickly. You’re letting the cold air in.”
“We both know your patrons can’t feel a thing, Aodh,” Cole said curtly.
“No, but I can. I assume you’re not just here to annoy me?”
We stepped further inside, letting the door swing shutbehind us. I cast a glance around the inn at the half dozen ‘patrons’ sitting at the crumbling tables and staring blankly into space, wondering if any of them were the same unfortunates from the last time we’d been here. There was no sign of the smashed tables I’d seen that time, at least.
“We need a portal,” Cole said without preamble.
“Yes, of course,” Aodh said, and my attention snapped to him. It wasn’t like him to be so obliging—every other time we’d been here, he’d made a big show of how much of a pain in the ass we were. His gaze slid quickly off to one side, but not before I noticed it had been lingering on me. I edged closer to Cole before cursing myself for showing weakness.
“Don’t worry,” Aodh said. “The pie isn’t for you.”
Something about his tone stopped that sounding as reassuring as it might have, but this time I was careful not to react.
“Usual price,” Cole said, and Aodh nodded quickly.
“Yes, of course. Come.”
He stepped further into the room and shoved a couple of tables aside, as usual not making any kind of effort to hide his magic from his patrons—and as usual, not one of them seemed to notice he was in the room.
Cole passed him a pair of tiny crystals and Aodh thrust them quickly into his pocket, not pausing to hold them up to the light like he had before. Maybe he just trusted Cole not to cheat him by now?
The innkeep muttered a few words in an ancient fae language, and a portal sprung into existence. Through it, I could see the familiar streets of the Iron Shadow packlands, and Colenodded in satisfaction. He stepped through, and as I made to follow, a hand wrapped around my upper arm and pulled me back. The portal snapped out of existence and I twisted round to glare at Aodh.
