Page 81 of Darkening Truth
Kill comes over and kisses the top of my head, “You know more about me than anyone else in this room.”
I nod, and smile.
“I know. I’ll get to know you guys better, and you guys will get to know more about me too, like Reaper said, it will come in time,” I reply. “Let's find this book, and work out how we’re going to get into the realm. That niggling has gotten a lot more intense, and I think we’ve got less time than I thought we did. I think something has changed, although I don’t know what, and I don’t know how I know that.”
“Instincts,” Loki replies seriously.
We don’t speak for a long time after that as we make our way through the vast library. Eventually, Storm’s patience runs out.
“Alright, I’ve had enough,” he exclaims. “What are the chances that it’s actually in here anyway? Wouldn’t he be more likely to hide a stolen book like that in a safe somewhere?”
“That’s a good point,” Reaper agrees. “I mean, it’s rare, so it’s got to be valuable, right? It wouldn’t make sense for him to keep it in a library where anyone could see it, especially since it was stolen.”
“Laikynn made it sound like it had been stolen generations ago, so I’m not sure that anyone would have been looking for it still,” I reply. “I see your point though.”
“I don’t know where better to hide a book than in a room full of them,” Rival points out still absorbed in his task.
“Yeah, that makes sense actually,” Kill says with a sigh.
“I guess we’re stuck here then,” Loki groans.
I shrug, “We could go and check his office. There’s a safe in there and he did like to keep his most favourite things close to him. The worst-casescenario is that it’s not there, and we can come back and continue searching here. There’s less space to search in his office.”
“That’s true,” Mayhem agrees.
“It would give us a change of pace too, and then at least we don’t end up searching the entire library to discover that it was never here in the first place,” Zev agrees.
Storm nods, “Lead the way, Farren. I could definitely do with a change of scenery.”
I grin and turn to leave.
“Er, Farren,” Rival says, and I turn back to look at him. “What do I do about the Void pocket?”
“Oh, I’ll close it for the moment, and then I can open it back up when we get back down here, because honestly, I think we’re going to end up back here,” I reply, as I close the pocket.
“I hope so,” Rival replies as we head through the shelves and out of the door. “Well, I hope so because I want some more books, not because I want to try and sift through the unorganised mess in order to find the book that may or may not be in the library.”
“Agreed,” Loki admits.
Heading through the opulently decorated hallways, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Of course, everything has a layer of dust on it, as I suspected, no one is here, or certainly no one has been cleaning since I killed my father. Who isn’t my father. It’s just easier to refer to him as such at this point, I suppose.
When we get to the door of his office, I reach for the handle and then pause.
Opening the bondlines to the guys with me, making sure not to disturb Khaos and Hades, I ask,“Do you guys hear that?”
“Yep,”Kill replies.
“Looks like someone is still here,”Zev mutters, pulling his sword free.
“And they’re after something in your father's office,”Kill adds, his shadows ready and swirling around his hands as his tail moves from side to side in agitation.
Storm’s wings flutter once before they settle again, both of their horns staying dim, it wouldn’t make sense if they lit up all the time, and in my experience, they only tend to in times of great emotion. Everyone readies themselves to fight.
Just in case.
There is a chance that whoever is in my father’s office is not a member of the staff. He did have enemies after all.
In theory, no one should be able to get into the estate. Even the staff wouldn’t be able to get back in once they left, which means that this is either one of the staff members who decided to stay behind for some reason, or someone has somehow managed to bypass the security and wards that lock a place down when someone dies.
