Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,51

herself.

Yrene hurried her steps, jaw angled. She had no weapons save for a small knife she used for cleaning out wounds or cutting bandages—currently in the bottom of her bag.

But that satchel, laden with books … She wrapped the leather straps around her wrist, getting a good grip on it.

A well-placed swing would knock someone to the ground.

Closer and closer to the safety of that hallway—

From the corner of her eye, she saw it. Sensed it.

Someone in the next stack over. Walking parallel to her.

She didn’t dare look. Acknowledge it.

Yrene’s eyes burned, even as she fought the terror that clawed its way up her body.

Glimpses of shadows and darkness. Stalking her. Hunting her.

Quickening its pace to grab her—cut her off at that hallway and snatch her into the dark.

Common sense. Common sense.

Running—it would know. It would know she was aware. It might strike. Whoever it was.

Common sense.

A hundred feet left until the hallway, shadows pooling between the dim lanterns, the lights now precious islands in a sea of darkness.

She could have sworn fingers lightly thudded as they trailed over the books on the other side of the shelf.

So Yrene lifted her chin further and smiled, laughing brightly as she looked ahead to the hallway. “Maddya! What are you doing here so late?”

She hurried her pace, especially as whoever it was slowed in surprise. Hesitation.

Yrene’s foot slammed into something soft—soft and yet hard—and she bit down her yelp—

She hadn’t seen the healer curled on her side in the shadows along the shelf.

Yrene bent, hands grappling for the woman’s thin arms, her build slender enough that when she turned her over—

The footsteps began once more just as she turned the healer over. As she swallowed the scream that tried to shatter out of her.

Light brown cheeks turned to hollowed husks, eyes stained purple beneath, lips pale and cracked. A simple healer’s gown that had likely fit her that morning now hung loose, her slim form now emaciated, as if something had sucked the life from her—

She knew that face, gaunt as it was. Knew the golden-brown hair, nearly the twin to her own. The healer from the Womb, the very one she’d comforted only hours earlier—

Yrene’s fingers shook as she fumbled for a pulse, the skin leathery and dry.

Nothing. And her magic … There was no life for it to swirl toward. No life at all.

The footsteps on the other side of the stack neared. Yrene stood on trembling knees, taking a steadying breath as she forced herself to walk again. Forced herself to leave that dead healer in the dark. Forced herself to lift her bag as if nothing had happened, as if showing the satchel to someone ahead.

But with the angle of the stacks—the person didn’t know that.

“Just finishing up my reading for the night,” she called to her invisible salvation ahead. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Silba that her voice held steady and merry. “Cook is expecting me for a last cup of tea. Want to join?”

Making it seem like someone was expecting her: another trick she’d picked up.

Yrene cleared five more steps before she realized whoever it was had again halted.

Buying her ruse.

Yrene dashed the last few feet to the hallway, spotted a cluster of acolytes just emerging from another haze of stacks, and hurtled flat out toward them.

Their eyes widened at Yrene’s approach, and all she whispered was, “Go.”

The three girls, barely more than fourteen, caught the tears of terror in her eyes, the sure whiteness of her face, and did not look behind Yrene. They did not disobey.

They were in her class. She’d trained them for months now.

They saw the straps of her satchel wrapped around her fist and closed ranks around her. Smiled broadly, nothing at all wrong. “Come to Cook’s to get tea,” Yrene told them, fighting to keep her scream from shattering out of her. Dead. A healer was dead—“She is expecting me.”

And will raise the alarm if I do not arrive.

To their credit, those girls did not tremble, did not show one lick of dread as they walked down the main hall. As they neared the atrium, with its roaring fire and thirty-six chandeliers and thirty-six couches and chairs.

A sleek black Baast Cat was lounging in one of those embroidered chairs by the fire. And as they neared, she leaped up, hissing as fiercely as her feline-headed namesake. Not at Yrene or the girls … No, those beryl-colored eyes were narrowed at the library behind them.

One of the