Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,89

get out of the way before Fagerlie shot him. An ordinary bullet might have to be a very direct hit to kill him, but a silver one?

The doors behind Fagerlie burst open. “Forward, bats!” Sebastian shouted.

A stream of chittering brown bodies hurtled out the open doors. Fagerlie let out a wild cry and ducked, flinging up his hands to protect himself from the unexpected flood of winged creatures. Taking advantage of his distraction, Ves grabbed him by waist and wrist, and slammed him into the floor. Fagerlie cried out, so Ves repeated the movement. This time, the sorcerer remained still and silent.

The last of the bats dodged Ves’s head. Sebastian stared down at Fagerlie in horror—then flung himself on Ves. “Are you all right?”

Ves hugged him tight. “I am. It looks like it was your turn to save me,” he said against Sebastian’s hair.

Thumps and shouts sounded from other parts of the library, intermixed with startled screams as the bats swooped past Fagerlie’s henchmen. “You found the librarians, I take it?” Ves asked.

“Yes.” Sebastian stepped back and pulled off his tie. Kneeling, he began to bind Fagerlie’s hands with it. “Arthur was the one to betray us. He murdered Kelly and tried to do the same to you.”

Gods of the wood. Ves joined Sebastian on the floor and began to do a hasty search of Fagerlie’s pockets. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” Sebastian’s mouth tightened. “He got away, so he’s somewhere in the stacks. Or has fled the library, if he has any sense.”

Ves found a silver-plated knife in one of the robe’s pockets, which he picked up gingerly by its pearl handle, before passing it to Sebastian. Also in the pocket was a coarse gray thread.

“What the devil is that?” Sebastian asked.

Ves inspected it closely. “It’s the thread made from Fagerlie’s hair, that he meant to have me use to rebind the book. It would give him some sort of mastery over it, though how or what I can’t imagine.”

“It drove Dromgoole mad,” Sebastian said. When Ves gave him a quizzical look, he shrugged. “I read another letter. You can read it yourself later, but it made me realize…well, the way Ladysmith talks about his hopes that they can be together again, all the while knowing their reunion never came…” He offered Ves a wry smile. “That’s what brought me to my senses. Life’s too short, and I didn’t want to miss the chance to be with you.”

Warmth filled Ves’s chest, and he embraced Sebastian again. “I’m glad.”

“So am I. I’m also glad Fagerlie didn’t get the chance to bind the book to him. And Arthur didn’t free it.”

The hair on the nape of Ves’s neck pricked. “You said he escaped.”

“Yes, but…” Sebastian trailed off, meeting his gaze. “Fagerlie…did he find the right room?”

“Unfortunately. He said it looked as though someone had already been trying to get inside.”

“Arthur had a hammer.” Sebastian rubbed at one shoulder. “But it would take him hours to get through a masonry wall with it.”

“Fagerlie had more than a hammer. They managed to break through.”

Sebastian swore and sprang to his feet, off and running in an instant. Ves caught up easily, and they reached the room at the same moment.

It was empty now, just dropped sledgehammers and the body of one of the henchmen, hanging from a broken branch. Sebastian stumbled at the sight of the verdant shelves. “What—”

“Noct’s work,” Ves said. “I told you he was more competent at sorcery than me.”

Sebastian only shook his head. They approached the hole in the wall warily—until the glint of a flashlight showed from the darkness beyond.

Ves snarled a curse and ran for the hole, scrambling through and hitting the floor prepared to fight.

The room was small and strangely angled, with the walls meeting the floor in ways that made no sense to his eyes. Symbols he didn’t recognize were carved into each surface. The space was empty, save for a single plinth in the middle of the floor.

No doubt the Book of Breath had been on the plinth. But now, it was in Arthur’s hand.

He’d set the flashlight on the plinth in order to do his work, its beam focused directly on the book. The leather cover was cracked and dry-looking, and had clearly not been made from the skin of a calf or goat. The ivory curve of a hyoid bone decorated the front, along with the dried cartilage of a trachea. The thread used in the long-stitch binding resembled the hair in Ves’s pocket,