Bloodrage - Helen Harper Page 0,16

a stunningly beautiful landscape with undulating emerald green hills in the background, a shining blue river, and what appeared to be a pomegranate tree. I turned the next page, but I knew what I would see before I got there. It was a Fae rune, singly screaming itself at me from the pristine white page. This was exactly the same book that I’d come across in the Clava bookshop, the one that had freaked me out so much and made me really doubt what the old woman had been up to.

I tried to rationalise it to myself. I’d been in a bookshop. What else would you find in a bookshop other than books? Now I was in a library. Hello! And it was a vast library stocked with hundreds of thousands of titles no less. Of course there would be copies of the same book. But in such a large library was it really credible that I’d come across such an unusual and rare book without even looking? I moved my hand up to my scalp to twist my fingers thoughtfully through the hair that I no longer had, and then stopped abruptly in midair and brought my fingers to my nose instead, sniffing. Oh God. There was a definite whiff of stale bonfire clinging to them. I raised the book itself up to my face and sniffed again, even more cautiously this time. The smell was even stronger. As if the book had been in a fire and the pages had been burnt. I flicked quickly through the rest of it, not looking to see what was inscribed within but instead hunting for any signs of damage. There were none.

I rocked back. Okay, so it could be a coincidence that I’d come across the same book. Coincidences happen all the time; in fact it would be a coincidence if there were no coincidences (I struggled mentally with that one although I think I got it). But could it really be a coincidence that a copy of the book that I last saw burning in the debris of Mrs. Alcoon’s shop now turned up here with the definite and distinctive odour of burnt paper? I wasn’t completely stupid. Something was going on here. I glanced down at my blue robes and realised that they would actually have some use after all. Taking a quick glance around to make sure that no-one was within eye shot, I hiked up the robes and shoved the book under one of my arms. The robes would drape over my body well enough to conceal its shape and I’d be able to sneak it out of the library and examine it in more detail later. Assuming I didn’t have to move my arms very much of course, that was. Another thought struck me, and I reached up and scooped out the dictionary that was still half hanging off the shelf above me and did the same, only this time shoving it under my other armpit. Hopefully I wouldn’t sweat too much into the books.

I stood up and smoothed the blue material down, trying to crane my neck around my body to see if the corners of the books were suspiciously poking out. They seemed to be hidden well enough from what I could judge. Carefully squatting down so as not to disturb their positions, I grabbed my test answer sheet from the floor where it had fallen when I had initially been shoved against the shelves. I tried not to think about whether that was a coincidence or not as well, and instead stiffly got myself back to standing position and walked back out into the main area of the library, keeping my arms firmly at my sides to hold the books in place. I realised that the headache that had been bothering me so very much had now completely vanished. It must have been psychosomatic, I told myself. If not, then it had been a tension headache from the stress of having to take the stupid test in the first place. It wasn’t that the book itself had given me the pain to alert me to its presence. No. That would be impossible because it was an inert object. Not alive. Nor could it have been reincarnated from a fire on the other side of the country. Definitely not.

“Now what the feck are you doing?” came a familiarly gruff voice from behind me.

I turned slowly, attempting to look natural. “I was looking for you.