Bloodrage - Helen Harper Page 0,70

on any plane.” I licked my lips. “Well, apart from me of course. Knowledge is power, Solus. While I’m reluctant to give you such knowledge so easily, I can see I have little other choice at the moment.”

He held my gaze steadily. “So you would promise that this book is worth reading, would you?”

“Certainly. I give you my word on that.” Especially if you can read it for me and tell me what it says, I thought.

The Fae thought about it. I held my breath.

“Okay then. Give me the book and I will sort out your little shifter problem.”

I exhaled. Praise the gods. Now I’d just have to finagle my way into getting him to tell me what was actually in the book without him realising that I’d not actually read much more than the first chapter. I felt a slight twinge of guilt, then dismissed it. This was the sort of thing the Fae did all the time with their tricksy bargains. I just happened to be playing them at their own game for once.

“I can’t get you the book right now, of course. It’s at the academy. But I leave every Friday for a couple of hours to go to anger management counselling.” Solus started to laugh. I ignored him. “You can meet me there and then I’ll give you the book.”

“It’s a deal.” He spat on his hand and held it out. I did the same and then we shook.

Solus crooked an eyebrow at me. “If you have access to the mages’ library, then why is the old woman still asleep?”

Puzzled, I just frowned at the mage.

“Honestly, dragonlette, for an apparently smart girl sometimes you can be incredibly dim. The spell they put on her had to come from somewhere. And it will be written down somewhere. Just find the book that it’s written in and then you can find out how to free her.”

I stared at him, completely nonplussed. A vision of the off-limits catalogue cabinet swam into my head, along with the fact that Slim was constantly reminding me to stay on the ground floor. I smacked my palm against my forehead. I was a fucking idiot.

“And so turns on the lightbulb,” drawled Solus.

The cogs in my brain geared up. “I was told that only the Ministry Council could actually remove the spell.”

“Well, of course you were told that. If every mage had access to it then it would never work, would it?”

I thought about it. Assuming that I could find a book with details about how to remove the spell, and that I was able to do it myself, not only would I be breaking my word to the Arch-Mage, but I’d be pretty much damning myself and potentially Mrs. Alcoon forever. I already knew that there were few places to hide from the reach of the mages. And yet if I could free her now...I pondered carefully. It wouldn’t hurt to have a back up plan in case everything fell to shit at the academy.

Solus was watching me carefully. “You could always come and live in Tir-na-nog. You’d be safe there.”

I snapped my head up at him. He sighed. “I’m not a mindreader, dragonlette. It’s just not hard to work out what you might be thinking.”

“I don’t want to go to Fae-land.”

He shrugged. “Think about it.”

I breathed out. I didn’t like the lack of honour that those kind of actions would highlight. But I would have to think about it, and seriously. In the meantime, however I had to concentrate on the matter in hand. I raised my eyebrows pointedly at the Fae.

He sighed. “Give me a minute to put things into place.”

“Wait!” I stopped him and reached down to my shoes and began undoing the complicated straps.

I could feel Tom staring at me from the other side of the room. I mimed that my feet were hurting, which was actually true, and yanked the offending things off. Suddenly I felt about two feet shorter. I handed the Fae the shoes and he looked at them in disgust, as if I’d given him a pair of live snakes.

“Now you can begin,” I said.

Solus closed his eyes briefly and muttered something inaudible. Then he opened them and grinned at me. “Get ready.”

I stood there for a moment. Everyone around me continued on as before. Irritated, I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could there was an almighty roar of rage from right outside the window. The ground shook and half the guests