“Huh?”
“Move, payilas.”
“Why? We need to—”
“You are on my tail.”
Belatedly, I realized the floor under my butt was uneven, and on my right, I spotted the rest of his tail coiled across the floor. My face heated.
“There’s nowhere to move. Can you just wait?” When he glared in answer, I hissed, “This is your fault, you know. Why are you wandering around where anyone can see you?”
“I would not be seen. You made noise, not me.”
The librarian clacked closer and I bit back my retort. A pair of black pumps and gray dress pants appeared. The woman walked past the table, and her footsteps grew muffled as she continued to the library’s farthest corner.
“You are useless,” Zylas added pitilessly. “You walk loud and talk loud and breathe loud—”
“I do not breathe loud.” I sat forward, getting off his stupid tail, and crawled for the gap between chairs.
He seized the hem of my sweater and yanked. I flopped backward and landed in his lap with a muffled thump. He clamped a warm hand over my mouth.
A pair of men’s leather shoes came into view, near silent on the tile floor compared to the woman’s clicking heels. The man strode past our hiding spot and disappeared into an aisle.
Zylas exhaled against my cheek—then pushed his nose into the spot under my ear. I squealed into his hand and twisted away from his face. His husky laugh was more vibration than sound. He shoved me off his lap, crawled over my legs with more grace than should’ve been possible, and slipped between the chairs.
Muttering nasty things under my breath, I rushed out after him. As I wobbled to my feet, he was already ghosting down the aisle—not back into the Demonica corner, but toward the front of the library.
“Zylas!” I hurried to his side, quietly this time. “Where are you going?”
He paused, crimson gaze sweeping the aisles. “This way.”
“Which way? What are you—”
Feet silent on the floor, he entered a short hall. A door marked with a bathroom sign waited at the end, but Zylas was interested in a door with a Guild Members Only plaque on it.
“We’re not allowed in there,” I told him.
He grasped the handle. White light sparked across it—some kind of Arcane spell. The pale sizzle ran over his knuckles and up his wrist. He narrowed his eyes, then rammed his shoulder into the door. The frame split and the door swung open, the sorcery imbued into the handle useless.
Crap, he’d broken the door. How would I explain that?
“Zylas, we can’t—”
He ignored me and walked in. Why was I not surprised?
The interior was dark, the air heavy with dust. I felt along the wall, found a light switch, and pressed it. Fluorescent bulbs buzzed awake.
Familiarity hit me in the gut. A long table was stacked with books in various states of disassembly. Tools I’d seen my mother use daily lay across the work surface—blades and cutting tools, glue, string, leather presses, pens and ink. A large magnifying glass on an adjustable arm was positioned above the book restorer’s current project.
Zylas glided toward the table, paused to inhale, then angled toward the cabinets along the wall. He homed in on the corner one, the metal doors secured with a heavy padlock.
I minced to his side. The lock had no keyhole and its face was marked with a set of runes. “What is it?”
He sniffed the air. “I smell blood.”
My stomach performed an adrenaline-fueled flip. “Blood” wasn’t even on the list of answers I’d expected.
“Old. Faint.” His tail snapped sideways. “The scent of demon blood and magic.”
He reached for the padlock but I grabbed his wrist. I didn’t doubt he could break it with either pure strength or magic, but that was the problem.
“Don’t,” I whispered urgently.
His jaw tightened with stubbornness. I knew that look—the “I’m about to do the opposite of what you want just to prove I can” look.
If he broke that lock, I’d be in so much trouble.
I pulled on his arm, straining to bring up that page of commands in my mind’s eye. His mouth twisted and he again reached for the padlock, dragging me across the floor.
With a shot of panic, the Ancient Greek popped into my head. “Daimon, hesychaze!”
Crimson power lit up his extremities. I caught a glimpse of his glowing eyes, wide and furious, just before his body dissolved into light and streaked back into my infernus. I shoved the pendant under my jacket, breathing faster than the situation warranted.
I’d forced Zylas into the infernus.