lay overturned on its side; cracks splintered the ceiling beams. A tremor shook the dimension, and jars slid down the buckled shelves and shattered, spilling their slimy contents across the floor.
And this time, she hadn’t come alone. Nathaniel’s hand gripped her arm. Silas stood beside him, holding his wrist in turn. They exchanged looks. Either Prendergast had let them in on purpose, or he was no longer able to keep them out.
“Oh, wonderful,” Prendergast said weakly. “More visitors. Forgive me for not getting up and offering you tea.”
He lay crumpled on the floor between the leaning shelves, as though someone had thrown him there like a discarded rag. Elisabeth dove to his side. His complexion was the color of porridge, his face contorted with pain.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s Ashcroft?”
Prendergast dissolved into a fit of coughing. When he recovered, he gasped, “You’ve just missed him. We had a delightful chat.” Elisabeth bit back her frustration as more coughs wracked his thin frame. “Help me sit up, girl,” he panted at last. “That’s it. I want to see what he’s done to my . . . oh.” He fell silent. She followed his gaze. Across the room, embers smoldered along the broken edges of the floorboards, exactly like the Codex’s pages. Ashes swirled away into the void.
“The dimension is collapsing,” Nathaniel provided for Elisabeth’s benefit, coming into view. “We can’t stay here long. A few minutes at best.”
Prendergast’s eyes widened. “You. You’re a Thorn.” He turned to Elisabeth and spat, “Are you mad, bringing someone like him along? Have you any idea who he is?”
Nathaniel tensed. Reflexively, he ran a hand through his hair—trying to make the silver streak less visible, she realized. “You weren’t a friend of Baltasar’s, I take it.”
Prendergast sneered. “Certainly not, demons take him. Those of us with any sense stayed as far away from him as we could. Even Cornelius wouldn’t touch him. And you’re the spitting image of him, boy.”
Nathaniel looked sick. Elisabeth couldn’t let this go on. “We need to know what happened,” she interrupted. “Is Ashcroft coming back? I don’t see why he would have left, unless . . .”
She trailed off. Prendergast wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Unless you told him your secret,” she finished.
“In my defense,” he said, “pain is considerably more persuasive when one hasn’t felt it in hundreds of years.” He shrank from Elisabeth’s expression.
“What did you tell him? We need to know!”
“If you think I am going to allow the truth to fall into the hands of a Thorn—”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s over!” She resisted the urge to shake him until his teeth rattled. “All of this, everything you’ve done”—she waved at the workshop—“will have been for nothing if you don’t help us. Nathaniel is here to stop Ashcroft. Whether you believe that or not, you’re almost out of time. This is your last chance to make things right.”
Prendergast’s head hung. His mouth twisted into a grimace. Several seconds passed, and then he seemed to come to a decision. “Watch closely,” he instructed sourly. “I don’t intend to repeat myself.”
He yanked six rings from his gaunt fingers. While Elisabeth and Nathaniel watched, perplexed, he started arranging them on the ground. Understanding dawned as he set the final ring in place. The shape was as familiar to Elisabeth as the back of her own hand. One ring in the center, the five others spread around it to form an evenly spaced circle.
“What pattern have I made?” he asked.
“The Great Libraries,” Elisabeth answered, at the same time Nathaniel said, with equal certainty, “A pentagram.”
Silence fell.
Elisabeth looked again, more closely this time. In her mind’s eye she drew lines between each of Prendergast’s rings, connecting them to create a star inside the circle. The shape was a pentagram. But it was also a map of the Great Libraries. It was both.
Dread slammed into her, knocking the air from her lungs. “Counterclockwise,” she whispered. When Nathaniel looked at her, she said, “Something has been bothering me all day, ever since Katrien’s map arrived. I know what it is now. The attacks on the Great Libraries are occurring counterclockwise. Knockfeld, Summershall, Fettering, Fairwater. Then Harrows. The pattern reminded me of when I lit the candles for Silas’s summoning.”
“Go on, girl.” Prendergast’s dark eyes glittered. “You’re almost there.”
She turned to him and said, “Cornelius built the Great Libraries.”
“Yes. He constructed them to form a summoning circle.”
Elisabeth’s mind reeled. She wondered, distantly, if she might be ill. She didn’t want to believe Prendergast. If he was telling