her a sour look. “There is enough blood to transport the three of you to Harrows and back.” He threw the vial to Nathaniel, who caught it one-handed, startled. “Use it carefully, boy. It will exact a toll.”
As Nathaniel ducked his head through the chain, Prendergast limped away. He set a chair upright and then leveled a bleak stare at the overturned table. Elisabeth lifted it back into place for him, even knowing her efforts wouldn’t do any good. The embers had eaten away another several feet of the floorboards. In minutes, the section they were standing on would be consumed, and the table would topple into the void.
Another tremor shook the workshop. Wood groaned, and more jars smashed around them. Prendergast’s fingers spasmed on the chair’s backrest.
“What about you?” she asked. “Can we take you with us?”
He shook his head. Slowly, as though every joint ached, he eased himself into the chair, facing the approaching darkness. “Go, girl,” he said in a rough voice. “My time is finished. Pray that yours meets a better end.”
THIRTY-ONE
ELISABETH FELL. IMAGES whipped past like scenes glimpsed through the window of a runaway carriage. Darkened hills. Trees silhouetted against the night sky. Countryside spread beneath a crescent moon. And stranger vistas, like a forest of gray, twisted branches shrouded in mist, and a ruin overgrown with luminous flowers. They were not hurtling through the mortal realm or the Otherworld, but somewhere in between.
She couldn’t close her eyes. In this place of nothingness she felt no wind, no breath, only the pressure of Nathaniel’s hand gripping her own, accompanied by the endless sensation of falling.
And then wind slammed against her body. It tore the breath from her lungs, whipped her hair around her face. Cold pierced to the marrow of her bones. The ground reeled beneath her as though she had been spinning in circles; the stars whirled overhead.
She staggered, only for her boot to meet empty air. An arm hooked around her waist and yanked her back. Stones tumbled from the lip of rock where she had stood a second before, plunging silently toward the trees far below. The three of them had materialized on a cliff’s edge. Stunned, she took in the dizzying drop as Silas dragged them away from the precipice.
“We seem to be in the right place,” he remarked, “but you may wish to take more care with your aim on the return journey, master.”
Nathaniel laughed, a wild sound. Then he bent over and retched. Something dark spattered the pine needles underfoot.
“It is not his blood, Miss Scrivener,” Silas said when she cried out in alarm. He steered Nathaniel toward a boulder and firmly sat him down before he fell over.
Of course. The vial hung half-empty against Nathaniel’s chest, the upper portion of the crystal coated in a red slime. In order to harness Prendergast’s magic, he had had to drink it. He’d explained the principles of the spell as they’d leaped from the disintegrating Codex back to his study, scrambling to tug their boots and coats on over their nightclothes. This was blood magic, strictly banned by the Reforms, which Elisabeth thought he had declared altogether too cheerfully as he’d raised the vial to his lips.
“Are you all right?” she asked, a twinge of nausea stealing through her relief.
Nathaniel grinned at her, even though he still looked slightly peaked. “Don’t worry, I’ve swallowed far less wholesome substances. Once, for instance, I was permanently banned from a lord’s estate for—”
“Let us save that story for another time, Master Thorn,” Silas interrupted, ignoring Nathaniel’s frown. “If memory serves, the Inkroad passes by this hill, and the Great Library lies less than a quarter mile onward. You will be able to reach it in a few minutes.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” she asked.
“I am a demon, Miss Scrivener,” he replied softly.
She looked down at her hands, which had curled into fists. Silas had fought back against Ashcroft as hard as any of them. But if he came with them, the wardens would attempt to kill him on sight. The injustice of it made her sick.
He paused, taking in her expression. “I will accompany you as far as the road. That should be safe enough, as long as I am not seen.”
They recuperated for a few moments longer before Silas vanished into the trees. Elisabeth thought she glimpsed where he had gone: a trembling branch, and a flash of white that might have been a cat’s fur. She helped Nathaniel back to his feet,