He blinked, and inclined his head.

And just like that, we were partners in something that was going to have catastrophic consequences if it went wrong. Funny. I should have worried about that. But all I felt was a sense of savage relief, because I had an objective. Something to do. Something to plan.

And I could see, from the red sparks gathering in Myrnin’s eyes, that he felt exactly the same way.

Michael shifted uncomfortably next to me. “I’m sorry, but we can’t wait here. We really need to get to Founder’s Square. This stuff in the trunk—”

“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”

And I drove them back, as I thought about traps, and the draug, and revenge.

It was the only thing I could think of now.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EVE

The vampire library was not my thing. It was maybe Claire’s thing, but I like current novels. Freaky ones, preferably, with black covers and red type on the front. My idea of research is looking at take-out menus.

So it was kind of ironic that Naomi’s concept of how to discover why Claire could see Magnus was … searching the library. The idea of me, sitting at a table, leafing through books that had been old before Columbus sailed was so very not right. Also, probably not very useful. But I didn’t much mind. Letter of the agreement, and all that. The worst that could happen was a paper cut—of course, any blood drawn around a hungry vampire was, by definition, a worst-case scenario in the making.

“Honestly,” I said as Naomi dropped another armload on the table, which was already overloaded with big, leather-bound selections, “I can’t read this. And I’m not even sure that this is written in English, anyway.”

“It is English. Middle English,” she said. “Don’t they teach Chaucer these days?”

“Well, they teach him,” I said. “I didn’t exactly learn him. Or, you know, translating. Isn’t there software for this or something? Don’t you digitize?”

Naomi had always struck me as calm. That had been her first characteristic: calm, then pretty. She was still pretty, but that was mostly an involuntary thing; she looked as tired as any vampire I’d ever seen. The calm was completely missing. She seemed just … focused. And annoyed.

“All you need do is look for one word,” she said. “If you find it, I will read the section. Or do you want me to reconsider our agreement? Your choice.” She pulled up a chair on the other side of the table and began scanning another book. Somehow she made it look effortless and graceful.

For me, it was very heavy lifting. We’d already been at it for an hour, and my eyes ached. So did my back. I went back to the stiff pages of the book I’d been examining—I wouldn’t say reading, really. The words were strangely formed, much more vertical than I was used to seeing. It wasn’t even typeset. Someone had actually written this out by hand. A copy of a book back in those days was just that: copied. By hand. With a pen.