“Montgomery.” He whispered my name ever so slightly, as if he was scared of ruining whatever moment we were currently having. “If this works out, do you think we could—”

“I think they’re gone.” I cut him off from asking something that I knew he would ask. I was not so clueless as to think he did not feel the electricity between us. I pushed the door again, but it wouldn’t budge. “Oh no. I think we’re locked here.”

“It’s not the worst thing ever to be locked here.” He added, “I mean, you’re here, so it’s not that bad.”

“Oh, it’s bad if we’re locked here for days and one of us has to eat the other to survive.”

“I’d probably let you devour my body,” he answered in a low whisper. He laughed. “Not in a gory way, Montgomery.”

I leaned my head back against the wall behind me and felt it press against a knob of some kind. As if by magic, the door opened. “They seriously need to work on the keys to this secret door,” I complained to myself as Adrian stuck his head out to double-check if the guards were still around. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he held out one arm and said, “Ladies first.”

We cautiously retraced our steps back to the entrance and stopped behind the door. The guards were nowhere to be seen inside the library, but it was possible that they were waiting for us outside. “How do we get out now?”

Before Adrian had a chance to answer, the girl from earlier walked through the door—not just walked in, but through—like a ghost. Still immersed in the same book, she pointed with her free hand to a statue. “You can go through there. There’s a tunnel.”

“Go through where, exactly?” I dared to ask. All that was in front of us was a white-bricked wall, and unlike her, we couldn’t go through solid objects.

The girl sighed, as if answering my question drew too much energy out of her. “Grip Charon’s staff; the path will be opened.” She turned the page, murmuring just above whispering level, “How can you be his kid and be this foolish?”

I would have inquired further if Adrian hadn’t been waving his hand and pointing at a dark tunnel that had somehow emerged behind the statue. The guards outside reported to their leader that they couldn’t find the intruders and that it was highly likely they’d still be inside the library. I rushed toward Adrian, and right before the brick wall swung closed, I heard the girl say under her breath, “kalí týchi” Growing up with a mom who insisted we were the descendants of Tyche, I knew what that meant: good luck. But it was the way she said it that made me wonder why on earth I would need luck.