Strong hands caught me, easing me down. My body was rigid, muscles cramping in pain, but I couldn’t relax. I could feel that other presence following me through the book. I didn’t know what he had sent after me, or how. All I knew was that I had to get away; I had to stop it from following.

My hands were empty. Where was the book?

There, discarded on the ground. Smudge stood to one side, covered in orange fire. I pointed and screamed something I never would have imagined myself saying. “Burn it!”

Smudge couldn’t understand English, but he was perfectly fluent in terror. He raced to the book and jumped onto the cover, turning and dancing and igniting the pages.

“Isaac, look at me!” Lena cradled my face, her eyes wide as she searched mine. “What happened?”

I shuddered. Sobs ripped through me. I clung to her, trying to shut out the memory of being consumed, of the inhuman rage and hatred that would have drowned me.

She held me, one hand combing through my hair. “You’re safe,” she whispered, over and over.

I shook my head and closed my eyes. I don’t know how long I might have stayed there if I hadn’t sensed the magic leaking from the book, brushing my bones. I yelled and jumped to my feet.

Smudge scurried toward us, leaving blackened weeds in his wake. Behind him, burnt pages fluttered in an unseen breeze: pages damaged both by fire and by magical char.

Lena grabbed her bokken, raising them both in a defensive stance. “Tell me what happened, Isaac.”

“I found him.” The words hurt my throat. “He tried to trap me in the book.”

Only whatever that last attack had been, it hadn’t felt like a magical lock. It was more like . . . hunger. Desperate, furious, raw hunger. The memory started me trembling again. I doubled over and grabbed my knees, squeezing hard so the pain would prove I was still real. That I still existed.

“Isaac . . .” Lena shifted sideways. “What is that?”

The book’s movement grew more violent. Pages tore loose, whirling about in tight circles. “I think he sent someone . . . something . . . to follow me.”

Lena snatched at one of the pages, then swore. Blood welled from her fingertips. She moved to stand between me and the book.

None of this should have been possible. Peering through books was one thing, but physically reaching through that book to strike another libriomancer? Gray smoke whirled within the pages, coalescing into solid form. This could change everything we knew about libriomancy, and all I wanted to do was flee.

I forced myself to stand. Characters shouted in my head, their words as loud and real as Lena’s, thanks to my immersion in the book.