Jenks came out from hiding. “Slicker than snot on a doorknob,” he said, darting up to inspect the cameras. “Ha!” he exclaimed. “They’re fake.”

Nick took my hand and drew me to my feet. “I was going to take you down through the access in the employees’ break room, but this will work.” I looked blankly at him and he flicked his eyes to a gray fire door. “The basement is through there.”

A smile curved over me as I saw the lock. “Jenks?”

“On it,” he said, dropping down and starting to tinker. He had it sprung in three seconds flat. “Here goes …” Nick murmured as he turned the knob. The door opened to show a dark stairway. Nick flicked on the lights and listened. “No alarms,” he said.

I pulled out a detection amulet and quickly invoked it. It stayed warm and green in my hand. “No silent alarms, either,” I murmured, hanging it about my neck.

“Hey,” Jenks complained. “This is first-year stuff.”

We started down. The air was cold in the narrow stairwell, with none of the comforting smell of books. Every twenty feet a bare bulb burned, sending sickly yellow beams to show the dirt in the lee of the steps. A foot-wide band of grime made a stripe on the walls to either side of me at hand height, and my lip curled. There was a banister, but I wouldn’t use it.

The way ended at an echoing dark hallway. Nick looked at me, and I glanced at my amulet. “We’re clear,” I whispered, and he flicked on the lights to illuminate a hallway with a low ceiling, the walls stark cinder block. Floor to ceiling wire gates ran down the length of the hall, doing nothing to hide the racks of books behind them.

Jenks buzzed confidently ahead of us. Heels clacking, I followed Nick to a locked wire door. The ancient-book section. While Jenks flitted in and out between the diamond-shaped holes, I laced my fingers through the mesh and stood on tiptoe, all senses soaking it in. A frown pinched my brow. It was my imagination, of course, but it seemed I could smell the magic flowing out from the racks of books, all but visible as it eddied about my ankles. The feeling of old power emanating from the locked room was as different from the smell upstairs as a chocolate kiss is to a premium Belgium sweet. Heady, rich, and oh-so-bad for you.

“So where’s that key?” I asked, knowing Jenks wouldn’t be able to shift the heavy tumblers of the older, mechanical lock. Sometimes it’s the older safeguards that work best.

Nick ran his fingers under a nearby shelf, his eyes glinting in a past frustration as his hand stopped. “Not enough seniority to go into the book locker, eh?” he muttered under his breath as he pulled out a key with a bit of sticky tack on it. Eyes tight, he looked at the skeleton key laying heavy in his hand before opening the wire-meshed door.