Ending had warned her, months ago. Geryon is a Reader. His magic is based on cruelty and death. She’d known that the creatures in the prison-books had to come from somewhere, and although he’d only asked her to fight mindless beasts, she knew there were intelligent beings in his collection. Since returning from Esau’s, however, she’d been too wrapped up in her revenge to worry about them.

He keeps them here as a . . . a commodity. Like Father’s business might warehouse bricks or pork bellies. Better than that. The sprites had children; properly tended, they would yield fruit forever, like a well-kept garden.

“It is not such a bad arrangement,” Pyros said. “Some of the other Readers would demand more, or simply imprison us all. And Geryon allows us to select who the tribute is, so we can spare the young.”

“Why don’t you leave?” Alice said, forgetting herself for a moment. “There must be somewhere else you can go.”

“Not anymore,” Pyros said, smiling sadly. “Once we roamed across a dozen worlds, moving through the wild gates as we pleased, slipping to your world and back again to find our sustenance. This was before my time, of course, in the days of my grandspark’s grandspark. I am not that old. But now we have no choice but to huddle close to the Heartfire.”

“What happened?”

“You did. Humans. Readers.” Pyros shrugged. “The wild gates are closed, bound into books. Those that remain lead farther away from your world, to realms where we cannot live. The power that once flowed freely is caged now, locked away between covers and inside libraries. We do what we must to survive.”

Alice shook her head, trying to take it all in. After a moment, she remembered the original question. “It’s not tribute,” she said. “Nothing like that. I need your help here, in your world.”

“What can we possibly do to help a Reader who can defeat a bluechill?”

“I need to find the Palace of Glass,” Alice said. “Beyond the wild gate.”

Pyros froze, dull red eyes locked on hers. Alice stared back, until his glowing gaze left flickering spots on her vision.

“I did not think Master Geryon knew about the Palace of Glass,” he said.

“I don’t know if he does.” Alice lowered her voice, as though her master might be listening. “I’m not doing this for him. I need to find it for my own sake.”

“It is a dangerous place,” Pyros said.

“I can take care of myself,” Alice said.

“Not dangerous for you. The Palace is a prison. There are things buried there that must never be released. Even when we lived beyond the wild gate, my people knew better than to venture there.”

Alice felt a chill, despite the fire. “I’m not going to release anything.”

“Then what do you hope to accomplish in such a place?”