Scrubbing his hands across his eyes, he looked around, puzzled. He was in the library—surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves of books—but the room was unfamiliar. The air was stale, as if it hadn’t been breathed in a long, long time.

Scrambling to his feet, he went to the window and swiped the dust from the grimy pane. It was light out, and he was high in Bayar Library, higher than he had ever been before, looking across the Mystwerk quad to the north. How had he gotten here?

Wiping the dust on his breeches, he took a closer look at the books on the shelves. Old books. Very old books. They made Firesmith’s books look fresh and new. Han pulled one down from the shelf and turned the fragile pages carefully. They were handwritten, in flowing ink, in an archaic language Han could not decipher. The illustrations fizzed on the page. It was a magical text—pages of spellwork and gestures.

The last he remembered, he’d been in Aeidiion with Crow. He’d entered the dreamworld from the usual place, several floors below where he was now.

He scanned the other shelves. Most of the books were charms and spells. One shelf held a collection of journals: each entry carried a date from the Breaking time. Many of those books were clean of dust, and the dust on the floor in front of the shelves had been scuffed up. Someone had been poking through them recently. They all carried the same emblem—Han traced it with his forefinger. A twined serpent and staff poked through an elaborate crown. Must be one of the wizard houses, Han thought. Maybe they donated the books to the library.

Whoever had been there seemed to be gone now.

Han touched his amulet, allowing what power he had on board to trickle in as he debated the possibilities. Was he sleepwalking? Crazy? Several times before, he’d slept over in Bayar Library—but he’d always awakened in the same place.

A battered wooden hatch stood open in the floor. Peering down, he saw a metal ladder extending to the level below. Carefully, he descended the ladder, his hand on his amulet. The next floor was more of the same, rows of shelves loaded with ancient books. Another hatch, another metal ladder, and he’d reached familiar ground—the sixth floor of Bayar, where his hiding place was.

But how had he ended up on the eighth floor—when he hadn’t even known how to get up there until now?

Just then, he heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the fifth floor.

Han dodged back into the stacks, positioning himself so he could see the stairwell between the shelves. Moments later, someone emerged from the lower floor.

It was Fiona Bayar, a carry bag slung over her shoulder. She looked around, her gaze sliding over Han’s hidey-hole, then crossed to the pull-down ladder to the seventh level.