Angry voices. Pounding feet. Volumes began to fall from their shelves, ladders shooting down their tracks seemingly of their own accord, and before she knew it, the bookcases themselves began to tip and fall, bashing into one another like falling dominoes, and she had to go, she was in danger, and again she was running, again fleeing, and she was exhausted and terrified, and tears blurred her obscure eyes as she pelted down the central aisle, her feet sending an echoing clatter ringing out into the wide halls, and she had to get out of here, had to escape, she was tired of the heavy silence that hid all the dangers lurking beside her, and she turned, and all around her the sounds of running were multiplied, and she heard yelling and laughter as she slid into the ruined hall, slipped through the pile of snow, and ran up the tipped bookcases, up and up and up like a staircase, closer to the shattered O, closer and closer, and the echoing cries below her were like a churning whirlpool pulling her downward, and she was so close, could taste the outside air, so close, and the jagged glass of the skylight was beside her, threatening to gash her open, and she had to do it, had to take her chances, and she leapt, and she was up, only the hem of her dress catching and tattering in the teeth of the glass, and suddenly the cold and the silence of the still, snowy night descended all around her.

She was out.

The Nameless Girl took a gulping chestful of burning cold air.

She was out.

But the trap had just been sprung.

Yehuda Leib had been mistaken: the hall had been ruined not by someone trying to find a way in, but by someone trying to control the ways out.

The Nameless Girl was unsure at first—was she seeing a pair of candles in a hidden window? The lights were still and steady as could be—they never flickered.

But they did blink.

A pair of shining green eyes stared at the Nameless Girl through the darkness, and gradually, the shape around them began to materialize: a hulking white cat, a tigress, her thick, knotty muscles coiled tight, prepared to pounce.

The Nameless Girl would’ve known her anywhere.

Lilith.

The fact of the matter is that if the Nameless Girl had remained calm in this moment, Lilith might not have been confident of who she was—after all, her name had been severed, her face obscured. But Lilith stalked slowly forward, paw over paw, her shining green eyes locked onto the Nameless Girl’s hazy face, and the Nameless Girl found herself unable to breathe, thick fear stopping up her breath.

Lilith let out a low growl, and the Nameless Girl’s fragrant fear erupted from her in a cloud of misty breath:

“No!”