Eventually, I find a staircase. My right hand skims the cool, smooth stone as I walk up, one step at a time, twisting in tight coils up to the fourth floor. Honestly, it’s a miracle I don’t trip and smash my head open on them.

The fourth floor is the same as all the ones below, perfect lines of shelves extending back into a series of rooms, scented with old paper and faint traces of mold and rot. Open windows along the sides let in streams of sunlight and a breeze that stirs around me, playing with my hair and tugging my skirt, like it’s inviting me in.

Then I notice something different: all the books on this floor are locked in prisons of rusted chains, winding up and down the shelves.

That can’t possibly be good, I think.

Part of me wants to call for Raze, just for the reassurance of having a real person at my back. Another part of me thrills: maybe this means I’m getting close. I want to prove that I can do this alone.

A shiver runs over me, leaving cold that goes down to my bones. I look down at my palm. For the first time all day, the arrow moves.

The smothering silence of the library folds around me, surprisingly calming. There’s more ivy up here than below, waves of deep green claiming their territory along the wall and up the shelves.

I hold my hand out in front of me, palm-up. It points straight ahead. I take one step onto the living green carpet. Then another. Then I’m not even looking around at where I’m going, completely absorbed in following where the arrow points. Ivy whispers softly under my boots as I move faster and faster, not quite running, the shelves passing in vague blurs.

My head feels fuzzy, and my body feels like it does when I’m using magic: mine, but not fully under my control. Like it’s propelled by something deeper and stronger than my own mind.

I don’t know how long I’m walking for. All I know is that when I stop, my heart flutters like a trapped moth against a window.

In front of me, a small platform is settled under a huge, arched window. The ivy has completely overtaken the three stone steps and the platform and is starting up the legs of the elaborately carved statue that stands there.

It isn’t gold. It isn’t whatever treasure or enchantment or artifact we’re looking for.

I know that. I know I should turn and go back to looking. But I can’t tear my eyes away. I know that face. I’ve seen it before, in Leira’s locked room, translucent and irritated.

The form of a slender young man stands over me in white marble that blends in with the walls and floor. It’s so intricately detailed that I can see the individual eyelashes of his closed eyes, resting against his high cheekbones.

My foot settles on the first step. I almost can’t help myself.