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He nodded at the lock. “Try for yourself.”
My heart dropped into my stomach and I cast a wary eye on the fastener. “Why? What’ll it do?”
“You won’t be killed.”
Small assurances, but I shrugged and grasped the lock. A black snake with gold-colored diamond patches slithered out of the keyhole and snapped at me. I yelped and leapt back. The moment my hand left the lock, however, the snake vanished in a puff of black smoke.
My heart, however, felt like it now weighed a ton as it beat hard and fast in my chest. I clutched my chest and glared at Ben who still looked amused. “That’s not funny! I could have been bitten?”
He folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Not you. Your intentions were too pure. Someone with the intent to use the darker spells in those tomes, however, would have been bitten by the snake.”
My heart skipped a beat. “And then?”
“Then we would have needed to find a shovel.”
A look of horror spread across my face. That is, until Ben burst into laughter. He set his palm against the wall of the bookcase to brace himself.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “That’s not funny.”
He gathered himself and cleared his throat. “My sincerest apologies, but the look on your face was quite amusing.”
I nodded at the lock. “So the snake wouldn’t have killed any evil intruders?”
He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Oh, no. I was quite serious in that regard.”
My face drooped and my arms dropped to my sides. “Seriously?”
“Deathly so,” Ben confirmed as his mellowed gaze settled on the latch. He set his hand on the lock and my heart nearly stopped. Nothing happened, and he smiled at me. “Is that a look of concern on your face?”
I glared at him. “Of course it is! I don’t know how that snake works!”
“Then you should know it isn’t a snake,” he told me as he brushed his finger around the keyhole. A small dragon darted out like a lizard and snapped at him. He jerked his hand away and grinned. “See?”
I blinked at the lock. “Is that lock secretly a magician’s hat?” I received a quizzical expression from my host. “Can it hide a bunch of different animals?”
He shook his head. “It hides only one, a nightmare slug. The tiny creature is able to take on the form, albeit small, of a person’s most feared animal.”
I winced. “I guess it is snakes. And you’re a dragon?”
His eyes twinkled as he held out his hand to me. “In more ways than one, but shall we go see the books that are safer to peruse?”
I snorted but accepted his hand and let him lead me away from the locked case. “Do you always like to play these word games with your guests?”
“Only the beautiful ones,” he teased as he stopped us in front of a wide bookcase. “These books contain a great deal of the history of Validen from its founding to the present day.”
CHAPTERSIX
I pluckeda book from the shelf and browsed through the pages with a smile on my lips. “Is there anything in these books about the dirty little secrets of a certain old family?”
Ben chuckled. “Nothing too accusatory, but there were some commendations to a few of my ancestors from the emperor.”
“So nothing about the crazy uncle with the lab?” I guessed.
“Only that certain laws were passed after his own passing that banned such experimentations within the city.”
“A good idea.”
“So the whole family believed.”
