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“What’s your name?” I asked as he led me into the depths of room eight.

“Aster.”

“Nice try, Nomad Rider. I’ve used those spells enough to know that talking like someone doesn’t make you sound like them.” When I stumbled to keep up with him, he slowed, but I’d had enough of being dragged around, and I ducked and twisted out of his grip. “It’s why they teach us to say as few words as possible.”

“What gave me away?”

I didn’t look back when I said, “Aster has a nickname for me… Tell me what it is, and I’ll believe you’re him.”

Silence.

When he didn’t answer, I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or disappointed. “Thought so.” I tsked. “Where is he?”

He shrugged in reply.

At the far end of the rows was a line of raised glass cases, all of them locked. My stomach dropped. He knew exactly where to go to get the codex. I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to keep everything locked down inside me.

A shrill bird call echoed around the walls, and the sound vibrated through me.

“Faster,” he barked, turning a corner.

We came to a stop in front of the last cabinet. “Don’t touch any of them yet,” I said as he tried to open the top. The books in that case were the very heart of what had been stripped from our people—our stories, our myths, our traditions—all locked away in another land.

“Open these,” he demanded.

He couldn’t know that I could do that, could he? “I can’t, and anyway all those books are broken. No words. Nothing. And this is empty.” I pulled on the leather and showed him the dull, glass-like centre of the amulet.

“It’s not.” He leaned over, and his gloved fingers brushed mine, and as the leather around my neck tightened, it pulled me closer. Even through the veil, his breath touched my cheek. “Recharge it. These things choose who they’ll work for, and this one chose you. Hurry.”

The phoenix call came again, and the walls shuddered as the majestic beasts landed on the roof.

The Trackers are here.

5

I grabbed the amulet and stepped away. I didn’t like how the Nomad Rider filled the space, towering over me. It was never safe to give someone that advantage.

“Scared?” His voice was rough but quiet.

I wasn’t going to admit that to him. “They’ve found Frickel.”

“Probably what the Call was, yes, but I was talking about recharging the amulet.”

I took another step away. “I don’t know how to do that.” My mind was racing through my options. “The Riders will lock down the library… They might even be the Elite Tracker Flock… I can’t…” Fail. Not now. And this was a king’s building. If anything was wrong inside… if they found a body, then it would be the Elite Trackers the guards would call to get answers. The princes of each kingdom who were chosen as Riders a decade ago and who had formed a flock… The Elite Tracker Flock… and they were all at the Barren King’s Threshold Ceremony earlier that day… they could be here. They. Were. Here. My pulse raced as my mind went into freefall.

Breathe.

With effort, I pulled myself back to the present. The Nomad Rider didn’t need to know how much I hated those princes who called themselves “Elite.” He didn’t need to know that I feared them in the same breath.

“What do you mean, you don’t know how?” His tone was impatient.

“What?” I had lost the thread of what we were talking about.

He reached out and took my elbow, pulling me back into his space, which was filled with the scent of fresh air, leather, and cedar smoke. He gave a brief tug on the amulet to get my attention. “Recharge it.”

I couldn’t. When Aster had handed the amulet over to me, he’d said it would work sixteen times, maybe seventeen if I was lucky. Told me how to place it in my palm, clear my mind and think about the wards I wanted the amulet to open. There were no other instructions.

Just like Aster—it would save me while it could, then leave me here to survive what came after.