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Sweet baby Sisters. There are food stalls and store fronts! And is that somebody’s house?
It was. An entire house with potted flowers on the windowsills and a garden out front. It even had a tiled roof, smoke billowing out of the chimney.
Head spinning, she spotted another home with a low stone enclosure, children laughing as they scaled it. And another with a fire pit dug into the ground, a carcass as big as she was roasting on a spit over the flames.
Shitting stars, it’s a whole bleeding town.
Town was an understatement. She was right—the Library of Argoph was a subterranean metropolis. As big, or bigger, than the Weeping City above it.
“Where in the fuck are we?” Fern whispered.
An excellent question.
With the rampant flora and fauna, the scent of spiced meat on the air, it was easy to forget they were still in the Imperial Archives. Until Lunara noticed that, instead of streets or thoroughfares, the spaces between the buildings were jam packed with stacks upon stacks of books.
Well. Most of them.
Sokar turned down an alleyway and stopped short at a squat door. After a long look over each shoulder, he rapped on its surface, the pattern too precise to be random.
A password?
“Do not bother remembering it,” he grumbled. “It changes by the hour.”
Fern’s brows shot up, a mirror to her own surprise. “What sort of racket are you running down here, eh?”
“I am in the business of secrets, Fae. Those kept by the Imperials upon Argoph’s Seat. This is the least of it.”
The look on his face…
Lunara would swear to the Sisters themselves that she had seen him somewhere.
The door creaked open. Where Lunara expected a person to be, there was naught but darkness.
“Hurry up, you big brute. Get inside.”
Her eyes dropped down, down, down to the creature standing a handful of inches from the floor—the absolutely stunning, completely naked, glowing creature.
“Alright. This is a joke.” Fern pointed at the tiny Fae. “Pixies, Sokar? Fucking pixies?”
The pixie in question dropped her eyes, her wings trembling.
“This one is unlike most others,” Sokar said, pushing inside. “Come.”
“We’re just supposed to trust that?” Fern wedged her body in front of Lunara, side-stepping and turning all the way through, as if to protect her from the pixie. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Fucking ankle biting, seed thieving…”
The rest of Fern’s insults were muttered under her breath, but it made Lunara think. It was possible Fern remembered more than she realized. Or maybe the recent experimental magic Lunara had been throwing around was affecting her. She’d have to look in Fern’s head later and see if the wall was weakened.
Either way, for her to have such a visceral reaction, with knowledge and familiarity at its core, was fascinating.
And it might help them.
Sokar led them through a cramped hall and into another room. Once again, he gave them a strange toll, chucked his own at the wall, and…disappeared through it.
Lunara reared back. “Well. There’s something I’ve never seen before. An actual portal disguised as bricks?”
“This whole thing is creeping me out,” Fern hissed. “Between the door knocking, the pixie, and now this?” She gestured at everything, waiving the toll. “And why do I know our supposed guide? I’ve seen that grumpy fucking mug before. I’d bet my life on it. Can feel it.”
“You know, I had the same—”
