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Before she could decide what to do, a slant of light fell from above, and slowly Fia raised her chin. A third dark-cloaked figure moved from behind a marble statue and continued along the gallery.

Fia froze, willing those cinching shadows she’d magicked around her to hold her tighter even if they cut off her breath. Anything to keep her from being seen. But she only felt her concealment spell weakening, loosened by a wiggling fear.

One magician was bad enough. What devious plot might there be with three of them gathered?

“Anything?” one of the magicians asked the others, their voice ringing softly through the room.

Weighted with dread, Fia remained in place even though everything in her wanted to bolt.

“Nothing,” the second magician said in a voice that faintly echoed.

“Well,” said the third magician, in a tone low and ominous, “there is… something.”

As if they might be able to feel her presence, her small, dust-touched magic, among the books.

Attempting—and failing—to reinforce her enchantment, Fia edged back in the direction from which she’d come. Golden dust sparked at her fingertips, and she silently cursed its spritely appearance and the flickering of her form, but she was only a few yards from the doors now. All she had to do was get past them, and though she’d leave the archives empty-handed, she’d at least avoid capture. Still, disappointment unfurled inside her like a broken promise.

Footsteps rang on the metal walkway above, then stopped, and Fia glanced up. The third magician stood with one hand on the rail, face obscured by shadows, looking down at the trail of dust dancing behind her. The other magicians’ cloaked heads snapped in her direction, and as they whispered to one another—or maybe they whispered some spell to stop her—she broke into a run, dashing through the doors and past the waking gargoyles.

All the way down the stairs she went, her heart lodged in her throat. The pounding of her boots echoed in the atrium, but the dissolution of her concealment spell made no sound at all as it released her.

Revealed once again, Fia burst through Thistledown’s front doors and into the night. Without slowing, she gulped in the icy air, making it as far as the walkway before a grating sound abraded the quiet. She stumbled to a stop, fear locking her knees as she so very slowly looked up at the face of the library, the wheel window of the archives, and the wicked-tailed gargoyle creeping down from its perch.

It had been waiting.

As their eyes met, the creature launched away from the building, hind legs shoving off brick, stony wings flinging open. It dove straight for Fia, spiraling down through the air as she ran for the gardens across the street, where the creature’s huge form might not so easily fit between the foliage. And she might escape.

Something scratched against her chest—the stirring of the small gargoyle charm beneath her dress, wings fluttering. As if it wanted to protect her from the larger one bearing down on her with vicious intent.

The ground shuddered as the gargoyle landed, just missing Fia. Again it pushed off, wings wide and thunderous. Claws raked through the ends of Fia’s hair, and she batted them away with a shriek as her knuckles struck stone. She dared a glance over her shoulder, meeting the gargoyle’s socket-eyed stare. Its lips parted, revealing all its many teeth, and she thought it might speak. But its silence was somehow more frightening. It did not taunt her; it simply flapped those heavy wings again, its great shadow looming over her.

Fia stole one last step, and then cold claws snatched hold of her wrist.

CHAPTER 4

Much later, and feeling so haggard she thought she’d never move again, Fia lay in bed, Finnick curled up by her feet, her head buried beneath the pillow, willing whoever was knocking on the door of Sable Spells to go away.

And wishing everything that had happened the night before were only a dream. How could she have thought it was a good idea to break into Thistledown? Of course she’d been caught.

She let out a frustrated little scream, which was hardly satisfying, muffled by the pillow as it was, and so she tossed the pillow aside. After arriving home near dawn, she’d slept the daylight hours away and couldn’t convince herself of the need to get up now. Not even to see who was at the door. She wouldn’t be surprised if that awful rook had returned to torment her. Or worse, the vicious gargoyle, determined to drag her back to the Cloaks so they could lock her away for a hundred years. Or maybe to its lair in some dark underground cavern of the library—did gargoyles have lairs?—doling out its own vengeful punishment for daring her way into the archives.

She burrowed deeper into her blankets. Who would look after poor Finnick?

Mercifully, the knocking tapered off at last, but in its place, the back door rattled in its frame. Fia bolted upright then, her feet swinging to the floor, which sent Finnick dashing under the bed. From below, there came the swoosh of the kitchen door opening and closing, the patter of footsteps, and just before Fia could swipe up the useless clock from her nightstand in defense, the sound of a familiar voice traveling up the staircase.

“Fia!” It was Grace, who must have let herself in with the spare key hidden under a loose brick on the back stoop, likely worried because she’d seen Sable Spells closed at a time when it was usually open. “Are you alive in here?”

Fia’s hand flew to her long tangle of hair, but what did the mess of it matter when she probably had dark smudges beneath her eyes and stone-dust markings on her wrist left by the gargoyle’s cold grip—all the evidence Grace would need to know something was wrong. It didn’t matter that Fia would have to tell her friend about her disastrous night sooner or later; she had hoped it would be later.

“Yes, I’m breathing,” Fia called back.

“Well, that’s a relief.” From below, the floorboards creaked, which meant Grace had set her foot on the first step. “Am I coming up or are you coming down?”

“Just give me a minute!” Fia peeled off her nightgown, then grabbed a saffron-colored dress from her wardrobe—the one that complemented her dark hair and might distract from the snarls, the one with the too-frilly sleeves that would conveniently flop over her chafed wrist—and pulled on her trusty maroon-and-teal-striped socks. She didn’t bother checking her reflection in the mirror, not at all wanting to see the waste of her efforts.

When Fia entered the kitchen, she noticed her friend looked much more put together than she did, which wasn’t always the case, since Grace spent much of her time handling antiques and wearing the cast-off dust. Tonight she’d donned a flattering periwinkle dress, lilies embroidered at the hem, with her straight black hair pinned up on one side with her favorite long-toothed comb—a pretty silver piece that had also served as a lockpick for all the attic chests she was always having to pry open.

“I’ve got to talk to you,” Grace said, panic laced in her words. Having thrown herself headfirst into plans for her beau Montrose’s upcoming birthday, she’d been whirling around for weeks. She’d probably come to lament a diviner who’d forecasted rain for the day or to worry over Montrose’s meddlesome mother, and Fia would much rather talk about either of those things than her own problems.