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With my thousand-and-first sigh, I shove the book under my armpit, apologizing to Kate Turabian's ghost, and begin to carefully make my way down the ladder on shaky legs.

I'm not sure there's ever been a slower descent in the history of the world. I'm pretty sure the hikers on Everest have it easier than I do right now.

When I finally feel the floor beneath my foot, I nearly weep with relief. It's not that I'm afraid of heights so much as that I'm just simply tired of being up high, and I firmly cross mountaineering off my mental bucket list.

With a shaky exhalation, I pick my way around the books I tossed unceremoniously onto the floor, making my way back to the gorgeous, cozy reading room by the bar. A quick look at my phone while juggling the book tells me it's about 11:15 at night, which, to be honest, is when I get some of my best academic work done. Cole always called it my witching hour and would complain about the fact that I wasn't in bed next to him. I'm not sure I can remember anything he didn't complain about, though. And I promise myself I'll stop thinking about all the things I stopped doing just because he objected.

Feeling slightly like I have committed a grievous crime, I drag one of the ornate, inlaid wooden end tables in front of one of the chairs and gently set the book down on top of it.

"I really can't get those gloves," I say out loud, eyeing the bloody debossed lettering on the leather cover.

It looks even more sinister in the brighter lights of this room, and I suppress a shudder before looking back around. Maybe the bar has what I need. And I head over to it with decisive footsteps.

Much better than sitting and waiting for something to happen to me.

In addition to the bevy of expensive-looking glassware and alcohol, behind the bar there are a few drawers. The first one holds all manner of jarred garnishes, from pickled white onions to maraschino cherries that look like they may have been maraschinoed in another century, judging by the peeling label and gray contents. And I know enough about botulism to know that I'm very much not interested in testing anything I found in here.

The second drawer yields the first thing I'm looking for, a corkscrew. It's not super sharp, but it should get the job done.

The third and fourth drawers are full of strange cloth cocktail napkins embroidered with all manner of creatures. And I finally decide that white gloves must be a luxury of academics more modern than whoever lived here last. So I shrug and grab a stack of the linen napkins to take back over with me to the book. It's better than nothing.

I try to remember when my last tetanus shot was, staring at the corkscrew—which doesn't seem rusted, but better safe than sorry—I open up the nasty Scotch or whiskey or bourbon or whatever the hell it is that Lachlan was drinking, and decide that there's no way it's not alcoholic enough to sanitize this. I unceremoniously dump quite a bit of alcohol all over the corkscrew, wrap it up in the napkins, and make my way back to the comfy little nook I made for my apparent blood magic experiment.

I edge my way around the end table and finally sink into the ridiculously plush armchair. Whoever was using this was not using it for research—that much must be true, because there's no way anyone could stay awake brooding over research in one of these chairs. This was definitely used for relaxing, none of which I'll be doing tonight.

I blow a strand of hair out of my face with my lower lip and stare down at the debossed title of the book, knowing I need to slice myself open with the corkscrew.

“Alright, well, here goes everything, I guess.” And with that extremely eloquent pronunciation, I jam the corkscrew into my thumb as hard as I can.

Seven

VIVIENNE

It doesn't hurt as bad as I expected—which isn't to say that it doesn't hurt. I end up having to open my eyes, because the first jab likely just left me with an eventual bruise. Cursing under my breath, I carefully jam the now whiskey-Scotch=bourbon-scented corkscrew into the soft pad of my thumb, finally breaking the surface of my skin far enough for a droplet of blood to well up.

I squeeze my thumb and hold it gingerly over the leather book cover, careful not to get any of the dried blood on myself in the process.

It doesn't take long at all to see that something's happened. The debossed channels of type begin to glow red. As I watch in a mixture of terror and awe, an impossible gust of wind buffets my hair and the book slams itself open, the pages rustling in a flurry of noise as handwritten and hand-drawn illustrations fly by.

So much for reading it from cover to cover. I'm not really sure what to do with a book that's physically eager to impart its wisdom upon me, but I'm either too tired or have hit my limit on weird shit to be anything but accepting of the fact that I don't get a say in where I begin my hunt for information on the Eternal Society and the House Midnight rituals. This book is apparently going to do whatever the fuck it wants, and I might as well settle in for a ride.

So settle in I do, placing my hands on either side of the book, fingers splayed as I watch the pages continue to flick past. Slower now, as if it's finally coming to the spot where it wants to stop. The lights around me gutter slightly, and a sense of anticipation begins to build.

"I just need to know what I gotta do to survive," I tell the book—which is something I'll have to bring up with my doctor tomorrow, because I'm pretty sure speaking to inanimate objects and truly expecting them to respond in kind is a sign of something incredibly wrong with me.

The book finally stops, a full-page spread of text and art displayed on the vellum pages in front of me.

"Turns out I didn't need those white gloves or linen napkins after all," I mutter, the sound of my voice echoing in the empty quiet of the massive library.

The vellum is absurdly ornate, even for the time. Cockerels and unicorns decorate the marginalia, along with the requisite strange, disfigured, anatomically incorrect human caricatures the artists of that time are so well known for.

I frown, blinking a few times, certain that either my tiredness, the late hour, or the adrenaline from the day was playing a trick on my eyes. But when I refocus them on the page before me, it's clear that the illustrations are, in fact, moving along the marginalia.

"No way," I say out loud. "No fucking way."

Suddenly, the idea of this book being cursed feels a lot more real, and the weight of everything crashes down on me. Rubbing my eyes with the thick part of my palm, I lean back in the chair, a whole new wave of questions rushing over me.

What I need is my notepad. What I need is a research purpose and my usual analysis and outline of information. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm going to become completely untethered from reality. And if what I'm seeing is not a trick of an overtired, overworked imagination—if what I've experienced today is likewise real—then I need to get it together.