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"The astrolabe," I say, heading straight down the central aisle toward the reading nook by the bar.

Sitting on the mahogany pedestal where I left it all those nights ago is the brass astrolabe I dragged out of the flooded tunnels beneath the city. In the daylight, the metal is dull, etched with interlocking rings of Latin text and star charts, completely inert.

I set Elizabeth Anne’s brass dial key on the table beside it.

"Alright," I mutter, cracking my knuckles. "The letter said 'beneath the astrolabe.' Let's see what we're working with."

I reach out, grasping the heavy brass base of the artifact, and lift it.

Nothing happens. It's just a solid block of metal on a wooden pedestal.

"Allow me," Lachlan rumbles. He steps up behind me, reaching around my shoulders to place his massive hands on either side of the pedestal's carved rim. He twists his wrists.

With a grinding groan of centuries-old wood, the top slab of the mahogany column rotates ninety degrees. A hidden seam in the center of the wood pops open, revealing a velvet-lined recessed compartment beneath.

"Jackpot," I whisper.

Lying inside the hidden well is a flat, circular instrument roughly the size of a dinner plate.

I lift it out with reverent, shaking hands.

It’s a masterpiece of late-medieval craftsmanship. Three concentric discs of vellum, reinforced with beaten brass rims, are held together at the center by an open brass spindle. Each disc is covered in microscopic, hand-inked ciphers, constellations, and the heraldic seals of the ancient Houses. The outer ring is marked with the three hundred and sixty-five days of the calendar; the middle ring shows lunar phases and planetary hours; the smallest, innermost quartz disc is etched with a pointer shaped like a feather.

A volvelle. An antique paper-and-brass analog computer, designed to calculate astronomy. Or, in this case… magic.

"I've never seen anything like this," Lachlan murmurs, his breath warm against my temple as he leans in to inspect the discs. "Your predecessors kept their secrets well."

"They had to," I say, tracing the edge of the brass spindle in the center. I notice a tiny, notched keyhole right in the middle of the obsidian circle. "Look at the core."

I pick up Elizabeth Anne's brass dial key.

The teeth along the outer edge of the key match the internal notches of the spindle perfectly.

My heart thumps a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "The letter said: Align the wheels to the Zenith of Shadows, speak the Rite of the Hearth, and awaken the dormant leyline."

"Do you know the coordinates?" Lachlan asks, his hand coming to rest lightly on my hip, steadying me.

"I know the Latin cipher from the tunnel," I say, my brain immediately recalling the lines I shouted before the stone door grated open beneath the city. "Quem tenet Aurora mendax cognomine litus, et media noctis domus, sinistra freti. The False Dawn, the Midnight House, the left of the sea."

I rotate the outermost vellum disc, aligning the constellation of the Bear and the Owl with today's date on the solar calendar.

I could be wrong.

I’ve been wrong before.

I bite my lip, thinking it through again.

Finally, The brass gears inside the instrument emit a soft, musical click.

Inhaling deeply, I rotate the middle ring, setting the lunar phase to the dark of the moon.

Another click, louder this time.

Finally, I take the brass dial key and slide it into the center spindle. It slips in with terrifying smoothness, sliding home with a heavy chunk that vibrates through the bones of my fingers.

The quartz core of the volvelle flares to life.

It glows with darkness—a dense, shadow bleeds out from the center of the brass rings, pooling across the paper discs like spilled ink.