Eve ran. She ran blindly, thinking only of escape, of getting out from under the creature's control. She felt it in her mind, laughing at the futility of her actions, promising pursuit—and then it was gone, its attention diverted, and she turned the corner she and Eliot had waited behind when David came down the hall with the flute.
And Eliot wasn't with her. She stopped, training taking over where conscious thought had failed, and turned back to find him. The hallway was obscured by a swirling mass of shadow, tendrils of it rolling and boiling and spilling out across the floor. "Spencer!" she yelled, but the darkness swallowed her voice. There was no answer.
She'd abandoned him.
The shock and disgust at her own actions was enough to drive her forward, but a sound over her shoulder made her look back. David was still running, getting farther and farther away. In a few seconds, he would disappear around the corner and be lost.
She was torn for only a moment before the decision came to her. Eliot had stayed behind to hold off the creature so she could find Cassie and Alex—she could picture the look on his face in those last moments, the intensity of his gaze. The heat of his hand on hers, a fire against the numbing, freezing fear. Something had changed in him, and she wasn't about to waste the chance he'd given her.
She owed it to him to find his brother.
With her pulse hammering in her ears, Eve turned her back on the shadows and sprinted after David. He heard her coming and tried to go faster, but Eve had always been quick. She hurtled after him, drawing on every drop of fear and anger and anxious thought to spur her on, and overcame him just as he turned a corner.
Her momentum sent her crashing into him from behind; she had to pull back at the last second to keep from tackling him to the ground. David rounded on her and swung at her head, but she ducked it easily and answered with a fist to his nose.
Her knuckles came away bloody. He cursed, slapping a hand to his face, and Eve glowered at him. "Try that again and I'll break more than your nose."
He fixed her with a stare that was part baleful and part impressed. "You're de Guardian, huh?" he said thickly, his consonants dulled by the oozing blood. "You're a lod more annoying dan de Gurador doughd you would be."
"I take that as a compliment," Eve said, filing the information away for later. Things were always much easier when the bad guy underestimated her. "But I'm not even trying yet. Want to see how annoying I can be?"
"Nod pardigularly," he said.
"Then either you take me to my friends, or I take you back to the monster. Your choice."
It wasn't his choice—Eve couldn't have sent him back to face that thing no matter what he did—but her words were enough to make him pause. He studied her, measuring her sincerity or her ability to follow through on the threat, she wasn't sure which. Maybe both. She gave him a few seconds to make up his mind, but when he didn't respond, she grabbed the back of his jacket and started down the hallway. "Back we go, then," she said. "I'll find them myself."
"All righd, hold on," David said. He spat out a mouthful of blood and tipped his head back, pinching his nose. "Gibe a guy a chance to think, jeez."
"I don't have that kind of time," Eve said. She prodded David ahead of her, and as he went, she caught him sneak a subtle glance down the hall over her shoulder. He kept his expression neutral, but she could sense the tension in his look. He expected to be followed, but she knew better. With Eliot left behind, the creature had what it wanted. It wasn't going anywhere for a while.
She had to make the most of the time he was buying her.
"Hurry up," she muttered, nudging David as he slowed.
He gestured to a door ahead and pulled it open. "Here. Go on, your friends are down there."
"Nice try," Eve said. "I know there's a spell trapping them. Take it off."
"I can't just—"
She dragged him away from the door. "Then I know exactly where to take you."
"Pushy, aren't you?" he grunted.
A sound at the bottom of the stairs cut off her reply. "Eve?"
Eve stopped, turning back to the basement with a frown. "Cassie?" She peered down into the gloom and found Cassie wringing her hands at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh thank goodness," she said in a rush. "Eve, we have to find Alex."
"Isn't he with you?" Eve asked, her stomach sinking.
"He was, but then a little while ago Gregory came and I don't know where he took him."
Great. She had one job—one that Eliot's sacrifice was supposed to help her complete—and she'd only found half of the missing crew.
She looked at David. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Where would Gregory take Alex?"
David wiped the still oozing blood from his face. "And Alex is...?"
"Jake's brother," Eve said. "And if you know Jake like you say you do, you know what he'll do to you if anything happens to Alex."
"Jeez, how many brothers does the guy have?" David muttered. Eve opened her mouth to make another threat, but David cut her off. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Look, I do like Jake, okay? I didn't know he had family here. That's not my fault."
"Then help us get him back," Eve said.
He fixed her with a look that she couldn't read. "You don't realize what kind of risk I'd be taking."
"I don't particularly care," Eve said.
He snorted and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. "At least you're honest," he said.
"If you feel any friendship for Jake," Eve said. "Please. Help us."
He studied her. She tried to think of something persuasive, something he wouldn't be able to argue against. That had never been her strong suit. It Flynn were there, he might have stood a chance, but Eve was the fighter. What was the point of having Librarians if they couldn't be there to argue for her?
"All right," David said, cutting off the words she'd been struggling to find. "For Jake."
Instant distrust flared through her. "Just like that?"
"You're really gonna argue?" he said. He reached into an inner pocket in his jacket and took out a phone. "To focus the incantation."
Eve watched him carefully, her skin prickling a warning down her neck. Eliot's words came back to her—you don't seem to have a problem turning your back on me. He was right. Something about David set her on edge in a way that Eliot hadn't, even at her angriest. But the realization had come too late, and now Eliot was paying the price for her mistrust.
"Stand back," David called to Cassie.
Eve gave him a warning look. "No funny business, right?"
"Of course not," David said blandly. "You've made your threats very clear." He swiped at something on his phone, lifted it to his face, and chanted something that sounded Latin.
At once, a haze fell away from the staircase. "Is that it?" Eve asked.
David pocketed his phone. "That's it."
"Prove it," Eve said.
David raised an eyebrow and quirked up one side of his mouth. Without breaking eye contact, he started down the stairs and extended his hand to Cassie. "Come on up," he said, still looking at Eve. "You should be able to reach me now."
Cassie hurried past him without taking his hand. "Who's this?" she murmured to Eve.
"Old friend of Jake's," Eve said.
Cassie's eyes lit up. "Oh!"
"Also in league with the Curator."
"Oh."
"Don't say it like that," David said, shrugging. "Everybody needs a job."
Cassie leveled him with a flat, unsympathetic look. "Right now, your job is helping us find Alex. I think I heard Gregory say he was taking him to see the Curator."
David held up his hands. "Nope—I just disobeyed the Curator's orders by letting you out. I'm not going anywhere near her, and neither should you. If I were you, I'd get Jake and the rest of your friends and get out of here before the Nalusa Falaya finishes with the other guy."
"What other guy?" Cassie asked, turning wide eyes on Eve.
She hated that look. The I-must-have-misunderstood-because-you-can-do-anything look that Cassie gave her any time something went wrong. It should have been touching to think that Cassie had that much faith in her, but right now it only made Eve feel guilty.
"Eliot," she said hesitantly. "We're going back for him as soon as we find Alex."
Cassie blinked, frowned, and then nodded. "Okay. Then..." She looked back to David. "We're back to you. You've already disobeyed the Curator, so you might as well finish what you started."
David snorted. "That easy, huh? Just 'go ahead and betray the Curator, David. It's not as if she's a psychopath with access to magic.' What could go wrong?"
"The Curator might come after you in the future," Eve said in a dark voice. "But right now, I'm the only one you have to worry about. And if you don't help..."
"Yeah, yeah," David muttered. "You'll throw me to the Nalusa Falaya." He wiped at his nose, which had finally stopped bleeding. "Not so benevolent for an organization that's supposed to be looking out for humanity."
"The Librarians look out for humanity," Eve said. "I look out for the Librarians."
David gave an experimental scrunch of his nose. "Fine. I take you to the Curator, and you let me go. Deal?"
"Deal," Cassie said. "Lead the way."
He raised his eyebrows, but after a glance at Eve, he simply turned and started down the hall with Cassie at his side. Eve fell into step behind them.
"So..." Cassie started, tilting her head up at David. "You work for the Curator. How'd that happen?"
"Same way it happened with you and your Library, I'll bet," David said.
Cassie gave him a sidelong look. "You skipped the interview and then went back 10 years later because Lancelot was killing off all the other candidates?"
"You've met Lancelot?" David asked. "Like the knight of the round table?"
"Yeah. He turned out to be kind of evil."
"Hmm." David hitched a shoulder, and something about the movement reminded Eve of Jake. "But no, that's now how it happened for me. I just wanted to use my knowledge for something other than lecturing rich kids in some dusty classroom. I wanted to go places, see real art. I started working at auctions, verifying pieces, that kind of thing… and then one day I got a phone call. I met Gregory the next day, ran a few test jobs, and by the end of the month, I had a new life. Art, adventure…everything I ever wanted."
Eve didn't miss the flat tone of his voice. "And turning into a zookeeper for shadow monsters?" she asked. "Was that your dream job too?"
"Well... something's gotta pay the bills."
He led them on in silence for a few moments, but Cassie seemed unwilling to let it go. "When did you meet Jake?"
"College," David said.
"Ah. So long enough ago that you think it's okay to betray him."
David gave her a patient look. "I didn't betray him. I just... gave him a puzzle. He likes puzzles. I was never going to let him get hurt."
"Just his brother," Eve said.
"How was I supposed to know Jake was gonna use this as a family reunion?" David asked. "Besides, I'm not the one who left him behind."
His words cut deeper than she would have liked to admit. He flashed her a half smile that said he knew exactly what he'd done, but before she could address it, he stopped in front of a blank section of wall. "Here we are," he announced.
Cassie touched the wall cautiously. "A secret door? There must be a glamour on it."
"That's right," David said. "And more multi-dimensional spells than you'd care to count."
"Break them," Eve said, but David shook his head.
"Impossible. They're all layered on top of each other, twisted together with anchors in reality. It would take days to unravel them all. And doing it wrong could untether the building from this dimension, which I assume you don't want to do."
Cassie brushed her fingers down the wall until she found an invisible doorknob, which she turned gingerly. A portion of the wall creaked open to reveal a long, dark hallway. "And you're sure the Curator's here?"
"She certainly isn't going to hang out in the building with the Nalusa Falaya on the loose," David said. "Which is still a major problem, by the way. It will be ready to hunt again soon. You two are probably safer in here than in the building."
"That's comforting," Eve muttered.
"Take it however you want," David shrugged. "Just remember what I said. And good luck."
"Wait," Eve said, hearing the warning in his voice. She turned to face him, but he lowered his shoulder and shoved them through the door. Cassie stumbled into her, crying out, and it was all Eve could do to keep them both upright. She spun furiously, but it was too late.
The door slammed shut behind them.
