AISLIN | I

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

AS I TOLD the rest of the group of our recent findings, about Thrinfex, and Kole being my student, they all just listened with wide eyes. Nobody voiced any questions.

I know many questions were running through their heads and I promised that I'd answer them later, but for now, we needed to help Evander.

The quicker we find Laventhorpe, the quicker we can get the King back, back home.

Now, Arius was guiding us into the castle's underground archives, where Evander works.

As we walked, I half expected it to be down the same hallway I met Leland and all of Kavan's men, but instead, we went the complete opposite way and down a longer and slimmer flight of stairs.

Arius lit a torch and held it out in front of him, dimly illuminating the spiral staircase ahead of us.

The walls and stairs themselves were carved out of a single slab of stone, but it was cracked and brittle. Small bits of life rose from the cracks of it. Each foot step echoed off the dark walls and down the pathway.

We reached the bottom, only to be met with a large steel door. Light from torches inside seeped around the crack at the bottom of the door. The shadows of the room's occupants danced across the floor in front of us.

Arius reached for the door and knocked. There wasn't much force behind the action, but it wasn't needed. It clanged and echoed across the heavy metal door and stone walls around us.

I watched as a single shadow grew underneath the door and the sound of footsteps became evident. A loud clunking sound, gears turning as the door was unlatched, then the door was pulled open. Evander stood at the door, his face molded into a calm expression.

He opened the door wider, "Welcome to the Archival Library."

We walked in and I couldn't help but be amazed by it. The library had about forty shelves, each reaching up to twelve feet in the air. From my spot in the entryway, I could see another flight of stairs going down to a second level that had the same layout. Large tables were lined up end to end down the middle of the room.

We all were struck with shock but quickly recovered at the sound of the rest of the group coming up the stairs.

Mèabh and Kingsley had a book in each hand, Willow and Blakely-Rose walked behind them with piles of rolled up maps filling their arms.
They set down all their gathered materials on one of the large tables and began walking our way.

"How's the search going so far?" Prince Grey asked, curiously. He spoke to the group, but the question was obviously pointed in Blakely-Rose's direction.

Mèabh shrugged as she dusted off her hands and set them on her hips, "Well this library is huge and there's the section we need to search through occupies almost half of it. This is just what we could carry."

"So this is how the Library works," Evander begins, "It's all sorted in alphabetical order. There are multiple L sections - upstairs and downstairs - that we need to look through. The Laventhorpe territory will be in one of the L sections."

"We should split up into teams of two." Arius suggested.

I nodded, "That's a good idea."