Spinebreaker (Library Gate Series Book 2) Read online

  “You destroyed it,” Randall said, wrinkling his nose in disapproval.

  “Calm down,” April said. “The spine was already split. It would have been weeded from the collection anyway.”

  She lifted the first edition copy. Sticky notes marked several spots throughout the text. “Each sticky note corresponds to a section of the book.”

  “Okay,” Dorian said. “Why?”

  “We can’t tell how much time has passed in the book since yesterday, right? We’ve been moving from scene to scene, trying to catch up. It’s not working. We need to be able to scan through the book faster.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  “We’re going to split up,” she said. She fanned out the cut-up leaves. “The three of us—Dorian, Randall, and me—each get a section. One of us goes in, Barty closes the gate behind us, and we have fifteen minutes in library time to assess the area. Once the fifteen minutes is up, Barty opens the gate and we come back through, then on to the next one, and the next one, until we find him.”

  “That’s an interesting plan,” Dorian said, “But I don’t think we should split up. Think of all the times we’ve had to come to each other’s rescue.”

  Randall nodded. “And I don’t know how I feel about having the gate closed behind us. What if those creepy UNC things find one of us? What if one of us gets trapped?”

  April nodded. “It’s risky. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe it’s the best way to find Rico. We’ve been playing too close to the chest. We need to take some risks.” She paused. “So… will you do it?”

  There was a long, pregnant pause. Then Randall nodded. “I will.”

  Braddy stepped forward. “I will, too.”

  April looked down at the groundling with a look of surprise on her face. “I thought you wanted to stay here where it was warm and safe?”

  The groundling scuffed the floor with the toe of his shoe. “Seeing the boy’s mother... Well, we should get him home.”

  April knelt in front of the groundling. “Thank you, Braddy. But you can’t go in. It’s too dangerous, for you and for Rico. If you go through and the UNCs come after you, what then? You can help best by staying here and helping Barty.”

  The groundling looked disappointed, but he nodded. April turned towards Dorian. “And you?”

  “Of course I’m in. It’s you and Randall that I’m worried about.”

  April nodded. “Okay. There are eighteen sections that we haven’t entered. If we take them chapter by chapter, then the three of us should be able to cycle through in four rounds.” She looked at Barty. “That’s one hour of library time per round.”

  “Hold up,” Randall said. “There’s only one timepiece. How will Dorian and I know when we need to be back at the gate?”

  April nodded. “You’ll need to stay in sight distance of the gate. With the way I’ve divided the sections, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Actually,” Barty said. “If you have more watches lying around, I think I can whip something up. It won’t be as reliable as Mae’s timepiece but it’s better than nothing. You’ll just have to sync up each time you come back into the library.”

  April dug through the lost and found, coming up with two watches. One was an old analog watch, the other was pink with a unicorn design on the watch’s face. Barty interlaced his fingers and extended his arms until his knuckles cracked. Then he wiggled his fingers over the watches and gestured at the grandfather clock. When he was done, he held out the watches to Randall and Dorian. “That should do the trick.”

  Randall reached for the analog watch. “My wrist is bigger,” he said.

  Dorian took the unicorn watch. “I think it’s rather fetching,” he said.

  “Ok, pretty boy.” Randall snorted.

  Finally ready, they stood at the gate. “The next scene after the baobhan sith was their stop at the fairy city,” April said. “Is it possible they’re still there? It seems like the timeline was moving faster than that.”

  Dorian shrugged. “It’s hard to say,” he said. “They’d just left Groundsville when we got there, and a whole day had passed in library time. Probably better not to chance it. I think I’d rather find them in the fairy city, anyway.”

  April nodded. “Okay. I’ll start there.” She took the corresponding stack of pages and set it aside for herself. She grabbed the next one and held it out to Randall. “After that, you’ll go into the scene where the pixies attack them.”

  She winced. What if Randall got hurt? “Maybe I should take that one,” she said. “You take the one with the fairies.”

  Randall shook his head and pulled the papers from her hands. “Not a chance.”

  She could tell there was no use arguing with him, so she turned to Dorian. “You get the scene where Braddy meets Besudel.” In the book, Besudel was a pixie who’d been trapped in an underground lake by her father after she fell in love with someone he didn’t approve of. Years in the dark waters turned her into a terrible monster.

  Dorian nodded. “Should be easy enough.”

  “We need to survey the scene first. If it looks dangerous, turn back. Barty, give them a minute before you close the gate and move on to the next one, okay?”

  Barty nodded. “You got it.”

  “The most important thing is to have the gate open fifteen minutes after the person first goes through it.”

  “I’ll help,” Braddy added.

  April looked around. “Are we ready?” she said. They all nodded.

  “Okay.” She checked to make sure she had the correct section of The First Adventure of Braddy Evers. When she was ready, she said, “Open the gate.”

  Braddy opened the book to the first sticky note. As the gate opened, she turned back to Dorian and Randall. “Make sure you reset your watches each time you get back to the library.”

  They nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. “Maybe I should take one of Barty’s watches,” she said. “If either of you got hurt…”

  Dorian smirked. “We’re not children, April. We’ll remember to reset the watches.”

  “I’ll remind them,” Braddy chirped.

  “We’d be just as upset if something happened to you,” Randall said. She nodded.

  The gate was open. She took a breath and stepped through.

  She was in a glistening city. Tall, thin, almost-human forms floated past her, each hovering a few feet above the ground. A few of them turned to look down at her—she must still be in groundling form.

  She gave a thumbs-up to the others. Barty returned the signal and Braddy closed the book. The gate closed. For a second she panicked. What if the gate didn’t open on the same spot? How would she get back? She pushed the thought away. She would deal with that when and if it happened. She couldn’t afford to focus on anything other than her mission: figure out if the Nisser’s party had already passed through the fairy city.

  She walked around. Some of the fairies glanced down at her with raised eyebrows, and a few whispered to each other, but none of them had that empty UNC dullness in their eyes.

  “Excuse me,” she said to a passing male fairy, but he floated by, the press of his lips the only indication that he’d heard her at all.

  April approached several more fairies before one, a woman, spoke to her companion. “It speaks to us,” she said. April understood the words, though she could tell that they weren’t English. The sounds were too soft and elegant, like a sibilant version of tinkling bells.

  “Then we should speak back,” the male fairy said. “It may be entertaining.”

  The woman looked down at April. “Yes, small one?”

  “Hello,” April said. “I’m looking for my friends who rode this way. A group of a dozen Nisser, a magician, and a groundling like myself.”

  The female fairy nodded. “I remember them coming through. It was quite the spectacle,” she didn’t bother to hide her laughter. “Can you imagine so many Nisser here?”

  “So they’ve already been he
re,” April said impatiently.

  The male spoke in the sibilant language. “Not very intelligent, this one.”

  “Don’t be unkind,” the woman said in the same language. “The queen made a pact with the Nisser prince. If she is a friend of his party, we do not want to offend her.” She spoke to April in English, speaking very simply. “As I said, they were here.”

  “But they’ve already left?”

  “Yes. You’ve missed them by about, oh, a week.”

  “A week?” April thought about Rico traveling in the cold and the rain for so long, unsure whether he’d ever get home.

  The male fairy cleared his throat, and the female said, “We must be leaving. Farewell, small one.”

  They floated off. April checked her watch. A little less than a minute left in the library. She walked back over to the gate and waited in front of it, watching the graceful peace of the town, wishing she could stay within its borders forever. Then the gate started to open. She gave the city one last longing look and then stepped through the veil.

  “Everything going smoothly?” April asked once she was back in the library. Braddy closed the book as soon as both of her feet were on the hardwood floor.

  “Yeah. Randall and Dorian went in just fine. Now we’re just waiting for things to come back around.” Barty paused. “What did you find out?”

  “I spoke to a fairy on the other side. She said that it’s been a week since Rico and the dwarves moved through.”

  “Really?” Barty said. “The story is moving faster than we thought. Minutes here could mean days there.”

  “We have to find him before the story ends,” April said. “How fast can you go?”

  Barty scrunched his face up, doing math. “We can probably get it down to five minutes, maybe four, for each entry and exit.”

  April nodded. “Five at the most, okay?”

  Braddy looked up at her. “What happens to the boy if we don’t get to him in time?”

  “We’re not sure, but, as hard as it is to find him now, it will be even harder then.” She paused. She wasn’t sure if Braddy had finished the book or not, and didn’t want to tell Braddy that his story ended with him setting off on years’ worth of adventures—adventures with only a paragraph of text to pinpoint them. It would be almost impossible to find Rico if they didn’t get to him before then.

  The gate opened again. The other side was dark and barely visible. She grabbed the next section of the book. It was the section where Braddy reunites with the Nisser.

  She stepped through, nearly slipping as her foot stepped onto something curved. She reached up to steady herself and her fingers curled around a branch. She was in a tree. The gate had materialized in the hollow trunk, a nest for raccoons or owls. Her heart pounded as she looked down at the ground.

  “Rico? Labhras?” She called. “It’s April.”

  There was no reply but the sound of the wind through the trees. This was stupid. Why was she wasting her time here when she knew in her heart that Rico was already weeks down the road?

  She heard the gate start to close behind her and she slipped back through.

  “Is something wrong?” Barty asked, surprised to see her so soon.

  “Change of plans,” she said. “We focus our attention at the last half of the book.”

  Barty looked confused. “Okay. Do you want to go into the next scene now, or do you want to talk to Dorian and Randall?”

  Damn it. She should touch base with the others, but each minute here could be a hours or more there… but then they couldn’t afford any mistakes because she was playing telephone.

  “No. We’ll regroup, first.”

  “Ok.” Barty looked relieved. “It’s nine minutes until Randall is set to come through…”

  Nine minutes. How much time did that represent for Rico?

  She used the time to reorganize the remaining book sections. She pushed half of them to the side and told Braddy which section in the book he needed to open to next.

  “Thanks for helping,” she said to him. “Especially since we kidnapped you and all.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Randall came back through the gate. His eyes widened hopefully when he saw April. “You found him?”

  April shook her head and told him what she’d learned in the fairy city, and explained her new plan. “If time is really moving that much faster,” she said, “I think it’s best that we focus our attention on the second half of the book.”

  Randall nodded. “You’re right.”

  By the time she’d finished explaining the revised plan to Randall, the gate to Dorian’s section was open. There was nothing but darkness there, and the occasional sound of water lapping against stone.

  April watched the clock tick down. The fifteen-minute mark passed. “He should be back by now.”

  “Maybe his watch is running slow,” Barty replied, though he sounded nervous.

  April nodded, hoping that that was it. They waited another minute, each passing tick of the clock reducing her hope that Dorian would appear on his own. She approached the gate, trying to make out shapes in the murky darkness, but she couldn’t. At about waist-height, there was movement. She focused on it and realized that there was waist-high water on the other side. The gate had opened in the underground lake. Tiny rivulets of swampy liquid ran down around the edges of the veil.

  A scream emitted somewhere in the cave and echoed off the cave walls, distorted by the water.

  “He’s in trouble,” April said. “I’m going in.”

  Before they could stop her, she plunged through the gate. The water was murky and cold, though not frigid.

  “Where is it?” A voice emerged from the darkness. It sounded slimy and breathy and desperate, the voice of a thing that’s lived in shadow for longer than it can remember.

  There was splashing, and small waves of water lapped against her knees.

  Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. She was in a giant, roughly dome-shaped cavern half-filled with water. The water level rose and fell rhythmically by about a foot, and as it receded she saw the tops of several dark outlets where the water must be moving in and out. An island of rock rose from the water ten feet away. Dorian sat at the edge of the rock, staring at the water in consternation.

  A head broke the surface, long, dark lanks of hair clung to its scalp, the ends floating in the water like seaweed. Only the creature’s eyes and nose were above the water. It stared up at Dorian like a hungry shark.

  She heard a splash near the veil. The form that floated next to her was so small it could only be Braddy.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “Go back!”

  “I want to help,” he whispered. “After I read the book, I did some research on Besudel. I think I know how to beat her.” Before she could stop him, he called out. “Over here!”

  “What is this?” Besudel said. She had raised up slightly so that her mouth was above the water, but only barely. When she spoke, streams of water entered her mouth so that her words came out as a gurgle. “More meat? Lucky day! I won’t let you slip away like my last meal.”

  April heard Braddy swallow, but when he spoke again his voice was sure. “Yes, I have sought you out. You recently let one of your captives escape. He’s been bragging about how easy it was to evade the great and terrible Besudel. I couldn’t believe a creature could be so dim-witted and slow, so I came to see for myself.”

  Besudel’s outraged roar was choked as she disappeared under the water. Her back formed a fin-like protrusion on the lake’s surface as she swam in Braddy’s direction. Braddy waved one shaking hand at April. “Get Dorian,” he hissed, and April hesitated only a moment before moving towards the stone island where Dorian was perched.

  Behind her, Besudel broke the surface a few feet in front of Braddy. The groundling was shaking, but he held his ground.

  For a moment, April thought Besudel was going to attack. Instead, she said in a petulant voice, “Lies! He escape
d unfairly.”

  “That’s not what he said,” Braddy said skeptically.

  Besudel hissed angrily. “Lies!”

  “Okay, okay,” Braddy said in a reasonable tone. “Would you like to redeem yourself?”

  “Yes, yes!” Besudel crowed. “I will beat you, and then I will eat you!”

  “Hold on,” Braddy said. “I want to make this fair.” he said. “I heard that you are a talented singer. Perhaps a singing contest?”

  “Intriguing,” Besudel gurgled. “It is true that I possessed the most beautiful singing voice in all of the pixie kingdom. I was the envy of my father’s court. You have no hope of winning against me.” She paused. “But who will judge this contest?”

  “Well, perhaps the person on that ledge, there,” Braddy said. “And if I win, you must let both him and I leave. Deal?”

  “Person?” Besudel sounded genuinely confused. “You mean the meat. And when I win, I eat BOTH of you!”

  “Yes, quite,” Braddy said, obviously flustered. He waved behind his back at April and pointed in Dorian’s direction. The message was clear: get Dorian, so that they could get out of there before Besudel got a chance to make good on her promise.

  April didn’t need to be told twice. She moved towards the island. One side was lifted a few feet above the water, but the other was a small beach that she could walk on. The water slowed her steps, and she dared not go faster lest she make noise and alert Besudel to her presence.

  “Well, go on,” Besudel said impatiently. “Sing!”

  “Uh, ladies first,” Braddy insisted, and April realized that he was trying to give her more time.

  “Chivalry will get you nowhere down here,” Besudel laughed cruelly, but then she cleared her throat, and raised herself up slightly so that her mouth was above the water, then she began to sing.

  The sound that echoed around the cavern was less like speech than it was like singing bowls, or the deepest tones of a pipe organ. There were no words. It was undoubtedly beautiful, but dark and haunting.

  The last tone faded, and Besudel plunged back down so that her mouth was partially in the water. She laughed into the water. “I’ve still got it!” she crowed. “You are doomed, meat-bag. You cannot possibly hope to beat me. Maybe I should just eat you now…”