She took another step, feeling a hopeful thrill as she pricked her finger on the dagger once again and pressed her welling blood to one of the angels’ swords.
It lit up like a candle. Glowing gold veins spiderwebbed across the stone swords, the angels, the entire arch. It was bright and light and magical. Her skin tingled as the dust on the arch floated up and sparkled all around her like tiny bursting stars. Air that had been cold was now warm. She’d known she was meant to enter this room, to find this arch, to open—
Suddenly, the breath whooshed from her lungs as the thought triggered the warning Apollo’s younger brother, Tiberius, had given her: You were meant to open it. Magic things always do that which they were created to do.
And Tiberius believed that Evangeline was created to unlock the Valory Arch.
She staggered back, hearing the memory of Jacks’s laugh again. This time it didn’t sound dark at all. It sounded amused, entertained, happy.
“No,” she whispered.
The stones still gleamed with gold threads that wove around the columns. She watched as they spread across the top, lighting up a series of curving words that had not been visible before.
Conceived in the north, and born in the south, you will know this key, because she will be crowned in rose gold.
She will be both peasant and princess, a fugitive wrongly accused, and only her willing blood will open this arch.
Evangeline’s blood ran cold.
These were not just words. This was—she didn’t even want to think it. But pretending would not erase or change anything. This was the Valory Arch prophecy, the one that Jacks had manipulated her to fulfill. Which meant that this wasn’t just another arch. This was the Valory Arch.
Panic replaced every other feeling.
It shouldn’t have been possible. The arch was supposed to be in pieces. Although there were two conflicting tales about the Valory’s magical contents, everyone had agreed about one thing: the Valory Arch had been broken into pieces and hidden across the North to keep anyone from knowing what the prophecy was and to prevent anyone from putting the arch back together.
“No, no, no, no, no…” Frantically, Evangeline tried to wipe her blood from the stones before Jacks or anyone else could discover what she’d done. The angels hadn’t changed their pose, but she feared that any second a door would appear behind them or they would move aside. She spat and scrubbed with the sleeve of her cloak. But the glowing arch didn’t dim.
“I knew you could open the door.”
The scratchy voice was too old to belong to Jacks. But the sound of it stopped Evangeline’s heart all the same.
“My apologies, Your Highness. I see I’ve frightened you again.”
“Again?” She turned.
The man in the doorway was almost as small as a child, but far older than Evangeline, with a long, silver beard that held threads of gold, which matched the burnished trim on his white robes.
“You…” For a moment she remained too nervous to form words. “You’re the librarian who first showed me the door to this room.”
“You remembered.” Though he looked clearly pleased, the old man’s smile did nothing to put her at ease. Like the arch, he almost seemed to glow, his beard turning from an ordinary gray to iridescent silver. “I wish we had more time to chitchat, but you must hurry to find the missing stones.”
He looked up at the arch to where four stones were missing along the top. The holes appeared to be smaller than her palm—not the large chunks of fractured rock she had pictured. But Evangeline instantly knew these were the broken pieces that needed to be found to truly unlock the Valory Arch.
Her blood had not been enough. Relief swept through her.
“You must find them,” the old librarian repeated. “One for luck. One for truth. One for mirth. One for youth. But you must be careful. The stones are powerful, deceptive things. And the translation—”
“No!” Evangeline cut in. “I won’t find these stones. I’m not ever going to open this arch. Pressing my blood to it was a mistake.”
The old man gave her a weary frown. “It’s not a mistake, it’s your destiny.…” His voice trailed off as smoke puffed from his mouth instead of sound.
He scowled and tried to speak again, but only more wisps of gray and white poured forth. This time the smoke formed the words Oh bother, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
The librarian’s beard had now gone completely to smoke, exactly like his words. His hands were suddenly transparent, same as his robes and his wrinkled face, which was now as sheer as wispy curtains.