The angry look on Kael’s face lets you know that you are there, visible even in the fading light of day.

The trip had been quick and efficient, something that you thought impossible in this city. Kael hadn’t bothered to take the usual circuitous routes to throw off pursuers; she led the way in the straightest possible line, jumping through courtyards and down narrow alleys that wouldn’t appear on any map. Then she stops at the corner of yet another set of ruins (the Roman agora) and her face takes on a tint of rage.

Across the street is the Madrasah Gate, a pair of wooden doors set into a stone doorway, protected by a low fence. Stone walls trail off on either side and a bench sits in front of it, occupied by a single raggedy man. You wish that you could join him, exhaustion is settling deep in your bones.

“Is this it?” you ask, after a moment.

Kael simply nods. You look at Opal for confirmation and she nods as well, solemn.

“It’s just,” you waffle for a moment. “Those doors don’t actually go anywhere.”

Kael says nothing, continuing to stare fixedly at them.

“It was an Islamic school,” you continue until Kael cuts you off sharply.

“Yes it was a school that was then converted to a prison at which point the plane tree that was used as a gathering point for the community leaders was used for hangings. I get it. I’ll distract the guard, you drain the doors and let us in.”

She spins and walks the opposite way, taking short strides until she turns a corner and is out of site.

You stare after her, completely nonplussed.

Opal looks almost sympathetic. “It's one of the worst places for her”

“Why?” You ask, still utterly bewildered by her sudden anger.

“It's the place where Apollo keeps his library, but it’s locked magically.”

You pause and consider this. Then it hits you like a train.

It's a massive magical beacon that attracts Oracles like Kael for Apollo to use, but it is more than that. A person like Kael could see this for half a mile around, the best possible place to hit Apollo where it hurts. It is an opportunity to learn more about what he could do, where he learned it, and maybe even reverse what he had done to her.

But she couldn’t, because if she were to drain the gate of its power, she would relapse. Apollo could stroll over and take her at his leisure, tipped off by his beacon going down.

It was the perfect checkmate, simultaneously irresistible and completely out of bounds.The entire point negated by the very thing that made it possible.

The man on the bench comes alert suddenly and both you and Opal shrink back behind the corner. He stands, completely focused on a point farther down the street, and begins walking, first with hesitant, shuddering steps, before breaking into a loping run, his shadow stretching out far in front of him.

Opal gives you a push and you cross the space quickly. You look down the street to where the man has gone, but he is already out of sight leaving the walkway completely empty. Opal hops the fence and you follow after a moment’s hesitation. This isn’t the first time you’ve gone into ruins that are off limits to the public, but usually you have express permission.

Up close, the doors are more intimidating, taller than you would think. The vertical wooden slats measure at least eight feet, outlined in aged stone with beautifully intact corners. Farther out, the stonework worsens. It’s clear that the builders wanted to put their best foot forward with their entrance.

Someone else hops the fence and you whirl around, but it is just Kael, sweating slightly as though she just finished running, but her breath is still slow and even. She gestures to the door impatiently.

Oh right.

You put your hand to the wood. It’s still warm from the sunlight, but it feels just like any other door in the world. You sigh and close your eyes, reaching deeper.

The thread of power in the stone at the cemetery felt like a channel of learning, but there is not much wisdom left in these doors. Instead there is a note of violence, but not like that of the Blood Ley. It is a cold vengeance that reminds you of sailor’s accounts of a sea during a storm. Rage against anything and everything that would dare show their face in its realm.

You shouldn’t be able to feel this. It is not of the Wisdom, Blood, or Blue Rose Ley, yet you can reach out and grasp it as you have done with every other Ley. It ripples at your touch then allows you to pull it, still seething, from the gate and into your body.

The power fills you like a spike of adrenaline. Everything snaps to focus. The hazy lines of dusk turn to crisp edges. It is the feeling of the cold surf when it first hits your skin. The salty, refreshing air of a busy harbor. Yet it is also the darkness of the deepest cave, the unfathomable, unexplored, uncaring mystery of the ocean.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“An artifact!” Kael says, too loudly for a group of people attempting a break in, “Put it in an artifact.”

You feel completely fine, it is nothing like the painful burning you felt at the cemetery, but her voice makes you panic and grab for your necklace. Seeking doesn’t react, wanting nothing to do with the power. You fumble for your case and wrench it open, plunging your hand in and bringing out the first thing that you find. But the power won’t go into the grave dirt, nor the map.

Your desperate hands touch the edge of something cool and metallic and suddenly the power is wrenched out of you like a winch yanking off your arm. You fall forward, drained, and Opal catches you.

“Are you okay?” she asks, helping you sit on the stairs.

“Yes,” you answer, still swaying slightly. You look in the case and see a faint glow coming from the previously plain sheath of the el-Arak. You shiver.

“Come on,” Kael says, but her eyes linger on you a little too long before she shoulders open the doors and leads the way inside.

Opal helps you to your feet and you follow Kael into what you know to be an empty courtyard.

_______

Of course you are completely wrong.

The room that you enter is completely and utterly impossible.

You can say that, having seen many things over the last few days that redefine the category.

Intellectually, you know that there is nothing behind the doors besides crumbling stone and a few trees, none of which are the famous one. It is an empty lot of very historic land, but nothing more.

Instead, what you find is a stone room filled with rows and rows of wooden bookshelves bursting with old books. The scent instantly takes the tension out of your shoulders. Candles ring the room, jailed in metal lanterns, illuminating the space in pools of gold. Several desks tucked themselves in corners around the room. The floor is a carved and polished stone in perfect condition as though the school has just opened.

Beside you, Opal gazes around with her jade eyes, mouth open in wonder. Kael takes one look, tucks her hands under her armpits and stares at the floor with a grimace.

You take an eager step forward then hesitate. “Are we sure Apollo isn’t home?”

“Yes,” Kael answers without a moment's consideration. “He is going to be at Kerameikos trying to find out what almost made me succumb.”

The thought of Apollo latching onto the Ley, his hands and eyes glowing with green fire flashes in your mind and you shiver. He is the last person you want with access to that power. Well, you can think of one person worse.

"What are we looking for," you ask, rubbing your hands together, ready to dig in.

"No idea," Kael answers, taking the wind out of your sails. She slides open a rolltop desk and rummages through it aggressively.

You cast your eyes around the space, but nothing jumps out at you. It is not the largest of libraries, but finding a single book in all of these stacks could take days. Especially when it’s clear that this place has been around longer than the Dewey Decimal system.

You shrug though, nothing can diminish the joy of digging into a new library, especially an unorthodox one.

You busy yourself looking, reading titles in several languages that you know and many that you don’t. A title catches your eye and you find yourself in a section about Oracles, Artificers and Enchanters. You slip a few of the more interesting tomes into the inner pockets of your jacket for later perusal, trusting the chaos to hide your thievery. You have no qualms stealing from a man that would selfishly hoard this history.

Opal watches Kael carefully out of the corner of her eye as she picks through a shelf. Kael pretends not to notice, directing her full attention at the books themselves and not the candles that don’t melt nor the impossibly clean shelves.

“Got it,” Kael says suddenly several minutes later. She breaks open the bottom of a desk and pulls out a false drawer. Inside is a worn, leather-bound journal with sheafs of paper tucked inside the pages. She holds it for a moment, knuckles white, then shakes her head and goes to the door. She stops as she passes you and hands it to you without looking.

You take it after a beat, caught off-guard. It goes with the rest. Kael pulls her hand away and leaves, but not before you see that her ring is missing. You hurry after, the first time in your life that you don’t have the desire to dawdle in a library.

Outside, Kael is tapping her foot impatiently, “Recharge it,” she says the moment she sees you.

Darkness has fallen, the only illumination coming from the glowing slice of light passing through the door. You close it, returning the street to night. Your eyes adjust slowly to the moonlight so you reluctantly open the case and find the el-Arak entirely on feel.

At least it’s easy; it’s the only object in the case that isn’t warm besides the jar of grave dirt. The sheath slips under your fingers, smooth as glass. You grab it and attempt to replicate what you did with the door, reaching for that specific blend of cold anger. Nothing happens, the knife feels as inert as a common stone. You drop it, but it refuses to let go, sticking to your hand as if magnetized there. You shake your arm and it falls unwillingly.

“I can’t,” you say, shaking your head. “Sorry.”

Kael grimaces then shrugs and takes out a matchbook, lighting the entire sheaf with a quick move. She shoulders open the door and tosses it toward the first shelf.

You leap forward with impossible speed and snatch the matches out of the air before they cross the threshold. You toss them to the stone and stamp them out.

“What the hell are you doing?” you yell, louder than you should in the empty street.

“We have to cover our tracks,” she says, looking at you with more curiosity than hostility.

“If you burn this library down, I’m out,” you say with a controlled certainty.

Opal looks back and forth between you, like a referee in a boxing match, but Kael surprises you by closing the door and stepping away without comment.

You make your way from the doors, opposite the way you came.

Kael says something softly to Opal and she nods, taking the lead. Kael dips down a side street and Opal beckons you to follow her.

“Where is she going?” you ask, suspicion clear in your voice.

“She has to get something,” Opal replies, meeting your searching gaze steadily.

You frown but follow, not even commenting when Kael rejoins you, holding nothing, her face expressionless. Together, you walk to the hideout where you first met Kael and Opal. Reminded as you were the first time that these people have a completely separate agenda.