I remember thinking the vault maze was beautiful in a frightening sort of way. The corridors of books were beautiful to behold and it was satisfying to hear our footsteps on the marble floor. But there was no change in the design or layout to the maze. No discernable landmarks or changes to the shelves or flooring.

Now all I could think was that the corridors were too short and narrow to run quickly and the floor was just slippery enough to send me crashing into the shelves every time I turned a corner. It was unnerving how loud my footsteps echoed and how easy it must be to track me. And the more I ran, the more I knew I had no idea where I was going.

I would have kept running, no discernible clue as to whether I was running deeper into or further out of the maze had I not run directly into someone.

“Hold it right there!”

I looked up, fully expecting to see my doom. Instead, I was surprised to see two men and a woman peering down at me. The woman was dressed in a simple white, similar to what Lira had worn. The two men were in fine suits with almost-manicured hair styles. The standing man was thin while a larger man was picking himself up off the ground.

“Explain yourself,” one of the men commanded.

Whatever bit of relief I had quickly turned to despair when I realized how this must look. The librarians were warned of a book thief and here I come, crashing out of nowhere knocking one of them to the ground.

“It’s not what it looks like! My group was attacked!” I babbled, sounding as mad as I must’ve looked. “There was this black smoke and we were all separated!”

The looks on their faces darkened. Of course they didn’t believe me. I didn’t have the catalog card nor did I work at Alexandretta so no one would recognize me. I took a breath and fought the panic down. It obliged. But only momentarily.

“Wait!” I exclaimed. Having nothing else, I punched my wrist into the air (a little too excitedly) to show them the bracelet and the charm. “I-I have this!”

The man I’d knocked over made his way closer and peered at my wrist. I didn’t bother looking but I could tell he was seeing through sight.

I held my arm steady and my breath caught. “I don’t recognize it,” he said tensely. My body deflated.

“But I do,” the woman spoke. She offered me a hand to help me up. “It’s from the Leatherbound in the Americas. You were with Lira, weren’t you?”

Relief flooded my body, but was quickly replaced with concern. The woman held my hand a second longer and stared into my eyes. I saw the glint of a coin in her other hand while her eyes searched mine. Satisfied, she smiled and freed me from whatever spell she’d conjured. It was disconcerting, I’d never had a spell cast on me before (at least, not so obviously). But there was safety in numbers and I’d never get out of the maze alone.

I quickly went over what had just occurred. Lira’s suspicions regarding the count of people in the maze, separating the lock from the key, and finally our encounter with Ghastoff. I was describing the spell that Lira had used to freeze Ghastoff in place when one of the men marveled, “A holding charm. Ambitious. Risky.”

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The woman, Serah, answered my confused look, “It’s a charm that holds a person in-place as long as you can hold your gaze and continue the incantation. If you break the incantation too long or if you blink, the spell breaks.”

“That’s not the difficult part,” one of the men interjected. “It’s landing the spell to begin with. You have to start the incantation and then catch the eye of your target at a specific point in the spell. Too late or too early and you miss.”

“Regardless,” Serah interrupted, “we should be on our way. We don’t want to be caught out.” The three of them spoke among themselves and gave passing glances my way. They were deciding what to do with me. Taking me with them was the kind thing to do, but there was still the chance I wasn’t who I said I was. Or that I would prove to be a liability. Thankfully, the kindness won out.

It was decided that Serah would take the lead, as she was the guide. I would follow with one of the men while the larger of the two thin men would take up the rear. They had found their chosen book a few minutes before they had the unfortunate luck of being intruded upon by a panicked and sweaty page.

Luckily, the tense man was bringing up the rear which left the one I hadn’t bowled over walking with me. He explained that they were in the library looking for a tome on spells for the purposes of dueling. Both came from accomplished families and had been brought up in the sport since they were young. “It isn’t practiced much outside of the gentry, but I suppose it isn’t for the faint of heart.”

I could see Serah’s eyes roll from behind.

“For example, the holding charm is a fantastically out-of-date choice in dueling. There are plenty of other hexes that could’ve been used instead,” the thin man explained.

“Should’ve, perhaps,” added the man bringing up the rear.

My companion let out a haughty, tsk tsk. “All these books… you’d think the librarians would be better read. There’s no accounting for taste, I imagine.”

Serah was quiet, but her voice froze the three of us. “Enough. Our new companion’s presence can only mean that the thief is not far off.” Her words carried a keen edge. A promise. A threat. I tried to keep an eye out as we walked but it was exhausting. Each corridor was only twenty, maybe thirty feet long. That meant we were constantly checking corners and corridors every few seconds while keeping pace.

Suddenly, the thin man at my side stopped. “Shh! Do you hear that?”

The rest of us stopped and bent low to listen. It was nearly imperceptible but a low hum was indeed in the air. The panic which had so dutifully subsided earlier slowly made itself known in the pit of my stomach. As the hum grew louder and louder the two men and the librarian took up positions, slowly forming a triangle. I, to my horror, found myself standing outside the triangle.

Down the corridor a small flash caught everyone’s attention. Then, quickly, a draft of black smoke made its way towards us. The smoke was unnaturally fast, but before it could get too close, the larger of the two men darted forward, lifted up his hands and shouted a conjuring.

A tempestuous gale exploded from his palms dissipating the fumes and revealing Ghastoff.

“Shit! That’s him!” I could feel the shelves laugh at my grasp of the obvious and related ability to voice it.

“Move!” Serah shouted.

I pumped my legs as hard as I could, barely able to keep up with the others. The two men moved with similar exertion but Lira practically flew, her feet barely touching the ground. The shelves flew by in a blur as we stumbled and tumbled our way around the shelves

I could see the outer walls of the maze. We were close. Ghastoff was a few turns behind, having as much trouble sprinting through short narrow corridors as we were. Up ahead Serah had slowed down, signaling that we were close to the exit. Just one more bend and-

Someone’s arm reached out and grabbed me, jerking me to a sudden stop. Just ahead was a small clearing (the one we’d entered through) and the exit just beyond. The problem was between us was a large conflagration of billowing smoke flashes of fire.

Serah cast a glance at the men and both shook their heads. They didn’t have anything in their repertoire that could deal with this. We didn’t have a way past the flames and we were running out of time with Ghastoff fast approaching from the rear.

We were trapped.