The bite on Matt's shoulder burned savagely. He did was he could to ignore the pain, stretching on his toes to reach a book encased in younger, darker leather than the others.

"She wants us to go through every book in this place? How the hell are we supposed to do that before Bronx kicks the bucket?"

"I told you," Alex said, "Ziya and Qamar are only sixteen, any kind of documents written about them won't look as old and worn as the others. Just keep digging out the newer ones."

"But the pages are blank in all of them," Aster sighed. Her long golden mane had slipped from its bun hours ago. She'd partly given up her search and started to stack books around her like a child's fort. "I hate to say it, but I think this is impossible."

"Have I taught you nothing, little one?" asked Devi, folding a journal over in her hands. "Nothing is impossible. But I think we'll need some help from the elements."

"A spell?" Sadie perked. "Are you talking about a spell?"

"Of course I'm talking about a spell." Devi struggled up from her criss-crossed position on the ground and gave her old back a good crack. "We're witches; if we were nuns, we'd look to God for answers, wouldn't we?"

Matt could practically envision the tail on Sadie, wagging like she'd just heard the word treat. "Can I help?"

"Can you help," Devi scoffed. "I won't be able to do it without you, dear. But we need peace and quiet."

"There's a study room over there," said Aster. "Should we?"

Devi heaved her bag over her shoulder. "We shall."

Sadie tiptoed after them and they slipped through a door in the corner of the library—the handle made of a glass, the image of a rose burned into the wood. Everything here was created by design. Even the skylight above was of hand-made glass. The kind blown by men, not machine. It cast an ever-moving swarm of ethereal light fragments on the rug below.

Matt felt useless standing there, staring all of the empty books he'd piled around him. He let his mind wander, and he hadn't realized how far until Alex said, "You're worried about Gannon?"

It was true; Gannon was a scary son of a bitch. Matt feared him more than he feared Rico and the angry bull had nearly taken his head off his neck last time they met.

"What's his deal?" Matt asked. "I get he's from the den and all, but what's with him and Bronx?"

And just why the hell had he woken to that pain in his shoulder when Gannon arrived?

"When he was sixteen, Quentin belonged to the rogues." Alex clamored up onto a lower shelf to reach a book too high up to contend with his height. He knocked it from its place and caught it just before it hit the ground. "They kind of create their own social hierarchy. Gannon was a big name in California back then. Leader of the rats. Quentin had no alpha when he came to the states. He just kind of fell into Gannon's hands from what I remember."

Matt shivered at the thought. He remembered the fight at the den, the hesitation in Quentin. The way Gannon made him look so small. Quentin had never been a menacing guy, but Matt hadn't ever seen him that helpless before. Even when he was pinned beneath the claws of a lich, Bronx at least put up a fight. Not with Gannon. With Gannon, he was nothing.

"I know what you're thinking," Alex said, aligning the books in a stack. "I don't want to talk about it. That's Quen's business."

Matt had no qualms with that. He didn't need Alex to tell him something he already knew. 

"Quentin was trying to escape his past." Alex's voice was a bit smaller now. He pulled a new book from the shelf, admiring the old, softened leather. Worn enough that it was pliable beneath the fingers. "That included Gannon. So... you know, don't tell Jay. Quentin wouldn't like that."

"I won't," Matt promised. "But was Bailey—"

"Bailey was a part of Rico's circle. Same story as Quentin, I think... just ended up there as a kid without any other place to be. After two years, he sought Quentin out for help. Quentin; the rogue who'd escaped the den of rats and become Alpha of the most populated territory margin in America. It was a Cinderella story of the ages, and anyone who wanted out of a rogue circle went to an alpha—how do you think he got his hands on Elizaveta?"

"I dunno," Matt admitted. "I try not to think much 'bout Elizaveta. She's like a Russian Wednesday Adams."

"Yeah, Eliza's from a whole different pack of rats," Alex said. "But honestly, it wasn't like the situation with Bailey. Quentin had to beg her to leave her circle. He wanted a sentinel with her spunk—whatever that means. I swear to god, sometimes he sounds more like an interior decorator than a werewolf."

"Anyway," Matt pushed him along.

"Anyway, Bailey wanted out. Quentin's not the kind of guy who says no to stuff like that. So he brought his sentinels to Rico's place and took Bailey back with him."

"Just took him?" asked Matt.

"Sure. Rogues are weak, it's in their nature. A wolf without a pack is as good as dead."

"Rico didn't seem so weak." Not when he was bashing Matt's head into a ball of putty.

"Izzy would make him shit himself."

"So why did Bailey go back?" Matt asked. "Why was Gannon after him?"

"Rico's got money," said Alex. "Lots of it. Sounds like Bailey took off with a chunk."

"Revenge theft?" Matt asked.

"I don't know," Alex admitted. He slid that old worn book back into its spot. "I don't like looking into Bailey's head. When I look into Felix's I see this flash of horrible things. But it's the same horrible thing over and over. When I look into Bailey's, it's... a storm. I don't know how to handle it."

"What happens when you look into my head?" Matt asked.

Alex let out something humored—a scoff and a laugh dealt in one. "It's like... elevator music."

"Shut up."

"Like there's a little man in your head, tooting around with a kazoo."

"You're full of it."

"Sometimes I hear infomercials."

Matt swept a book from the ground to chuck at Alex, but the study door swung open. He hid it behind his back as the witches carried themselves out of the room, one by one.

Sadie was the last to exit, a slice of agate held to her eye. Though the library was well lit by several lamps and chandeliers, Aster held a candle in her palm, the little flame shivering in the still, current-less air.

"Let the light direct you," Devi said. "You'll know when you know."

Matt and Alex held their tongues, while Sadie peered around the room through the eye of her agate. She turned in circles and stopped when she'd spun completely around. Her hand raised and she pointed a finger between Matt and Alex.

"That one. With the reddish cover."

For several more minutes, Sadie let the agate guide her around the library shelves. When she was finished, she'd selected seven books—each of them blank in the pages.

Matt heaved most of them up in his arms, that bite on his shoulder searing. "How do we read them?"

Sadie looked to Alex. "You said there was a humidity room, right?"

"There should be," said Alex. "Somewhere around here."

"Guys." Aster stood in the heart of an alcove, between the two tallest shelves in the room. The door had been disguised as a wall, but Matt could see the gaps in the wood clearly now that she'd pointed them out. Aster gave it a small push and the wall receded inward to unveil a short hallway. It was no more than a five second walk to a pair of glass doors at the end. They swung open by command of an entry button on the side, and when they did, it was with a definite hisss, like the pop of a soda can. The air inside must've been vacuum sealed.

When they stepped through the glass doors, it was a lot like walking into the belly of a hot swamp. The air was warm, the moisture felt like sweat on Matt's skin. And within the walls, plants flourished—ferns and flowers and tall stocks of of Jasmine, trained to climb the ceiling with little metal loops around their vines. There was no place to sit, no furniture, no windows or sunlight—only the heat-lamps above, and the misters on the walls that kept the room so humid, the air so wet.

And in the center of it all, sat a stone podium.

Devi took the red book from the stack and laid it open on the face of the podium. Slowly, the pages came to life. Ink blotted the slate paper in forms of words and images—but it was the way the words moved that felt like magic. The moisture in the air awakened them as if they'd just been written by hand. Like there was a ghost in the center of them all, scrawling the words out, letter by letter, loop by loop.

But this book in particular, didn't appear to be about wolves or queens at all. Devi flipped through the pages with a deep fown. "Did we not preform the spell correctly?"

"Wait!" Aster said, "Turn back one page, Devi."

Devi did, and Sadie took a gander at the title. "The rock of Cadence and Caliah? What's that?"

"Cadence and Caliah?" asked Devi. She pushed her way gently past Sadie and took the book for herself, flipping through page after page, after page. "My god, I haven't heard this story in ages. It's a tale of two sister witches who'd grown tired of seeing their family persecuted by the hands of witch-hunters. You see, back then the wolves and witches shared land. The wolves didn't have order, though. Didn't change in designated areas didn't mind who saw them turn. All of this laid more pressure on the witches. The ignorance of the wolves got our people killed." Devi flipped to the next page over, where an illustration of a bluff had been sketched in by hand. "The sisters demanded the queen move her territories elsewhere, so the witches could continue their craft without fear. The queen killed them without a second thought, and its said their souls were imbued in the stone slab they died on."

Then Devi turned one page over, and Sadie froze so quickly, so suddenly, Matt thought for a moment she might'a keeled over. On the next page was the image of a sword, drawn in charcoal—smeared and faded with age. It was probably the only thing in the entire book that hadn't been scrawled in invisible ink.

Sadie reached into her own bag and took from it the stone sword. The heat-lamps above sent sparkles into all of the jagged edges.

"What is that?" Matt asked. "Why the hell is her sword in that book?"

"That's it?" asked Aster. "That's the sword Corra gave to her?"

Devi was quiet for a long time, considering the page in front of her. Comparing it to the sword in Sadie's hands. "So this is the sword that was cut from the stone of Cadence and Caliah."

"The what-now?" asked Sadie. Suddenly, that sword looked like a ticking time bomb. Sadie didn't seem to know what to do with it, so she held it out awkwardly in her splayed palms.

"One of the most cherished artifacts known to our kind, and Corra's kept it tucked away all these years," Devi said with a tsk. "May I see it dear?"

Sadie was hesitant to hand the sword over—despite the fact that she had no idea how to handle something so precious, Matt could see the way her fingers subconsciously clung to the stone.

Devi reached for it, and upon her first touch, she jerked her hand away like she'd just grazed hot iron.

"My god," she said. "It's already chosen you."

"Chosen me?" asked Sadie.

"Chosen her?" Matt repeated.

Aster rubbed at the chills on her arms, shuffling all of her twined, stone bracelets into disarray. "What does that mean, Devi?"

Devi didn't speak for a long moment. She ran her fingers down the plates of her silver braided hair and stepped back with a strange wind of distress. "Study the other books," she said. "Look for information on Ziya. I need a moment away from this damn heat."

And then the old woman hurried out through the glass doors.