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I peered around the inside of the house and frowned. “You sure we’re in the right place?” The place was built like a little studio apartment, with a bed, a kitchenet, a seating and eating area. The items were nice, though rather dust covered, implying that it wasn’t used often.

“What did you expect? Rows after rows of books?”

“Something like that.”

He headed back toward a door that opened to reveal a closet. “Our defense measures work well, but there are always some who are immune. We set this up to appear like a rarely used summer cabin in case anyone finds their way in.” He reached in toward the back of the closet and pressed his palm against the wall. Much like the front door, it opened instantly to reveal a dark stairway.

“Creepy. Also, if you take your dates to scary murder rooms inside of closets, it’s no wonder you’re single.”

“Are you saying you won’t come?” He lifted an eyebrow as though calling my bluff.

“Well, no, I’m not saying that, but I’m not like normal girls. I’m a bit more twisted.”

“Which is why I brought you and not anyone else.” He headed down the stairs, into the darkness, as though our conversation had ended.

It sort of had, I guess.

I took a deep breath, not a huge fan of the dark, but what was I supposed to do but head that way? When I crossed the barrier, when I got down into the stairs rather than the closet, the door shut behind me.

It plunged everything into darkness, and I lost my footing for a moment.

A moment was all it took for me to tip forward.Great, I die on some freaky stairs.

The only benefit was that since theywerestairs, I’d probably hit Ruben and take him down with me.

Except the bastard kept his balance, even when I struck him from behind, stopping my freefall.

A breath later, lights illuminated the space, soft and flickering as candles ignited along the walls, which I could now see were made of brick, appearing much older than the house had.

“Neat trick,” I muttered as I found my footing again.

A chill got to me, one that hadn’t been there before. Granted, in the mountains it had been cold, but not likethis.This was a different chill, a deeper one. I wrapped my arms around myself. “What the hell is up with the weather?”

“We aren’t where we were anymore.”

“Um, what?”

He tapped his fingers against the bricks, making me recognize that, yeah, these appearedmucholder than the rest of the building, like they were made to connect with something entirely different. “The threshold of the stairs is a portal made to connect this place with that. This place is far older than we’ve been located there.”

“So where are we now?”

“Somewhere in Northern Canada.”

“Well, that explains the cold, I guess. You didn’t warn me, so I didn’t bring my passport.”

He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around me without saying a word. “Well, we’ll have to avoid any immigration officers, won’t we?”

I stopped as he turned around. “Was that a joke?”

He didn’t answer, instead continuing down the stairs.

“Wait, I’m serious. A joke, fromyou?”

The stairs went deeper than I would have expected, and by the end, by the time we reached the ground floor, my knees were complaining about the whole thing.

However, the sight of the massive space that could only be called a library astounded me. It had to be at least three stories high, with bookshelves that ran from floor to ceiling all along it and large ladders hooked in.

It made me want to have that princess moment where I rode the ladder across the space.