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Ithan lunged for the book that had somehow skittered for the office doorway, landing atop it with a thud that echoed through his bones.

To his dismay, the book squirmed under him, trying to wriggle for the door and the world beyond.

“Keep it down over there,” Jesiba growled above her typing.

Ithan grunted, pressing all his considerable weight onto the errant book—

“Enough,” Jesiba snapped, and the book stilled at the command in her voice.

Yet Ithan didn’t move until he was certain the book had fully obeyed its mistress. Uncurling to peer down at the blue leather-bound book, he tensed, then reached a hand for it.

But the book just lay there. Dormant. Like any other book—

It snapped for his fingers, and Ithan lunged again.

“Lehabah was much more effective—and ate far less. Where does all that food go, wolf?”

Ithan couldn’t answer as he again wrestled the book into submission, wrapping the tome in his arms. Clutching it to his chest, he eased to his feet, then stomped toward the shelf where it was supposed to have stayed while he unpacked yet another crate—

“I said enough,” Jesiba snapped again, and the book froze in Ithan’s arms. He shoved it back on the shelf before it could get away. Then gave it another shove as a fuck you.

The book shoved back, as if it’d leap off the shelf and go at him for round three, but a golden ripple of light shimmered down its spine—a barrier falling back into place. Wards to seal the magical books in. The book thudded against it—and could go no further.

Jesiba said from the desk, “I thought I’d outsmarted it with the previous ward, but let’s see it try to get through that one.”

As if in answer, the book again rattled on the shelf. Ithan flipped it off, then faced the sorceress.

He’d been working nonstop for the past day, unpacking crates, inspecting the goods, cataloging the contents, rewrapping the artifacts inside, attaching new shipping labels … Busywork, but it kept him occupied.

Kept him from thinking about the blood on his hands. The body he could only hope was indeed on ice somewhere in this subterranean warren.

He didn’t leave Roga’s office. She had food delivered from the House’s private kitchens—and if he needed to rest, she ordered him to curl up on the carpet like the dog he was.

He did, ignoring the insult, and slept deeply enough that she’d had to prod him with a foot to wake him.

He might have objected had she not been the bearer of good news: Hunt Athalar, Ruhn Danaan, and Baxian Argos had escaped from the Asteri’s dungeons during a rescue operation that had incinerated the entirety of the Spine.

The Hind had done it. Tharion and Flynn and Dec had done it. Somehow, they’d pulled it off. Relief had tightened his throat to the point of pain, even as shame for not helping them twisted his gut.

Since then, Ithan and Jesiba had spoken little. Roga had mostly been on calls with clients or off at House meetings she didn’t tell him about, but now … Ithan peered at the shelf, at the magic book again shuddering against the wards holding it in place.

“During the Summit,” Ithan said, ignoring the belligerent volume, “Micah said your books were from the Library of Parthos.” Amelie had gossiped about it afterward. “That they’re all that’s left of it.”

“Mmm,” Jesiba murmured, continuing to clack away at her keyboard.

Ithan threw himself into the chair before her desk. “I thought Parthos was a myth.”

“The books say otherwise, don’t they?”

“What’s the truth, then?”

“Not one that’s easy to swallow for Vanir.” But she stopped typing. Her eyes lifted above the computer screen to find his.

“Amelie Ravenscroft claimed that Micah said the library held two thousand years of human knowledge before the Asteri.”

“And?” Her face revealed nothing.

He pointed to the pissed-off book. “So the humans had magic?”