Lira's breath hitched—not from exertion, but from raw surprise. So this is his foxhole. All those playful jokes about secret hobbies suddenly rang half true.
Serelith stepped through and vanished.
Lira leaned back into the alcove's darkness. Cerys's knuckles brushed hers, silent question: Now?
She nodded once.
They waited a full minute—long enough for the bookcase to grind shut—before darting forward. Cerys knelt to inspect the track along the floor, eyes narrowing at minute brass shavings. Lira, meanwhile, studied the false shelf. Her gloved hands mapped each spine until they felt the faint heat of enchantment. She found the bark-beetle tome, tilted, pushed.
The mechanism obeyed with a soft mechanical sigh. Beyond lay a narrow corridor ribbed with steel struts, sloping downward. Tiny crystals embedded at ankle height glimmered pale green, illuminating evenly without casting glare. It looked nothing like the castle's torch-lit stone; it looked… modern, almost foreign.
