How am I supposed to see Dom in the Forbidden Library if only wizards can enter?

In that moment, it all clicks. Marist told me Dom is always inside the Forbidden Library.

Dom is a wizard. What was a wizard doing teaching a witch how to play scheme?

I look over at Kiora. “Did Dom know that Arbor was a witch?”

“I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know why she would've told him.”

If Dom found out, he very easily could've killed Arbor. Wizards and witches are mortal enemies. They are both each other's Achilles' heel. He had all the motivation in the world.

But how did Marist know Dom? Dom was connected to Arbor, so how did Marist get involved with that portion of things?

Something isn't adding up. I feel like it's right there, right in front of me, like the answer is on the tip of my tongue, but I can't think of the right word to say.

If I can't get inside the Forbidden Library, I can at least get inside the Austerium. Maybe I can get Dom's attention from the entrance of the Forbidden Library. If I have Silvy open a portal at the entrance of the Forbidden Library, what am I supposed to do with Cerulea and Kiora?

I make up my mind.

“Give me your cloak,” I tell Cerulea.

She hesitates, looking down at the gaping maw we're floating towards.

“Now,” I say. “Give me your cloak if you want to live.”

Cerulea, still looking hesitant, pulls off her cloak and hands it over.

I slip it on. It's a bit short in the sleeves, but other than that, it fit as though it's mine.

“Silvy,” I say, “deposit Cerulea onto an oil rig somewhere off the coast of the U.S.”

Silvy smiles and before Cerulea has a chance to say anything or try to stop me, a portal opens below her and she shoots through as though she's been sucked into it.

“Where?” I ask.

“Off the coast of Florida.”

I not. “Fine.”

I look over at Kiora. She holds her hands up.

“Relax,” I say. “I'm not putting you on an oil rig. I'm going to put you in Galveston.”

She breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Do you know where in Galveston the safe house is?”

She shakes her head no. “I don't, but I know a place where I can ask.”

That's an interesting nugget of information. If she knows of a place where she can ask, there must be some a group of witches in Galveston.

I nod. “Okay. So where do you want Silvy to put you? The Strand? The beach?”

“Put me on the Strand. On the side with the Railroad Museum.”

Before I have a chance to say anything else, Silvy pops a portal open below Kiora and she's sucked into it.

Silvy floats in a circle around my head. “I must say, your actions make no sense, darling.”

I chew on my lip, looking down at the open mouth that's now only twenty feet away.

“Yeah,” I say, “to you maybe. To me though, they make all the sense in the world.”

“If you say so.” Silvy shrugs.

“Open a portal into the Austerium. Put it far enough away from the entrance to the Forbidden Library that I don't draw attention when I go through it.”

Silvy chuckles. “You’re going to act like an adept? You can't get into the Forbidden Library. You're not a wizard.”

I nod. “You're right. I'm not a wizard. I'm a witch.”

“Whatever that means,” Silvy says and opens a portal below me.

As soon as I'm on the other side of the portal, the cold hits me. It's such a marked change that my bones physically ache. My teeth immediately started chattering. I pull my parka closer around me.

“You look like you're smuggling something,” Silvy comments as my feet lightly touch the marble tile of an Austerium hallway.

She isn't wrong. I'm wearing Cerulea's cloak over my parka. I look different than everyone else, but not so different that I think it will make a difference, especially if I keep the cloak’s hood pulled up.

A pang of nostalgia shoots through me. When I first entered Anara, before I got cursed, I saw something similar to what I'm seeing now.

Cloaked figures in the same color I'm wearing move here and there, busy little bees. The walls of the Austerium are gold and the marble on the floor is solid black. Twenty feet above the marble, glowing chandeliers float. The lights on the chandeliers represented the different major plaines.

At the far end of the hall are two massive doors. Three adepts stand to either side of these doors, and everyone walks past, ignoring them completely.

I stay where I am, in the shadows, for several moments before I step out. I need more info. I need to figure out what's going on.

Why are they guarding the doors if only wizards can access the Forbidden Library?

I fall in beside another adept who's walking slowly, mindlessly scrolling on her lumadex.

“I must've missed the memo,” I say in a sleepy voice. “I've been working too long.”

The adept snorts. “That's true of us all. I think my last shift was thirty-six hours.”

“No kidding. Mine was a little under thirty-four. So what's going on with the Forbidden Library?”

The adept glances at me, takes in the cloak, and returns her focus to her lumadex.

“The centennial scheme tournament.”

“Wow. I love scheme.”

The adept snorts again. “You couldn't get in even if you wanted.”

“Why?”

“It's wizards only and unless you're the thrall of a wizard who's participating, you can't get in. Even to watch.”

“Why do they have thralls? Why don't they just play it themselves?”

“You don't think a wizard would risk their life over a game, do you?”

“Wait, they're playing death scheme?”

The adept looks at me longer than I would've liked.

“Yes,” she finally answers, stretching the single word out to five times its regular length. She examines me. “What department do you work in again?”

“I work for Lebec, with Cerulea.”

The adept looks at me for a half second longer before returning her gaze to her lumadex. “They really must keep you in the dark.”

“They do,” I agree.

I decide I've gotten as much information out of her as I'm willing to try for and think I might have better luck if I turn my attention to someone else.

I peel away from the adept, weaving between other adepts and casters walking the halls, looking for someone alone. As I draw closer to the entrance of the Forbidden Library, I see a person in a cloak approach the doors.

The adepts never move.

The cloaked figure reaches out to turn the doorknob and pull open the giant doors, but their hand never makes it within an inch of the door.

Their entire cloak blazes alight with flame and they fall to the marble, screaming.

Once the flames burn out, two of the adepts on either side of the door rush forward, pick the burned person up, and disappear down one of the hallways.

The two absent adepts are quickly replaced.

“I think you should just give it a shot, darling,” Silvy says. “Just reach your hand out. It'll be fun.”

Silvy is both right and wrong. I need to get into that library, but I'm not willing to light myself on fire and get hauled off to an Austerium dungeon.

Farther away, I see an adept aimlessly strolling, their hands in their pockets, looking up at the ceiling as if in thought. I fall in beside them and speak. “Have a lot of people tried to enter the Forbidden Library today?”

The adept jumps and looks at me with wild eyes.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”

The woman pulls her cloak back and laughs at me. “My head’s in the clouds. Sorry. What was the question?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if many people had been hauled off like that last person was?”

“Hauled off from where?” the woman asks.

“Someone just tried to access the Forbidden Library and caught on fire.”

“It happens.” The woman laughs and shakes her head. “Casters think that maybe they're strong enough to enter. The problem is self-confidence won't get you in.”

I nod. “How often do they try?”

“Try to get in? Oh, I don't know, once a week maybe. More whenever there's a tournament taking place like the centennial one that's going on right now.”

“My boss keeps me in the dark. What's the centennial tournament?”

“It's the only one of the yearly tournaments that's a death scheme tournament. And it's the only one where the Austerium opens their vaults and places a single, powerful item up as the prize.”

“Why would they do that?”

“It's the Austerium,” she says. “It's run by wizards. Why wouldn't they do that?”

I nod even though it doesn't make sense to me at all. “What was the item?”

The adept shrugs. “Only the wizards know.”

I nod again.

There's still something I'm missing. Something—

My mouth falls open as I watch someone I recognize approach the entrance to the Forbidden Library.

It's Renald’s boss.

He glances around, but his eyes pass right over me, not recognizing me in the adept robe I'm wearing.

He pauses before the doors of the Forbidden Library.

I shake my head.

Is he a wizard?

I watch as he squeezes his left hand tightly. I watch as he squeezes it even harder and see his hand light up with a faint glow before that glow disappears.

He reaches his hand out for the doorknob and grabs it, turning it and pushing it open. The adepts to either side stomp their feet once, almost as though they're announcing him. He walks through the door and it closes behind him.

That glow in his hand came from the witchstone he stole from me, from the ampstone.