The Shadow Crosser (The Storm Runner 3)

The three-story-high glass cases slid open with what sounded like a deep and eerie breath.

“Whoa!” Hondo said.

“Power of the dragon,” Ren whispered. “Awesome.”

“That’s it?” I asked, disappointed. “No hand delivery of the right book? Pretty weak, Itzamna, if you ask me.” I thought of all the searching we still had to do and groaned.

Brooks, Ren, and Rosie headed up the open staircase to the upper floors while Hondo and I stayed on the first level. We tugged book after book off the shelves and flipped through pages written in languages I had never seen before. Just when I was beginning to think this was hopeless, I opened a book wide and, to my amazement, the words floated an inch off the page. When the text settled back down on the spread, it was in English.

“Whoa! Did you see that?” I asked Hondo, skimming the words. “It’s about a war….”

“Right,” Hondo said, unimpressed. “But how can you trust words that just float off the page and change like that? Keep looking.”

I set down the book and opened another. This one had illustrations of dragons, bloodlettings, and diagrams of weapons like blowguns and throwing stars. Fortunately, none of them came to life. “We must be in the battle-slash-murder section,” I mumbled.

Hondo opened another libro, and incoherent whispers came out. He slammed it shut and threw it on the ground, silencing the voice. “What the hell was that?”

“Maybe it’s some kind of magical audiobook?”

Hondo stepped back with his hands in the air. “I am not opening those páginas otra vez. ¡No gracias! ¡Qué scary!”

The guy would jump into killer sludge for a magical stone, but he wouldn’t touch a book that whispered?

Ren was talking to Rosie upstairs while Brooks stomped loudly on the third floor.

“Finding anything?” I yelled up to them.

“Early history of medicine,” Ren called down from a balcony. “Astrophysics, poisonous plants…So far, nothing on a magical stone.”

Brooks grunted. “Anyone want to read the same old boring creation myths in which the gods glorify themselves? Ooh, here’s something!”

“WHAT?” we all shouted at the same time.

She leaned over a railing, peering down at us. “Sorry, I meant…it’s not what we’re looking for.” Brooks held up a thick leather-bound book. “It’s all about how to psych out your opponent—mind and spirit stuff. Hondo, you’d love this!” she said before she went back to the hunt.

Just then, there was a shuffling and a bump. I lifted Fuego, prepared to turn it into a spear, as Brooks turned into a hawk and swept down to the first floor in 0.3 seconds. Hondo and I turned to see Adrik and Alana enter. Dark circles bloomed beneath their brown eyes. There was a long moment of astonishment in which no one knew what to say or do. Like, should I ask about Ixtab? The stone? How they slept?

Brooks assumed her human shape. “Did you follow us?”

“I share a tree house with Ren,” Alana said, tugging on her sunglass strap. “When I heard her get up—”

“Oh, sorry,” Ren said, descending the staircase with Rosie. “I tried super hard to be quiet.”

Adrik came over to me like a guy on a mission. “Next time you haul me into a dream, Zan

e, how about no classrooms,” he said. “I mean, come on, man! That queen was wee-ee-ird.”

Everyone’s eyes zoomed in on me. “Uh, I…I didn’t haul you into my dream. You were just there,” I said. Then I added, “Which means you heard Ixkik’, too?”

“Yeah, man,” he said, shuddering dramatically.

Alana ran her hand along the edge of a table. “The Sparkstriker said Adrik’s power is dream walking, but he’s in big-time denial. He thinks it should be something cooler, like mind controlling or lightning throwing or something like that.”

“Did I say that?” Adrik grunted. “I just have this feeling it’s more, okay?”

“Lightning throwing?” Hondo sipped his coffee. “Is that a thing?”

Did that mean Adrik was the one who had gotten the dominant power?