Xavier couldn’t do it. Who could blame the guy? The Chamber of the Chronicles must have been some kind of house of horrors for him. And he had put himself in enough danger already.
“Thanks, Xavier. You’re a great friend. One of the best.” I smiled at him. The look he gave me in return was sobering.
“This is your journey, dead man. Yours alone. I can go no farther.” He put his arm on my shoulder, pressing heavily.
“Why do I have to do everything alone?” As soon as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true.
The Greats had sent me on my way.
Aunt Prue made sure I got a second chance.
Obidias told me everything I needed to know.
My mom gave me the strength to do it.
Amma watched for me, and believed it when she found me.
Lena sent me The Book of Moons, against all odds and all the way from the other side of the universe. Aunt Marian and Macon, Link and John and Liv—they were there for Lena when I couldn’t be.
Even the River Master and Xavier had helped me move forward, when all along it would have been so much easier to give up and go back.
I had never been alone. Not for a minute.
I may have been a Wayward, but my way was full of people who loved me. They were the only way I knew.
I could do this.
I had to.
“I understand,” I said. “Thanks, Xavier. For everything.”
He nodded. “I will meet you again, Ethan. I will see you when next you cross the river.”
“I hope it’s not for a long time.”
“I hope this as well, my friend. For you more than me.” His eyes seemed to twinkle for a second. “But I will keep busy collecting and counting until you return.”
I didn’t say anything as he slipped through the shadows and back into the world where nothing ever happened and the days became the same as nights.
I hoped he would remember me.
I was pretty sure he wouldn’t.
One by one, I touched the row of doors in front of me with my hand. Some felt as cold as ice. Some felt like nothing, like plain wood. There was only one that pulsed beneath my fingertips.
Only one burned at my touch.
I knew it was the right door, before I saw the telltale Caster circles carved into the rowan wood, just like the Temporis Porta.
This was the doorway to the heart of the Great Keep. The one place any son of Lila Jane Evers Wate would instinctively find his way, whether or not he was a Wayward.
The library.
Pushing my way through the massive doors directly across from the Temporis Porta, I knew it was time to face the most dangerous part of my journey.
Angelus would be waiting.
The doors were just the beginning. The moment I stepped into the inner chamber, I found myself standing in an almost entirely reflective room. If it was supposed to be a library, it was the strangest one I’d ever seen.