perceived him as a foreign spell more dangerous than Shannon-the-text.
The ghost didnât waste the opportunity. With a powerful jump, he flew up and through the ceiling.
He found himself on the floor of another hallway. In this one stood seven green-robed hierophants, men and women. They had all removed their veils. One had undone his turban. They were talking, or at least trying to talk. Their mouths produced only aphasic gibberish. Their eyes were wide with confusion or fear. Some were trying to communicate with gestures.
The ghost shivered. Something powerful must be moving through the sanctuary to spread an aphasia curse.
But the ghost had to get away from Nicodemus. After the Magnus sentences in his feet recovered from passing through the floor, the ghost ran down the hall in the direction of the sun. As he went, he looked out the window but saw only pale blue sky and winding city alleys. The warkites were not following him. He jumped up through the ceiling to another floor and kept running.
Then something seemed to go wrong in the ghostâs chest, as if some vital passage had gone missing. It was as if ⦠where he should have had a heart there was only hollowness.
He stopped. His chest was heaving even though he had no need to breathe. He moved to cover his face but had only one hand.
Pain flashed through him. Where his arm should have been there was only pulsing agony. He fell to his knees, let himself sink into the floor. His mind was reeling with fear. His text had been horribly depleted. How much longer could he survive outside a necropolis?
But the worst of it was that his author did not want him. His author distrusted him, and Nicodemus had tried to deconstruct him. He might not be himself. He might be a demonâs tool.
The ghostâs chest began to shake. The pain of his lost arm had dissipated, but the hollowness in his chest had expanded. The ghost felt a longing for his author so keen and agonizing it was like that of the abandoned child. He remembered with agonizing clarity when Astrophell politics had taken Shannon away from his wife and young son; both woman and child were now long dead. That pain was like this pain in its sharpness.
The ghost curled into a ball, sinking entirely into the floor. The pain in his hands, feet, and ears was a welcome distraction.
He shook all over. Though he was now contained within wood and stone, he took long ragged breaths. For what felt like hours, he wept without tears.
Slowly, emotional exhaustion set in. He seemed to sleep. When his thoughts became clear again, he considered his situation. He had no way to prove to his author that Typhon had not rewritten him. Therefore, proof had to be found. But how?
Typhon had stolen him from his author and then removed some of his memories. The notes in the library claimed âour memories are in herâ and instructed him to find Cleric Francesca DeVega.
The noteâs false claim that living Shannon had been murdered ⦠that was mysterious and troubling.
The ghost climbed out of the floor and began searching for the infirmary. But as he peered through doors and down stairwells, the hollowness in his chest returned. This time it was accompanied by fear so strong he felt nauseated.
Though the ghost tried not to think about it, some part of him knew that the being who had placed him in that library, the being who had written a lie about his author being murdered, might very well be the demon Typhon.
CHAPTER Twelve
When Cyrus and Francesca were flying above the Auburn Mountains, she studied the massive redwood trees that covered their slopes. The dark trunks grew so tall, their evergreen canopies so thick, that they blocked all but a thin wash of sunlight from the forestâs dark understory.
Scattered across the mountains were dying trees, their canopies withered to brown. Francesca had read about the unexplained demise of trees across the entire continent. The druids of Dral named the