The Elf Prince Is My Baby Daddy novel · Chapter 18 of 32

Chapter 18: Fire Again

"Back," I said. "Away from the door."

Seren was already coughing.

We ran back through the shelves, into the dark, as far from the smoke as the archive went.

It didn't go far enough.

The smoke came after us, low and gray, rolling along the floor between the racks.

Old paper went up in the stairwell with a sound.

The far wall was solid stone.

No window.

No door.

"There's no other way out," Seren said. "I know the plans. I've read the plans. There's no other way."

I put my hand on the wall.

It was cold. Behind the cold, under it, something knocked.

Slow.

Deep.

Very old.

The star-tree.

Its roots went down deeper than the palace.

I'd felt them on the night of the trial, going down and down under the Star Court, under the old stones.

Right over our heads.

"Seren," I said. "Get behind me. Hold the books."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to ask a tree for a favor."

I pressed both palms flat against the stone and shut my eyes.

I found the heartbeat. I found the long, deep roots, the thickest ones, the ones I'd woken.

Please, I thought.

I'm under you.

Come down.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the wall groaned.

A crack ran up the stone from the floor to the ceiling. Dust poured out of it.

A root the width of my waist burst through the crack, pale and living, shoving the stones apart.

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