Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hysterics.”
    Elise wasn’t hysterical. She was furious.
    With a sweep of her arms, she sent Paimon’s papers scattering over the floor, then slammed her knuckles into his bare desk hard enough to dent the wood. Another shock of pain. It was good.
    “The information she gave me wasn’t enough,” Elise said, enunciating each syllable. “I looked weak. I was forced to drain myself to kill the prisoner. Onoskelis failed me.”
    Annoyance pinched Paimon’s lips together. “Really, now.” He slid out of his chair and landed on the ground. Standing, he was barely tall enough to reach Elise’s hips. He waddled to the nearest papers and began gathering them. “Did she teach you warlock magic?”
    “No. She gave me a book.” A book that Elise had accidentally set on fire while testing the runes. It was now a charred pile of papers in her room.
    “An instruction manual?”
    “Not exactly,” Elise said. There may have been instructions, but she never would have known. She couldn’t read the language the book was written in. It wasn’t vo-ani . She had tried casting the infernal runes in the appendix the same way that she cast ethereal runes, assuming that the processes had to be similar.
    Apparently not similar enough.
    “You failed to make use of a gift from Onoskelis, and you’re blaming it on her,” Paimon said.
    Elise quivered with rage and hunger. “She said she would help me.”
    “Did she?”
    Now Elise understood what he was getting at, and it just made her angrier. No, Onoskelis hadn’t said she would help Elise. The librarian had been about as impressed by Elise’s demands as Paimon, and had given her the book mostly as a way to get her out of the Great Library.
    He already knew this. He was only asking the questions to piss her off.
    Or to prove a point.
    Elise helped him gather the papers she had shoved to the floor. She moved more quickly than he did, and she had collected most of the mess within a couple of minutes. She set them on the desk.
    By the time she spoke again, she was calmer. “It’s not normal for the librarians to vanish, is it?”
    “Sometimes,” Paimon said.
    “When will they be back?”
    “They won’t. Not in this genesis.”
    Elise sat in front of the desk. “Genesis?”
    Paimon scrambled to get back into his chair—a graceless movement that involved a lot of wild kicking. Comfortable on his cushion once more, he began sorting his papers. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I will be here as long as you need me. I will keep the Library in order.”
    Big job for a small toad. The Library occupied most of an entire tower, and it was filled with hundreds of shelves of ancient texts and scrolls. There were also more shelves underground, below the crystal floor—Elise had no idea how many. Onoskelis had made it clear that nobody was allowed down there. Even the woman currently in charge.
    “I’m going to lose control of the Palace if I don’t figure out warlock magic,” Elise said.
    Paimon licked his thumb with a skinny tongue, shuffling through the corners of a few pages, as if to make sure they were in order. “The administration changes frequently.”
    And apparently he didn’t care who was in charge. Onoskelis had usually seemed to be of a similar opinion. Sometimes, though, Elise had thought—or at least hoped—that the enigmatic librarian supported her. Stupid hopes. She hadn’t supported Elise enough to continue staffing the library, much less help her find the information she needed.
    “Then maybe you can point me in the direction of more helpful books,” Elise said through her teeth, trying to speak as nicely as possible. “There must be something.”
    He knuckled his spectacles, pushing them in front of his beady eyes again. “I will think about it.”
    Elise dug her fingernails into her kneecaps.
    “Thank you,” she bit out.
    She moved to stand, but Paimon spoke. “Onoskelis was working in the lower stacks before her departure. She left quite