Love Reborn by Yvonne Woon

Author:Yvonne Woon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd

CHAPTER 10

THE CASTLE

THE ELDERS OF THE HIGH Court fanned out over the white wood, each kneeling over the pool, their lips parting slightly before snapping shut, while the Monitors of the Lower Court held Theo, Anya, and me back. After examining the small black box from my bag, my grandfather turned to me.

“This is no map,” he said. “Where did you find this?”

His words startled me. How did he know about the map?

When I refused to respond, he stepped closer to me, so that no one else would hear. I could smell the coffee on his breath. “Where is the map?”

I inched away. “I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My grandfather grasped my arm. “Of course you do. Did Mr. Berlin take it and give it to the Liberum? Or have you hidden it from me?”

I winced as he searched my pockets, but all he found were the bits of cloth that Dante had left behind. He studied them, frowning, then let them flutter to the ground.

“I know they attacked you at the inn,” he said. “We just came from there. They had some interesting things to tell us.”

I wanted to pick up the scraps of cloth, but I held myself back. “They came in the middle of the night,” I said.

“And yet you survived,” he said. “Which means they were coming for something else. Maybe a certain map that you had dug up from the bottom of a lake?”

He must have been able to read the guilt on my face, for he clenched his jaw as though I had answered his question, then approached the elders. They huddled together for what felt like ages, their voices hushed. While they spoke, I thought I saw the pale figure of a girl peek through the trees in the distance, just in front of the birch cabin. She had a fair complexion, with long hair the colour of straw. She looked almost exactly like the girl I had seen flash in front of the window at the last point on the map. The canary weathervane shifted with the wind. When I looked back at the girl, she was gone.

My grandfather turned to the rest of the Monitors of the Lower Court. “The Liberum are closer than ever,” he announced. “As I suspected, the Undead that we’ve been tracking, Dante Berlin, has joined forces with them, and has given them what they have been searching for all these years – the Cartesian Map.”

A murmur rose over the junior Monitors.

“The actual Cartesian Map?” one of them said. “The map that leads to the Netherworld?” another chimed in. “How?” another said. “Is it real?”

“Whether or not it is authentic has yet to be determined,” my grandfather continued. “But what is more important is that the Liberum believe it to be genuine. They are following it now, and are after what they have always sought – eternal life. The Liberum have already apprehended Pruneaux, and attacked the Mädchen Inn. We cannot let them do any more damage.

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