Starspell: The Vale of Stars Book 2 by Hailey Griffiths

Author:Hailey Griffiths [Griffiths, Hailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

13

The Fire Stone

“I’ve told Stevan that the parcel which arrived for my son—our son—is a precious gem. A gift of congratulations. But I know that it’s a fire crystal—and a threat.”

Jurith, 30th Grace

There was no hope of staying hidden, so Elle chose speed over secrecy. She barreled across the still empty street, pulling starmarks out of the air as she ran. Felo for luck, but also for light. She pushed them into her hair as her other hand reached for icy starmarks.

These she threw at the lock on the heavy front door, ice blossoming across the golden handle and onto the wood. The headache that had been throbbing behind her ears screamed into life as she neared the trunk of the hearthome, and then suddenly disappeared as small golden birds in the branches exploded, scattering little cogs and springs across the path.

Any hope of remaining undiscovered was completely gone.

The Felo marks in her hair protected her from the smoking-hot clockwork shards that rained down on the street in front of the orphanage, and she made it to the front door unscathed, and even more miraculously, unseen.

The ice had made the lock brittle, and it gave way as she slammed her body against the door. She stumbled into the entrance hall of the orphanage and blinked at the sudden darkness. The starmarks in her hair illuminated the barest shapes of small cloaks hung neatly along one wall.

It was utterly silent now. Probably not a good sign.

Elle wasted precious seconds letting her eyes adjust to the dim lighting and tried to decide which direction to go in. She regretted every invitation of Sephanie’s she’d ever declined. She only had the memory of the floorplan they’d found in Sylve’s library to go on.

To the right, a set of stairs spiraled upward. Not there.

Straight ahead, an iron-banded door. The kitchen.

That only left a smaller, friendly-looking door set slightly to the side of the kitchen door. It should lead to what used to be Sephanie’s office and apartments—and to the basement.

The light of the Felo marks woven into her hair bobbed across the entrance hall, illuminating the scars on the walls where the internal vines of the hearthome used to grow. Anger bubbled into her chest at the scars, displacing some of the panic that had animated her.

It made her reckless. She turned the handle on the office door and threw it open.

Annoyingly, it swung open slowly, despite the violence of her action, its old arthritic hinges protesting at the movement.

The office was darkened, but positively bright compared to the entrance hall. Jars of flamemoths were scattered around, but only one had been fed. The sugar cube at the bottom was small, almost all eaten. The light wouldn’t last much longer.

The stairwell leading to the basement was behind an austerely clean desk. A state it likely had never been in while Sephanie was alive. The office was organized to the point of anonymity. Whoever used this office now—it was in use, there were very neatly stacked papers at the edge of the desk—wasn’t a person given over to any kind of mess.

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