Chantress Read Online Free

was fading so quickly that the soft notes were half swallowed up by the beating of my own heart.
    My bewilderment only grew as I caught sight of the necklace still dangling from my fingers. In place of the dull ochre pendant I’d expected to see, a ruby sparkled. It glowed against my skin like a small red-hot sun.
    I stared at it in dismay, then ran my fingers over it. To the touch, it was still my stone, the same size and shape and weight, with bevels and bumps in precisely the same places. But if it was my stone, why and how had it changed? And what was I to do with it?
    Keep it around your neck, child. With Norrie’s constant admonition ringing in my memory, I looped the necklace back in place. I couldn’t tell if it was protecting me, but its familiar weight was comforting.
    As I tucked the stone into my bodice, something rustled in my sleeve: my mother’s letter, tucked there in haste and forgotten until now. After glancing around to make sure the library truly wasempty, I hastened to the fire. Perhaps the letter had changed along with my stone, and now it would give me the guidance I needed.
    Even in the bright firelight, however, the letter was no more legible than before. Discouraged, I tucked it back into my sleeve for safekeeping. Only then did I become aware that the last faint music had dwindled into nothing.
    Unnerved by the silence, I looked around hesitantly. At the far end of the room, a massive door stood slightly ajar—apparently the only way out. But when I walked toward it, chill air wafted over me, smelling of damp and sawdust and something disturbing that I couldn’t put a name to. I took a step back and turned toward the nearest bookcase. Perhaps before leaving I was meant to find something here: a guide to magic, perhaps, or another letter from my mother, or a map. Anything, really, that might help me feel a little less lost.
    I pulled out the first book that came to hand, a thick volume that was out of line with the others. Bound in red and black leather, it was titled Id. Chan.
    Looking for more clues, I leaned toward the hearth light and read the title page:
    O N THE I DENTIFICATION OF C HANTRESSES,
    T HEIR P HYSICAL M ARKS AND C HARACTERISTICS;
    B EING ALSO A G UIDE TO T HEIR H ABITS , T ERRITORIES, AND P OWERS ,
    H UMBLY S UBMITTED TO THE L ORD P ROTECTOR,
    BY AN A RDENT S CHOLAR
    AND D EVOTED F RIEND
    Chantress . My mother had used that word in her letter. I pulled the book closer and rifled the pages. Was there anything here that might help me?
    I was still scanning the Table of Contents when I heard a clank some distance behind me.
    In a flash, I slipped the book back into place.
    Where could I hide? The polished tables and cane chairs by the hearth were too bare and open to offer any refuge. And every other square inch of the library was devoted to books . . .
    . . . except the draperies.
    I bounded to the left-hand bay and parted the yards of flowing velvet. Behind them, a high window sat deep in the stone wall. So bubbled and skewed were its panes, however, that I could see very little through them—only a blurry twilight sky and a high, crenellated wall. Was I in a castle, then, or some grand manor house?
    Well, wherever I was, I must take care not to be seen. I crouched under the window and rearranged the draperies. Leaving a tiny slit at eye level, I settled myself—and only just in time, because a panel by the fireplace swung open. A tall boy in dark clothes stepped through it and stole into the room.
    At first, I guessed him to be somewhere around my own age, but then I wasn’t so certain. Was he a year or two older, perhaps? It had been so long since I had seen anyone but Norrie, and there was an intensity about this boy that made him hard to pin down.
    He padded along the line of shelves toward my own hiding place, till he was so close that I could see the fierce light in his eyes.Crossing to the other side of the room, he scanned the cases, then knelt and removed a moss-green