The fire spread faster than I thought fire could move, climbing shelf to shelf, swallowing centuries of paper in seconds. Smoke thickened until I couldn't see past my own hands, and every breath dragged in more heat than air. My eyes streamed. My throat burned with every cough.
Kael threw his shoulder against the door again. It didn't budge.
"It's barred from outside," he said, coughing through the smoke. "We need another way."
"There isn't another way. This room has one door."
"Then we make one."
He drove his shoulder into the wood a third time, and I heard something c***k, though whether it was the door or his own bones I couldn't tell through the roar of the flames. The ceiling groaned above us. A beam gave way somewhere near the far wall, crashing down in a shower of sparks that s
