The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim (the mitten read aloud .TXT) 📗

button on the washer. As the machine whirs into action, Emmett/Adeline’s surprised face begins to spin—slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he’s nothing but a blur of colors. Eventually, there’s a sharp bing!, and when I look inside the barrel again, Emmett is gone.

“Your turn!” the cheollima says to me. He chuckles and glances happily at his container of cookies. “Get it? Your turn? This is turning out to be such a great workday.”

I clasp Hattie’s heart vial around my neck and send her a mental message. We’re getting close, Hat. Just be patient—we’re going to save you, I promise.

And I hope, wherever she is, she can hear me.

After picking up Boris and wedging him in before me, I somehow defy physics and squeeze us both inside the washing machine. I poke my head out to bid the mini cheollima good-bye. “Thank you for all your help,” I say. “The Godrealm should appreciate you more.”

The cheollima dips his head in a grateful bow and then he looks me right in the eye. “Don’t forget to smile!”

He pushes the door closed with a click of his hoof. And two seconds later, the world starts to spin.

ONCE I’M EJECTED FROM the spin cycle and my brain stops whirling, my first thought is: Why is it so hot and stuffy in here?

My second thought is: Why is my skin so itchy?

I open my eyes and have to shield them from the glare. Light is pouring in through glass walls, and I realize I’ve landed on my butt in some sort of huge conservatory. Ferns, palms, and other lush, leafy greens fill every inch of the space, and the air is so thick and humid, it’s like I’m in a tropical rain forest.

“Emmett, where are you?” I call, getting to my feet by using Boris as a crutch. At least the dragon-on-wheels doesn’t look any worse for having been tossed like a salad.

I wander around and finally find Emmett sitting by a small pond in what looks like the heart of the greenhouse. Although, to be honest, I can’t be sure about that. This place is seriously big. It stretches so far to my left and right, I can’t see where it ends.

“You okay, Em?”

He’s scratching his thigh furiously with one hand, and poking a water lily with the other. He looks like his normal self again.

“Rye, did we just get punked by the cheollima?” Emmett wipes sweat off his brow. “This does not look like a library. Also, they need some AC in here.”

“I mean, he did say the library wouldn’t be what we expect….”

I lean over the pond to check out my reflection. My familiar angled features look up at me, and I frown back. Ah, I get it now. The itchiness must be from Cosette’s glamour wearing off. We’re going to have to find our way out of here as our real selves.

“Cosette said no one’s been able to activate the sacred texts since they left, right?” he says. “So maybe we need to figure that out to reveal the real library?”

My image in the water gives me a wide, welcoming smile, and I let out a yelp. “Em! Did you see that? My reflection just smiled at me.”

He looks at me as if I’ve grown cheollima wings. “Are you feeling okay? I thought I just heard you say that your reflection smiled at you.”

I steal a glance at the water again. Sure enough, my reflection is grinning like it’s won the Powerball. Without thinking, I reach out to touch the surface of the pond. The water ripples under my fingers, and my reflection blurs. But as soon as the image clears again, water-me winks.

I frown even harder.

The words of the cheollima echo in my ears. Don’t forget to smile. Is this what the horse was talking about?

Tentatively, I move my face muscles. It feels weird to smile at a reflection that isn’t actually mine, but I force myself to do it anyway.

As soon as my cheeks stretch and my expression mirrors the one in the pond’s surface, the water begins to swirl as if someone’s flipped a switch. A red glow emanates from below, and I take a sharp breath. “Em, look at the wat—”

“Rye, turn around! Now!”

The tone of Emmett’s voice throws me off guard, and I swivel around in a hurry. My jaw drops open.

The conservatory has become overpopulated by birds. Fowl of every shape and size are perched in the greenery side by side, stacked on each branch like colorful book spines on a shelf. There are orange-beaked toucans sitting in the palms, kingfishers balanced on the ferns, and even tricolored scarlet macaws rustling their tail feathers on the lily pads.

And they’re all staring at us.

Emmett gawks. “Where did they come from?” He shudders. “So many eyes…Just. So. Many. Eyes.”

I study the birds carefully and realize there’s a certain order to them. Each one is different, but they’re organized by color, size, shape, and plumage.

“It’s weird,” I think out loud. “It’s like they’re waiting for something.”

I walk toward the closest flock and tentatively extend my hand toward a bright hornbill. It has a heart-shaped mark on its head, and it squawks at me before nipping my finger. But as soon as I touch its feathers, the bird vanishes. Instead, it is replaced with a heavy tome entitled The Art of Infusing: Love Tonics, Part II. It floats in the air above the tree branch, spine up, flapping its pages like wings.

I gasp and pull it toward me. “Em! They’re not birds—they’re books!”

The sacred texts had been lost to the witches ever since the scholar clan was banished. But I had somehow managed to awaken the books simply by smiling at my reflection in the pond water. Was it because I was of Horangi blood? That might explain why Emmett’s reflection hadn’t smiled at him….

My mind reels. It strikes me that I could’ve had access to a whole world of