Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins Read Free Book Online Page A

off the bed. “Now come on. I did a little exploring while you took that epic nap. You were out for like three hours. Anyway, I was scared to go too far by myself.”
    “You scared? You know you could probably take out anything that goes bump in the night?”
    Jenna shrugged. “Yeah, but being a vampire doesn’t protect you from getting lost. I really didn’t feel like wandering around this spooky house for all eternity.”
    “Thorne Abbey isn’t spooky,” I said. “ Hecate is spooky. This place is just…different.”
    “It’s huge,” Jenna said, her eyes wide. “Didn’t you hear what Lara said? Thirty-one kitchens. Just kitchens , Soph.”
    My mouth watered at the thought of food. “I wonder which one is making dinner tonight.”
    Jenna and I stepped out into the hallway. There were several lamps affixed to the walls, but it was still gloomy. “It’s weird to think of one family living in this house,” I said.
    “This wasn’t even the Thorne family’s primary residence,” Jenna said, like she was quoting from a guidebook. “They had a mansion in London, a castle in the north of Scotland, and a hunting lodge in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, they lost most of their wealth after World War II, and in 1951, they were forced to sell all of their properties except for the Abbey. It still belongs to the Thorne family.”
    “Dude. How do you know all of this?”
    Jenna looked a little sheepish. “I told you. You were napping for a long time and I got bored,” she said. “There’s this insane library downstairs, and they have a whole bunch of books about the history of the house. Some really fascinating stuff happened here. Like those big statues in the foyer? They were commissioned by Philip Thorne in 1783 after his wife committed suicide by throwing herself down the stairs.”
    “Gruesome,” I replied, but something was bothering me. It was that name, Thorne. I knew I’d heard it somewhere before, but where? And why did I feel like it was so important?
    As we walked downstairs, Jenna rattled off more history about the house. “Oh! One thing I read was really neat. In the late 1930s, Thorne Abbey was a school for girls.”
    A faint alarm bell began ringing in the back of my head.
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. During the Blitz, they had to evacuate a bunch of kids from London, including whole schools. The Thornes figured girls make the least mess, so they opened the Abbey to nine ‘ladies’ colleges.”
    And just like that, it all clicked. I knew exactly where I’d heard the name before.

M y stomach rolled. “Oh my God.”
    “It’s not that interesting,” Jenna said, but I shook my head.
    “No, not that. Did the book have any pictures of those girls?”
    “Yeah. I think I saw a few.”
    I could hear the blood rushing in my ears as I said, “Okay, I need to see that book. Now.”
    Jenna looped her arm through mine as we walked down one of the many hallways branching off the main foyer. “I left it sitting on the window seat in the library,” she said. “I bet it’s still there.”
    We passed countless closed doors and turned down three different halls before reaching the library. Like the rest of the house, it was gorgeous. And gigantic.
    I actually froze in the doorway for a second. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen so many books in my life. Shelf after shelf stretched out before me, and twin spiral staircases curled up to the second level, where there were even more books. Low couches were scattered throughout the room, and Tiffany lamps cast soft pools of light on the hardwood floor. Large windows at the other end of the room looked out over the river and let in the last few rays of the setting sun.
    The window seat was empty.
    “Crap,” Jenna sighed. “I swear I left it there like twenty minutes ago.”
    “Do you remember where you found the book?” I asked. “Maybe someone came in and reshelved it.”
    Jenna bit her lip. “Yeah, I think so. It was upstairs by this really weird