He was alone.

He was alone. Darkness surrounded him and threatened to swallow up his solitary, frail figure. All that protected him was a single candle, which was slowly pooling onto the table in front of him, his time was running out. He wiped one palm and then the other on either side of his tattered robe to stem the flow of nervous sweat that was making it difficult to flick through the pages of the document in front of him as quickly as he needed. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone worked it out.
All around him the vast shelves of ancient books and transcripts stood like towering sentinels, watching him in silent judgement. But he knew he was doing the right thing, nothing could save the young prince now except the old magic. He had stolen, lied and cheated to get here, and broken every vow he had ever made. None of that mattered, the only important thing was to find the correct spell, memorise it and head back to the castle before anyone noticed he was gone, or figured out what he was doing.
The light from the single candle was starting to gutter out when, suddenly, it seemed to burst back into life, the room was illuminated again and there it was, the words he had been looking for right there on the page in front of him. Then he heard it, faint footsteps and the clatter of iron, he spun around to see the torch getting closer and the candle finally went out.