Books. Books everywhere. The castle may be ours, but this feels like home in a way I’ve not experienced for… however long it has been.
I brush my fingers over the spines of several books. They’re old and weathered. Not new books, kept pristine in a castle library, but well-loved, well-used, promising to lure me into mythical worlds.
It takes me a moment to realize there are eyes resting on me.
I look up through the stacks, and see my husband smiling as if he knew a part of me vanished the second we arrived here.
“You have an account,” Thiago muses, his eyes sparklingly wickedly. “Get whatever you like. I’ll have them sent up to the castle and after I’ve finished my errand, we’ll dine at Wayfarer’s.”
Hesitation steals through me. He shrugged off that moment in the square, but I can feel it still, lingering in every look he grants me.
“Dinner,” I promise.
An hour passes.
Thiago slipped back inside not long ago, saying he’d left his message and was waiting for the Prince of Shadows to contact him. He muttered something about ordering food for us, and I promised I’d meet him shortly as I stole into the darker recesses of the bookshop.
There are little nooks and crannies everywhere, filled with bookcases that seem carved out of the roots of the mighty oak. But it’s the trail of breadcrumbs I’m following that steal my attention.
The hob promised this section contains all the old lore to be found.
So far I have nothing.
Every royal crown on this section of the continent has a bland background. Thiago knew a little about the unseelie crowns, but nothing of interest.
What I do know is this: The Crown of Shadows was named as one of the powerful relics that drove the Old Ones back during the wars against the alliance the Unseelie and Old Ones formed. Thiago thought it could be used as a conduit for the fae to access the Old Ones’ power, but it was lost during the wars, and there’s been no word of it since.
The only entity I could ask who might possibly know the truth about it is the Mother of Night, but I don’t trust her to tell me the truth.
It has to be here somewhere.
There has to be some myth, some old tale… something.
Relics of power.
Blaedwyn, one of the queens of Unseelie, wielded the Sword of Mourning against the Erlking. They say her heart turned to stone the moment she set hands to it.
I should know. I used it. It was never meant for another hand, but as I struggled to lift it, the Mother of Night appeared and somehow, she absorbed its weight so I could wield it.
If I clench my fist I can still feel the sword out there, driven deep into the heart of the Hallow that trapped the Erlking.
How did the Mother of Night touch it?
She wants the crown and she can touch the sword.
I start thumbing through books. Maybe it’s not the crown I need to find. Maybe it’s the sword. Who forged the sword? Something like that isn’t easily crafted. They’d have to be an expert, highly practiced in magic.
And powerful.
I’m not alone—the murmur of quiet voices rumbles in the background—but one word strikes me out of my absorption.
“…finally let that slut out of the castle,” whispers a harsh voice. “Does he think we’re going to bow and kiss her feet the way we’re forced to kiss his?”
“For now,” rumbles a second voice.
My hands still, the pulse kicking in my throat.
“Patience, friends.” A third man cuts through the undertone, his voice like a knife through velvet. “The Gray Guild is meeting on Elms Day. That bastard may present himself as prince all he likes, but he doesn’t rule beneath the city. And there are means to counteract his magic.”
Heart quickening, I slip closer, reaching up to ease the book I hold back onto a shelf. As I do, I catch a glimpse of three cloaked figures hiding within the next row of shelves.
One of them is tall and cloaked in dark gray, the others of middling height. The leaner one of those two wears black, and the other a dark green.
“They say he’s going to bind her to the lands and offer her up as queen,” hisses the one in green.
It’s me.
They’re talking about me.
I squat down, toying with several books as if I’m completely focused upon them, but every inch of me stiffens.
“If the bastard does that,” says the second man, “then the city will rise. She’s not one of us. She’s not—”
“Neither is he,” the green cloak points out.
But it’s the taller man who cuts them short. “These are the types of words….” He pauses, and then waves his hand in the air. Gold sparks form out of nowhere, widening into a circle around them, and then, even though I can see their mouths moving, I can’t hear what they’re saying.
A ward.
But if there’s one I learned in my mother’s court, it’s how to slip through one.
Splaying my palm against the floor, I let my conscious crawl across the floor and slip beneath the edges of the ward. If I stay as small and quiet as a mouse, they won’t even notice me. It’s not the sort of thing I’d try with someone of Thiago’s power—he’d sense me for sure—but the throb of power around these three doesn’t push at the skin, the way Thiago’s does.
The sudden crack of words is almost startling
“…doesn’t have the power to bind the lands,” murmurs the tall man. “My contacts in Asturia tell me she’s pathetically underwhelming. Can barely light a hearth. Be patient. This game is not over yet.”
“And if she does manage it?” says a cold, hard voice that I think belongs to the black cloak.
“There are pieces in play. Keep your mouths quiet until Elms Day. We have a plan that shall remove this blight from the throne forever.”
Silence falls as they both stare at
