Fae's Fate: Fated Mates of the Fae Royals (Summer Court Book 7)

5. Malachi

The Summer Court library was magical. Special. Flowering trees flourished inside the building as though they were making the books themselves, but here… here magic hummed from the books. I curled my fingers into my palms to stop them from touching the nearest book. We didn’t have time for me to read every book here, but one day when we had the time, for I was sure we’d find a cure to our problems then I’d come back here and read every word on every page. My brain hungered for the knowledge waiting to be read in so many tomes.

Ciara touched her fingertips against her temple.

“You’re safe,” I whispered. “Look around. There are many lights, so you won’t get trapped.”

She nodded and stepped forward. Her sister talked with their leader animatedly which made hope flare even brighter inside me. I was such a fool sometimes for always believing in good. I wanted to believe these people were good too.

“Where do we start?” Ciara asked.

Alister motioned to the table. “We’ve found several books with water magic referenced in them.”

“Good,” Ciara said, sliding onto the bench seat and picking up a book. Her fear of being underground was forgotten now she’d focused on the pages before her. “How much have you read?”

Alister shrugged. “Passages here and there. You see how many books are in the library.”

“No one has read them all?” I asked sliding onto the bench seat beside Ciara.

“No,” Alister said. “There is no way a human would read all these books in one lifetime.”

“Perhaps,” I said picking up a book and opening it. “How did they all get here?”

“They were here long before I was alive. I couldn’t say how long they’ve been here, to be honest. While there is a lot of information here, none of it pertains to our Fellowship. But then there is the…”

I lifted my head. “Where are your books then?”

“An excellent question. Come with me.”

Ciara stood at the same time as me, our arms brushed sending a flare of awareness through my body. It was easier to keep my attraction to her locked down whenever I hugged her because I was always thinking about not letting it show, but accidental touches were different. They set my body alight with a need to devour her in passion. I shoved those thoughts back down into the depths of my repressed feelings for my best friend. We followed Alister along the length of the library until we arrived at the end.

Before us stood a bookshelf. There was no difference in the way it appeared to all the other bookshelves. They’d made it from wood. The shelves housed many volumes of books. They appeared the same as everything else.

“Watch,” he said.

He drew a book from the shelf. In the blink of an eye, the entire row of books disappeared from the shelf.

“Where did they go?”

“Beats me.”

I leaned forward and ran a hand along the bookshelf half expecting the books to be there to touch and that magic had made them invisible, but my hand met nothing but air. The books had vanished.

“What was in those books?”

“I couldn’t tell you. We never get to read them.”

“How?” Ciara asked.

“Every time we take one book the rest disappear.” He turned the book, so we read the cover. The Enchantment of Water Sorcery.

“This happens often?”

“As long as I’ve been a member of the Fellowship. Before then, I’d say. Most likely forever.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How does it keep happening if the books disappear when you take one?”

“That’s the even more magical part.” Alister smiled. “Watch.”

A woman handed him a book. The Life Cycle of Bees. He placed it on the shelf. The magic refilled the shelves with books in an instant.

Ciara gasped. I blinked away my surprise.

“What happens if you put back the book you took from the shelf?”

“Nothing. The book stays there by itself.”

Ciara stepped closer to the bookshelf and ran a hand along the spines. “They’re all magical titles, but the one you put there was a human book, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Alister rubbed his hands together.

“Are you able to read the books you take?”

“Yes. Some we have to translate the languages, but we get there in the end.”

I stepped beside Ciara and read the spines. There were so many I longed to take down and read, but if I removed one, they’d all disappear. Luckily the one Alister had taken was relevant to our search.

“Do the same books come back?”

“No. Every time we take one book an entire collection of new books appears. We have to choose carefully.” He frowned and then glanced at the book in his hand. “I hope I’ve chosen correctly this time. We’ve lost a good number of books we’ve wanted to read.”

“Can’t you take more than one book?” Ciara asked.

“No. The books won’t budge if you try to remove more than one at a time.”

“It’s a trading system,” I said. “But who are you trading with?”

“Now this is the million-dollar question,” Alister said.

“Someone is gatekeeping the knowledge and feeding it to you pieces at a time.” I turned around. “Are all the books in the library here from this shelf?”

“We don’t know,” Alister said. “Any time we write anything down about us, the words on the pages vanish as though the ink is invisible, and we didn’t write anything at all. It’s no wonder no one knows about us.”

“Whoever it is, they’re going to a lot of trouble.”

“Perhaps it’s not much trouble for them?” Ciara spun around. “They would need potent magic to work all this.” She peered back down the long library and touched her fingers against her temple. “Stronger than our magic.”

“Different magic,” I said. “Ours is based in the elements.”

“Yes, your powers help Earth and now it’s struggling without you.”

“We’ve never even visited Earth. Never had the chance to. Let alone the chance to help,” I said.

“Malachi?” Ciara whispered. “I need…”

She swayed on her feet.

I swept her up into my arms and hurried toward the stairs and the exit.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered.