Chapter 31
The following day, I’m in our house, unpacking the books in my gifted library and sliding them onto shelves, achingly alone.
Nero is somewhere in the forest beyond the back lawn of this estate, and Memnon is at work, hunting down anything he might find on Eislyn and the ever increasing threat she poses to us following last night’s revelation.
Eislyn wants Memnon to help seat her on her father’s throne.
I know next to nothing about fae kingdoms and politics, so technically, that’s what I should be spending my time researching right now.
Instead, I’m trying desperately hard not to panic about the fact that my shared bond with Memnon still feels muted, so that’s what I’m looking into.
Already I’ve paged through several promising books on potions and tonics, trying to find any explanation for what I drank.
There have been plenty of possible candidates—potions to sicken the blood, elixirs that enhance one’s magical output, tonics for growing taller—all of them purple.
The only problem is that none of them appear to be what I drank.
I need to get back to Henbane and make the most of the library there if I want to find more answers.
I’ll eventually have to return to campus anyway to pack up my room.
But I’m also acutely aware I have a target on my back.
Returning to my residence hall might mean putting my coven sisters at risk of another demon attack.
I don’t want that. Which is why I’m now sorting through these books Memnon bought to stock this library.
Maybe one of them will contain something helpful.
I crouch and grab one such book from the box at my feet.
“Raising the Dead: A History of Necromancy,” I read the title aloud. “Should you go under Magical History or Magical Specialties? Or maybe you should go under Supernatural Entities…” Or maybe I need to make new categories entirely…
From my pocket, my phone buzzes, distracting me from my thoughts.
Wandering over to the shelves I’ve tentatively labeled Magical History, I pull out the phone.
Sybil’s name is splashed on my screen.
I pick up the call, bringing my phone to my ear. “You know, I was tempted to howl when I answered this.”
Immediately, that earns me a laugh. “Screw you, Selene.”
“I think I deserve a cookie for my self-restraint.”
“I think you deserve a good spanking,” Sybil counters.
“Only if your dad’s the one doing it.”
“Selene!” Sybil says, horrified. “I need to bleach my ears.”
“Just remember that you’re the one who called me,” I say, sliding the book in my hand onto the mostly empty shelf in front of me.
“Clearly that was a mistake.”
“Awww, don’t say that. I like any excuse I get to talk about dear old daddy.”
“I should tell my dear old daddy about this slander. You’d never get invited to dinner again.”
“Fine. I’ll drop the issue. But only because I like your family dinners.” The few times I’d been to them.
“Good,” she says, sounding pleased.
It’s quiet between us for a moment, and in that silence, the lightness bleeds away.
“How are you doing?” I finally ask.
Sybil gives a broken little laugh, and I tense. “I’m all over the place.”
“Well obviously you have to elaborate on that,” I say, heading back to the box of books I’ve been pulling out.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she says faintly.
I withdraw another book, Lunar Magic for Beginners. Definitely going to be shelved under magical specialties.
“How about we start with the moment I last saw you,” I say. “What happened after that?”
She sucks in a breath. “I…shifted.”
“So it happened?” I say, a bit breathless. Of course I assumed it did, but actually imagining it now is wild.
“Mhm.” She sounds like she’s rolling her lips together.
“What was it like?”
“Shifting was…excruciating,” she admits. “I’ve never felt pain like that. It was like my magic and body were rejecting one another.”
I chew my lower lip. “From what I saw, it looked like that too.”
There’s a long silence, and my stomach sours at the heaviness in it.
“But,” she finally continues, “being a lycan was—is—incredible. Seriously indescribable. I could never have imagined having the sort of freedom I feel when I’m in my wolf form.”
I nearly drop the book in my hand. “Sybil, that’s—I’m so happy.” I realize as I’m saying it that I am smiling. I’ve been so afraid for my friend, not just the shift, but her conflicted emotions around it.
“Yeah, it’s…amazing. I’m sorry if I scared you there for a while.”
“You really did,” I say, moving to shelve the book in my hand in the Magical Specialties section of my library. “It doesn’t matter. Now I need to know—did you howl at the moon?”
“All freaking night—and last night too,” she says unapologetically, and the two of us laugh together.
Once we quiet, Sybil clears her throat, and I can feel the mood sobering up again. “Kane told me about the demon attack.”
I stiffen a little.
“He said you were a badass.”
“Did you really need Kane to tell you that?”
She laughs, then seems to choke on a sob. “Selene, I thought the nightmare was over when we took down the Fortunas.”
I swallow. “The nightmare with the Fortunas is, for the most part, over. This is something else, something that has to do with my first life.”
“You obviously need to elaborate,” she says, echoing my earlier words.
And I do. I tell her as much as I can about Eislyn and how she derailed my life as Roxilana, and how she’s still alive and still interested in murdering me and using Memnon.
“So she’s the one who sent all the demons then?” Sybil says. “Why would she have them attack our coven sisters?”
“Because she could,” I say. “And she probably got off on the thought of terrorizing the people who were important to me.” For that reason alone, I’m thankful that Sybil is safe with the Marin pack.
“That’s absurd.”
I crouch again in front of the box of books.
“Sybil, when Memnon was king, Eislyn advised him to gather together nations to fight Rome—and he did it. He genuinely could’ve taken on and defeated Rome, but while she was counseling him on war, she was secretly turning Memnon’s closest friends and allies against him.
Hell, she had his mother and sister killed on the night she entombed him.
” Old grief rises in me. “She didn’t need to do that.
All she had to do was take Memnon away from the rest of us to fulfill her own plans.
But she wanted to break everyone and everything in the process. The woman is fucked in the head.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I pull out the next two books from the box. “What I always intended to do,” I say. “Take down the broad.” I glance down at the book in my hands, and my heart seems to still. “I’ve got to go.”
“See you on Friday?” she asks.
My stomach turns. Friday is the last day Henbane is open. I’ll have to return to campus then to pack up my room.
“Yeah,” I say distractedly, “Friday.”
I end the call and tuck my phone away, my eyes never leaving the book in front of me.
The Old Ones: Folklore and Firsthand Accounts
The Old Ones. That was what demons called the entities that lived beneath the earth.
Swallowing a misplaced rush of fear, I open the cover, and I begin to page through the book.
Most of what’s inside are quotes about the Hungering Ones recorded over the last several thousand years.
There are also regional myths and legends that incorporate these entities in some way or other.
But the book is lean on real, true information about these creatures.
In fact, part of their allure seems to be how no one knows much about them.
There are definitely no accounts of them stealing away souls, which is a relief…I think. Regardless of the lack of information, it is clear the Hungering Ones are powerful, mysterious forces of nature.
I set the book aside and glance out the far window.
More than anything I found in the book, I think if I want true answers, I’ll need to speak to these beings myself.