11. Malachi
Three days later, Ciara sat up straight in the chair beside me. She’d been slumped over lagging from lack of sleep again. Lorcan, Pepper, and Roisin had read many books, Aislinn and Fallon too, not to mention the Fellowship members. We’d consumed pages and pages of endless knowledge. The trouble was there were too many books and not enough time to read them.
Ciara stared at me. Her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them. The indigo of her eyes shone around the blue. Dia, she was so beautiful. Why couldn’t I tell her I loved her? Would it be so bad? Now wasn’t the time, but maybe soon…
“I—”
She closed the book and trailed her finger over the title. The Enchantment of Water Sorcery. Wasn’t that the book from the magical bookshelf? She closed the book and read the page in the book again, put her finger on the paper, and trailed it across the written words.
“What is it?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think I found something.”
“Good or bad?”
I wasn’t sure I could take another night of her crying herself to sleep. Her happiness meant more than anything to me.
“I’m not sure,” she said again. “This book is about Water Sprites, not sorcerers like I thought with the title. It says their magic is all-powerful over water.”
“Give me the book.” I slid it across the table in front of me.
With each word I read, my eyes bulged, and I bet they appeared the way Ciara’s eyes did.
“This might be it.” I pointed at a drawing. “These are the same drawings we found in the other book back home of the statues Rian described above the waterfall. The statues are protectors of the Water Sprite kingdom.”
“Aye,” she lowered her voice. “Did we find the people and the place where to find them who can help us?”
“I’m not sure,” I said echoing her words. “From what this book says though it sounds promising.”
“What if it’s not the right place?”
“But what if it is? What if the Water Sprites are the only people who can fix our spring?”
“Do we tell the others?” she asked.
“We’ll have to. We can’t disappear without telling them where we’re going.”
Her eyes glistened as she gazed at me. “What if we get their hopes up and we’re wrong?”
I clasped her shoulder. “That won’t be our fault if that happens.”
“It will be.” She sucked in a breath, her chest expanding and making my gaze dip to her breasts for many seconds before I remembered what Ivo said and snapped my gaze back toward her eyes. I’d been so careful the last few days to keep thinking of Ciara as my best friend and not the woman I was in love with.
It’d been hard, but I think I’d pulled it off. I didn’t want her brother and sisters to learn of my true feelings for Ciara. They’d tell me she deserved her fated mate, and I understood that. It was why I’d never told her I loved her.
“It won’t,” I said with conviction.
“We should go now. The sooner the better to see if the book is right and that those statues lead to the Water Sprite kingdom.”
“Agreed.” I stood and picked up the book. “Let’s show them.”
“If Rian and Sophia were here, they’d confirm if those sketches were what they saw at the top of the waterfall and the ones that shot the deadly darts stopping them from exploring further. Then they’d have hope we found the answer to getting past the darts and the secrets inside.”
“At least the book tells us how to get past the darts.” I placed the book back on the desk in front of Ciara. “Stay here. I’ll get everyone to come to you.”
Ciara’s once hopeful face had fallen in the space of a minute. Time was so different here on Earth, but I’d become accustomed to the way the humans peered at the clock on the wall and did certain things according to the time. They served meals three times a day. The Fellowship had surprised me with how well they’d accepted us into their fold. They’d fed us. Offered us a place to sleep and wash up. They’d even provided us with human clothes to wear to fit in with the village, not that we’d ventured out apart from our one trip to the caravans to sleep.
I walked down the aisles of bookshelves and found Aislinn and Roisin deep in conversation. Roisin didn’t appear happy, and neither did Aislinn. I cleared my throat because I didn’t want to interrupt whatever discussion was happening between the two sisters.
Aislinn turned my way, her fingers sliding over the hilt of a dagger strapped around her waist. I’d been on the receiving end of those flying daggers more than once over the years, but they’d never hit me. Aislinn always made sure she threw them close enough to scare me but not to hurt me. Ciara always laughed when she did it and teased me about my face as the daggers flew past me. Squeezing my lips together, I refrained from smiling at the way it made Ciara happy to tease me. I’d take all of Aislinn’s daggers to hear her laugh.
“What is it?” Aislinn asked.
“Ciara found something.”
“I knew she would,” Roisin said and brushed past me.
Her youthful exuberance was infectious. Aislinn followed her at a quick pace. I left them to wait with Ciara and searched the many aisles looking for Lorcan too. I found Lorcan standing with Pepper by the magical bookcase.
Pepper’s cloak flared as she spun around to face me. “Damn, you snuck up on us.”
Lorcan turned. “It’s usually Ciara doing the sneaking. Where is she?”
“Back at the table.” I nodded my head toward the entrance where Ciara hadn’t ventured far from after her initial panic attack. As much as she longed to come to study the magical bookshelf, her phobia wouldn’t allow her to come back here again. “Did you find anything here?”
“There is powerful magic at play,” Pepper said, skimming her hands through the air in front of the bookshelf. “I can’t make it out though.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Lorcan said.
“It’s interesting how much magic is here in this one place.” I rubbed my chin. “Ciara needs to see you all. She may have found an answer to our problems.”
“Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Lorcan asked as he too brushed past me.
Pepper patted my hand. “Don’t mind him, he hasn’t been himself these days.”
“I understand what you mean. Ciara is out of sorts too. So am I if I’m being honest.”
“The gods tied your powers to the spring, it’s understandable now the spring is unstable your powers will be too.”
We fell into step back down the long library.
“For all I’ve read over the years, I still don’t understand everything.”
She cackled. “No one ever will.”
“Great,” I grumbled.
“No one should understand everything. It would make them dangerous.”
I tilted my head to the side to study the profile of the witch. “In what way?”
“Knowledge makes people powerful. Power makes people dangerous. Look at what the Trappers did. They believed they’d take Fae’s powers from them which made them dangerous to the Fae.”
“We have power though and we’re not dangerous.”
“Aren’t you?” She raised her eyebrows. “You might be the most dangerous for not using your powers for good.”
“So, you’re saying no matter what power is dangerous.”
“I suppose.” She pinched the skin between her eyes. “I’m so tired perhaps I’m not making sense.”
“We’re all tired.”
She yawned. “I have sleep potions that will help.”
“No time for sleep.”
We arrived at the table where Ciara sat, her palms splayed across the pages of the open book before her as though she was stopping her sisters and brother from reading it. Fallon had his arm around Aislinn’s waist as though holding her back. He must have learned Ciara had found something and came here too because I hadn’t found him to tell him. They were all excited and going by the expressions on their faces, nervous too.
I believed in Ciara. If she thought this was the answer to our problems, then she was right. She needed to believe in herself. I’d be by her side every step of the way for her to figure it out. I couldn’t imagine a life where she wasn’t in it.