Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Briony
I’m so lost in my thoughts as we step out of the hidden room in the library and stride back through the shelves that I don’t notice anyone else is waiting, hidden among the books, until a firm hand grips my arm and a voice booms in my ear.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I jolt. Clare gives a squeak and Fly nearly stumbles over his own feet. For a moment my magic flashes in my veins, then subsides. It’s Fox. Only Fox. I stare up into his face and I’m unable to find the words to explain, to tell him. I open my mouth, but where do I even begin?
“It’s the Princes,” he says quickly. “Have you heard?” His gaze zigzags across my face anxiously.
It has my blood running cold and my spine stiffening.
“What?” I say, steeling myself for the answer.
“They’re due to be executed, Briony. Executed today.”
Clare squeaks again, her hands rushing to cover her mouth, and even Fly gasps. Again, I can’t find the words.
“What?” I whisper.
“The Princes,” Fox repeats. “They’re going to be—”
I shake my head desperately. “No, I heard you the first time. But how is that possible? Executed? He’s her son!”
Clare squeaks so loudly this time, her glasses nearly tumble from her nose.
Fox just stares at me, his hand tight around my arm.
“Then we have to go,” I say, ignoring his grip and already striding toward the library exit.
What the hell have I been doing? I was meant to be researching the Black Tower, finding a way to free them.
Instead, I’ve been distracted by ancient history that has no bearing on today, that won’t help me at all, that means nothing if I can’t save the men I love. “We have to go right now.”
“No, you don’t,” a voice says.
And then, as if by magic – most definitely by magic – the three Princes appear in front of me, blocking my path. Clare squeals so loudly this time I’m almost convinced she’s fainted. Even I blink my eyes and hold out my hand to touch the nearest man, Beaufort, and check I’m not seeing ghosts again.
“Is it you?” I whisper. “Are you really here?”
Dray chuckles, and it’s then I realize he’s completely naked, covered in some kind of congealed green substance and shivering his ass off.
Fox whips off his cloak and thrusts it in Dray’s direction.
The shifter looks at it contemptuously, but I narrow my eyes at him, aware my squeamish friend has already had to undergo enough ordeals in the last few minutes, and with a pout, he accepts it and shrugs it around his shoulders.
It doesn’t hide everything, but at least it’s an improvement, and at least he stops shaking from the cold.
“Where have you been?” I ask. “Where did they take you?”
“The Black Tower,” Beaufort answers.
“And how did you escape?”
Dray puffs out his chest. “It’s not all about smarts and stupidly powerful shadows, you know, Little Kitten. Sometimes it’s about pack smarts.” He taps his forehead.
I peer at Beaufort for an explanation, but he just shrugs and shakes his head, making it clear that it’s a long story.
“But you were meant to be executed today,” Fox says.
“That’s correct.”
I can’t help the little sob that bubbles up my throat.
It’s one thing being sentenced to death by the Empress of the realm.
It’s quite another thing when that woman is your own mother.
My father was a lousy parent and a drunk.
He was oblivious to all the harm that my step-mom did to me, but I can’t ever imagine him doing anything this awful.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Dray smirks at the Professor, “but it didn’t happen.”
The tears start trailing down my cheeks. I’m so relieved to see them.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, so glad you’re safe,” I mutter, as the tears keep coming and I hug each one of them tight to my body, not caring about the green slime or the fact my two friends are right here.
“How did you sneak into the academy?” Fox asks them next.
“Cloaking spells,” Beaufort answers. “How about you? Where’s Blaze?”
“Out in the Highlands,” I say. “We found a tunnel that leads from there to the dungeons in the academy.”
Beaufort nods like that’s a perfectly good explanation. And for a moment we all just stand and stare at each other until finally Fly coughs.
“So Bardin really was telling the truth,” he says, sounding kind of amazed. “The Empress really does want you dead.”
“Like every other student from one of the other realms who’s shown promise in this academy.”
“Actually,” Clare interrupts, her cheeks blazing when everyone focuses her way, “I don’t know, Briony. I could be wrong. I was just thinking, considering what we learned back there in the secret part of the library, whether it’s more complicated than that.”
“There are no secret parts of the library,” Fox says.
“That’s what I thought too,” Clare tells him, “but I was beginning to suspect she was holding something back from me, and then Briony showed the library her lumomancy and a whole new room opened up to us.”
Fox’s eyebrows raise up his forehead. He once told me he spent a lot of his empty hours and lonely time reading, and I guess he’s as familiar with this library as Clare is.
“Will you show me?” he says.
“I don’t think it’s sensible for us to be hanging around in libraries,” Beaufort says. “They must be out looking for us by now. It’s only a matter of time before they check the academy.”
“It’s a secret section,” Clare explains. “No one’s going to be able to find us in there.”
Beaufort doesn’t look convinced. Neither does Dray. But they don’t have any choice but to follow the rest of us through to the back of the library.
The secret room is already concealed again and there’s absolutely no sign at all that it even exists.
But I hold up my hand and let that light flicker across my palm, and once again the bookshelf swings away, the walls groan, and the tunnel leading to the secret library room reappears.
Fox halts in the tunnel, examining the markings like I had done only moments earlier.
And then we find ourselves back in the safe room, the wall and the shelves closing behind us.
For the time being at least, we’re safe. Or at least I think we are.
Fox strolls right towards the three books lined up on the shelf, reaching for the first one. I call out to warn him that the book won’t accept his hand, but nothing happens, and he sweeps it up into his arms.
“We’ve already read them all,” I explain.
“You’ve been spending your time in the library, Little Kitten,” Dray says, looking unhappy at the thought. “We were expecting you to be tearing across the realm, searching for us. A bit like you did with him.” He jerks his chin in the Professor’s direction.
“I was searching for information that would help us free you from the Tower,” I explain, though I can’t quite meet his eyes because I did get distracted, didn’t I?
“What did the books tell you, Briony?” Fox says, thumbing through the pages.
I swallow. “It was a history,” I explain, “a history of my people, the light wielders.”
Fox nods. “And was there anything useful in it?”
I swallow again. “I don’t know if it was useful, but…” I hesitate.
Fox looks up from the book, and I feel everyone’s gaze on me. I raise my eyes from the stone floor and meet the gaze of the three Princes in front of me.
“They told me what happened to the light wielders. Why there are no more.”
“What happened to them, sweetheart?” Beaufort asks.
“They were killed,” I say. “Massacred. Eliminated.” I pause again. “Your people killed my people.”
“My people?” Dray says, resting his hand over his heart and looking confused.
“The shadow weavers,” I say. “They killed the light wielders.”
Beaufort is immediately shaking his head. “That’s not what happened. We were allies, we—”
“Yes,” Clare says. “You were. Once upon a time. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago. But then things changed. Then you were enemies, vying for power, and eventually …” She trails off.
I expect Beaufort to argue some more, but he’s changing. He isn’t the arrogant, argumentative Beaufort he used to be – or at least not as much as he used to be. I think there’ll always be a little arrogance and argument about the man.
This news must be as devastating to him as it is to me. Everything he’s learned, everything he believed, everything he thought was true all his life, everything the Empress – his mother – told him was built on a foundation of lies.
“Then I’m sorry,” Beaufort says, holding my gaze in his silver one. “I truly am, Briony. But I don’t see how that helps us now.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No. No. Me neither.”
I could feel resentment, anger. I could hate the three men in front of me for what their ancestors did.
I could hate fate for binding me to them.
Only a few months ago, I would have. But this is all ancient history.
Just as I don’t blame Beaufort for his mother’s sins, I don’t blame him for this either. And he’s right. How does it help us?
I feel my shoulders sag. Fate must have bound us together for a reason – a shadow weaver and a light wielder – the likes of which has not been seen for hundreds and hundreds of years.
A light wielder who also has a dragon and four fated mates.
We have the Empress worried enough to want us dead, and yet I don’t know what the hell we’re meant to do next.
“It is useful,” Fox says, slamming shut the book and gathering up the other two that sit on the shelf. “I think we should take these to Professor Cornelius.”
“Professor Cornelius?” Fly cries. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Fox glowers at my friend, who takes a step backward, his knees practically knocking together. The Professor may be sleeping with his best friend, but he’s still formidable, especially to any student.
“You have a problem with that suggestion, Fly?” Fox asks.
“Well, yes,” he says, smoothing his hair.
“You’re meant to be hiding from Sterling, the soldiers, from everyone else in this academy.
And now there’s, what …” he points his hand, counting us, “five of you. Plus me and Clare are probably on that list now, considering we skipped lessons this morning.” Clare gulps.
“We’re not exactly discreet, are we? And Professor Cornelius has a memory like a sieve.
He’s hardly going to keep your presence here secret. ”
“He already knows I’m here,” Fox says. “And I trust him. I trust him with my life.”
“Do you trust him with ours? With Briony’s?” Thorne asks.
“Yes. Cornelius is a clever man. I think he could help make sense of this.”
“What’s there to make sense of?” I cry in frustration. “It’s just history. It has nothing to do with what’s happening to us now or with our future.”
“It has everything to do with fate, Briony. Surely you can see that.” He sighs.
“Look, I could be wrong, but I think it’s worth a try.
I think we tell Cornelius what we’ve learned and see if he can decipher it.
” Before I can argue any more, he says, “We know fate has brought us together, Briony. We know fate has led us here to this point. We know fate has opened this library and given us these books. I’ve been at this school for years and I never even knew this place existed. It must all be for a reason.”
Fly and Clare insist on returning to their lessons despite my best efforts to dissuade them.
I can’t help thinking that their absence will have drawn suspicion – suspicion that might lead to more questions from the new headmaster, Sterling.
But Fox, Fly, and Clare all insist that the longer they stay away, the more suspicious they’ll look.
Fly insists he can concoct some crazy story that will more than justify their absence.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he says, holding on to both my shoulders and giving me a little shake, “until one of us comes back with a report of what’s going on out there.” He motions his head backward in the direction of the tunnel that leads back to the library.
“I promise,” I say, covering his hands with my own. “But be careful. And you too, Clare. And Fly, look after Clare.”
He nods seriously, and then the two of them disappear off down the tunnel, leaving me with my five mates.
Beaufort’s already pulling the food supplies from the top shelf, examining each of them with a disapproving frown. Fox is studying the books some more, and Dray is attempting to wash the green gunk off his skin in the sink.
I am about to go study the food stores myself, my stomach grumbling with hunger, when a hand wraps around my forearm and pulls me into the dark tunnel, away from the others.
“I missed you, Nini,” Thorne whispers in my ear, dragging me close to him. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you.”
“You were locked in the Black Tower, facing execution, and you were thinking of me,” I tease, delighted to be back in his arms – his strong, comforting arms that I waited so long to hold me. I run my fingers over his cheeks, rough with stubble, taking delight in this too.
“What else would I be thinking about, but you, Nini?”
“How to escape?!”
“I just wanted to hold you again, touch you again, kiss you again.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” I whisper.
His gaze falls to my mouth and for a moment he just stares, the anticipation doing crazy things to my insides, and then he presses his mouth to mine, kissing with so much more confidence, force, and hunger than that first kiss we’d shared.
It has the magic flickering in my veins and my knees turning to jelly.
There are so many things I want to do to this man, so many things I want to do with him, and if this kiss is anything to go by, he wants to do them just as badly. We’ve been patient. We’ve waited so long, hungry, desperate, damn ravenous for each other and not even able to touch.
But I think we’ll have to wait a little longer because there’s someone knocking on the other side of the wall.