Chapter 7
My period comes like it’s out to get me.
Naturally, it happens right in the middle of Wards.
I groan, then fish a tampon from my book bag and slip out of class while my instructor drones on about the potency and longevity of protective spells.
It’s only once I’m in the bathroom stall that I see the extent of the damage. In the minute or so it took to get here, I’ve bled through both my underwear and my jeans. Far more than what I’m used to when it comes to periods.
Despite the loads and loads of unprotected sex I’ve been having, I’m not pregnant. I exhale a shuddering breath.
I use a cleaning spell to scour away the bloodstains and make the decision to head into the on-campus health clinic and apothecary later.
I step quietly back into class and head to my seat. The room is sparser than ever, and there’s still that pervasive air of melancholy around me that seems to match the dull gray sky outside.
I slip into my seat and pick up my pen.
“Intention, intention, intention,” Mistress Wormwood emphasizes, pushing her thick spectacles farther up the bridge of her nose. “That is what makes a ward strong. Grind up all the rosemary you want, burn all the sage in the world, it will not help you more than your own heart will.
“With that, I want everyone to pull out a piece of paper and write a message on the front. Then fold your paper, ward it against fire, and when you do this, really mean it. Once you’ve completed the spell, I want you to remove the spellmark.
This is your magical signature that gets left behind—it can look like lines or script.
It is essentially a magical fingerprint, and I will teach you how to remove yours.
Once you’ve done all this, drop your paper off in this basket.
” Wormwood lifts the picnic basket next to her.
“I will award credit to those of you who managed to keep your paper from burning, and extra credit shall go to those whose magic I cannot see. Make sure to write your name on your paper if you want credit.
“Oh,” she adds, “and I will be reading the messages—do with that what you will.”
I scribble down a message, then briefly doodle around it.
Thanks to my past life, wards are a part of spellcraft I’m actually proficient in.
So I take a little longer to draw around my note before I fold it up.
Pressing two fingers to the folded sheet of paper, I murmur in Sarmatian, “Make this paper impervious to fire.” As I speak, I draw my fingers down the folded note.
Curling tendrils of my magic follow my touch. When it clears, I can see the faint orange glimmer clinging to the paper, evidence that my ward took. And if I tilt the folded note just so, I can see what looks like loose threads on a loom. It’s my own spell signature.
I’d been in the bathroom while Mistress Wormwood went over how to mask a ward, but this, too, I’ve done before. Like the rest of magic, this one starts with intention.
“Hide my ward from sight,” I incant, drawing on my magic.
Another small gust of my power rolls out from my palm, spreading over the paper. When it clears, the folded note looks ordinary once more. No glinting magic or spell signatures remain.
It’s there but hidden—in many ways, like my memories once were.
I think about those memories, filled with both blood and sweetness.
I’ve been handling them like they are old mementos, ones that have little impact on me now, but they do.
Most obviously when it comes to Memnon, but then there’s also now the matter of Eislyn, the fairy who, two millennia ago, entombed Memnon and killed me.
Eislyn, who I’d like to pretend lives in the past and the past alone.
The bell rings, shaking me from my thoughts. Someone’s crow squawks at the sound, lifting up into the air and circling the top of the room.
“Papers in, papers in!”
I descend the steps of the small lecture hall and drop my note off at the front of the class, my thoughts lingering on the fae woman. If she has truly been around all these years, then perhaps there are traces of her lingering in the world’s histories.
I just have to find them.
I stare up at the pale stone and Gothic architecture of Beldame Library, the night air nipping at my cheeks, my hand resting on Nero’s head.
Since the school year began, I haven’t had much reason to approach the library, though it frankly feels like a crime that I haven’t found an excuse to before now. Beldame houses one of the largest collections of magical texts and supernatural histories in North America.
I’m counting on its reputation to find what I’m looking for.
I pass another set of Henbane’s stone lamassu as Nero and I head up the marble stairs and enter through the library’s oxidized bronze doors. My footsteps echo against the vast, vaulted ceiling.
Inside, the stone walls are lined with row upon row of books. Stone columns dot the space, each one carved to look like fanged gargoyle rests atop it, and the few areas bare of shelves have grand tapestries hung from them.
A grand staircase splits down the center of the room, and on the second story I can see tables lit with taper candles, the light dancing upon the gilded spines of books. I can even see rickety iron staircases spiraling up to a third story.
Several low iron chandeliers flicker with dripping wax candles, and the air is filled with the must of old books and magic.
Deep in one of the recessed corners is a reference desk. A witch with a Roman nose and wiry, steel-gray hair peers through her half-moon spectacles at the spine of a book when I approach, sparing Nero a moment’s notice.
“I need a little help,” I admit.
Her eyes draw to me, and she sets her book down. “Then you’ve come to the right place,” she says.
I give her a small smile. “I’m looking for any texts that might mention a fae named Eislyn.”
“So a historical figure,” the librarian murmurs. “What time period?”
“Anything at all you have.”
She stands up and moves toward the wall behind her. I hadn’t noticed the door set into it, but now she opens it, revealing a long, slender room full of wood and brass filing cabinets. I hear her whisper an incantation, then the sound of drawers rolling open.
A minute later she returns with several large index cards. “Here is all we have on this Eislyn—which looks like quite a lot. Would you like all of them?”
“Yes?”
“Alright.” The witch murmurs another spell beneath her breath.
There’s a slight tremor in the surface of the desk. When I turn, I see a book float out from a nearby aisle. It drifts over to the table, before lazily settling down on the wood surface with a soft thunk.
Another book follows, streaking through the air from the second floor, nearly lighting itself on fire as it careens into one of the chandeliers, and someone curses, presumably as a shower of hot wax drips on them.
“Oops,” the witch says as the slightly singed book makes its way to the reference desk, setting itself on top of the previous book.
The witch leans in conspiratorially. “That’s one of the risks of sitting beneath the chandeliers.
Books are always trying to be dramatic in here. I think they grow bored of the quiet.”
I raise my eyebrows as two more books cross the library, then two more. On and on it goes, some coming from great distances, some nearby. Another one seems to go out of its way to wallop a witch entirely minding her own business before it stacks itself on the growing pile.
By the time the spell settles, the stack is fourteen books deep.
“Well, there you go. I’ll be here until midnight, as will Corinthia, who’s upstairs at Circulation. She’s who you’ll need to see if you wish to check any books out. Grimoires are located in the far back, and I can help you with those as well.” She pushes the books toward me. “Happy researching!”
The stack of books floats behind me as Nero and I head up the stairs to a table tucked away in one of the shadowy corners of the building.
Every so often I glance over my shoulder, just to make sure the books behave themselves.
I am forever scarred by the knowledge that these things attack unprovoked.
However, this time, they act like ordinary books—well, ordinary books spelled to float.
A handheld lantern rests on the table I stop at, the flame inside flickering as my stack of books falls with a heavy thud on the wooden surface, a plume of dust wafting out from the impact.
I cough, waving my hand in front of me. Once the air settles, I look over the column of spines. There’s a mixture of old and new books in the pile, and my breath catches.
I don’t know precisely what I’m looking for, but I’m already excited at the prospect of discovering what my old enemy has been up to.
I slide the first book off the pile, an embossed leather tome whose gold foiling has largely rubbed away over time. Its corners have been fitted with filigreed metal protectors.
Laying my hand on its cover, I incant in Sarmatian, “Reveal to me the text that includes the name Eislyn.”
Beneath my palm, the book jiggles, rocking the table just a little and making the iron handle of the nearby lantern rattle. When I lift my hand, the book opens itself, the yellowed pages flipping by until it settles on an innocuous page.
I stare at the block-printed words, my brow furrowing as I take a seat, Nero settling himself against my leg. The book dropped me into the middle of a chapter.
The House of Alder, under the reign of Sable the Patient, grew in size and prosperity.
Over his reign he had seventy-one official fae consorts, a restrained number compared to his predecessor.
His most favored of which were the fairies who sired his four children, Hark, Theospina, Laela, and Eislyn.
My breath catches at the sight of Eislyn’s name. If this really is her, she’s a fae princess.
I read over the rest of the text, but it only goes on to mention the countless humans Sable also likely banged before discussing the fates of Hark and Laela. There’s no mention of either Eislyn or her other sibling.
I flip through a few more pages, but when it becomes clear that single line was the only mention of Eislyn, I sigh and close the book, pushing it aside.
I’m there for hours, Nero curled up at my feet, flipping through tome after tome.
Some books are modern, some are block printed, and some are handwritten.
The oldest one is a medieval text with painted pictures along its edges that appears to say nothing of relevance about Eislyn, though a pretty blond woman with pointed ears is painted along the margins.
The references to her all seem to be from official fae records, which means that one, Eislyn appears to be her original name, and two, at some point probably shortly after Memnon and I met our ends, she changed her name or struck it from the records.
A lot of what I find in the rest of the books—besides individuals named Eislyn who don’t appear to be my Eislyn—repeats what I’ve already read about. She was the daughter of the long ago Flora King.
And then, I find something new near the bottom of the stack.
The book is covered in lilac leather and written in a script that is completely unrecognizable. I flip through the pages, noticing the shimmering ink and the stylized floral borders of the pages.
I don’t think this is one of our histories at all. Is this text from the Otherworld?
Like the other books, I have this one flip to the page that mentions Eislyn. The page has been lovingly decorated with vibrant green leaves along the borders, and it’s full of more of that indecipherable script.
I press my fingers to the page. “Translate into English.”
A small cloud of my magic spreads across the paper. Then, beneath my hand, the letters on the page jiggle and morph. In seconds they’ve rearranged themselves into English.
…In the 186th year of the reign of King Sable the Patient, he did cast out his third borne daughter, who thought to usurp the good king from his throne.
Though the coup was thwarted and all the traitors slain, the good king did restrain his hand and spare his daughter’s life, so fair and noble of heart was he.
By magical decree she was to be forever lost to our realm.
And forevermore, naught were allowed to speak of the wicked deeds of Eislyn the Ill Content. She was banished from all the fae lands and made to live out her punishment in the bleak mortal world where she might languish all the rest of her years.
Maiden, Mother, Crone.
Eislyn was not just a princess but a murderous one—which, honestly, tracks. Scheming since she was a baby, and against her family, no less. What a dick.
It’s news to me that naughty fairies could be banished to Earth. We have enough issues here without dealing with the Otherworld’s criminals.
I glance back at the page.
A dwelling made of fine Aventine stone was built for her, and outfitted with luxuries fit for a princess, for the king’s heart was fair and good, so good—
Ugh, whoever wrote this was such a kiss-ass.
—that even after such betrayal, he would not let his wicked daughter go without. And so Eislyn was left to the mortal realm, and perhaps she lingers there still, if she lingers at all.
I’m about to close the book when I reread the last few lines all over again. The fae king had built a fancy house for her. On Earth.
Holy shit. The Khuno River palace.
I leave the library, my head spinning.
It makes so much sense. The Otherworldly architecture, the fact that Memnon had been buried there and that a ley line ran right through it—it was all because it was made by a fairy and given over to one.
I push my hair back as I cross campus, hardly registering that Nero has broken away from me to go harass some forest creatures, hopefully Kane among them.
The Khuno River palace is in proximity to the Moche Empire, an empire Memnon’s father ruled. It’s not a great leap to guess that at some point Eislyn left the palace and discovered, then infiltrated the ranks of Moche nobles, eventually earning herself the ear of their rulers.
From what I remember, Eislyn had been following Memnon’s lineage for several generations. But then, once Memnon’s father died, she left Peru for Sarmatia. For Memnon.
But why?
Why the interest in a single family? And if it was this lineage of sorcerers she was interested in, why, out of all of sorcerers born, did she focus on Memnon? Memnon whom she traveled continents for, Memnon whom she advised only to then betray.
He will sleep for a hundred years, she said, until all he knows and loves has passed on. When he wakes, all that will be left is me.
She had something else planned for him. Something she was waiting generations for. Something I foiled when I placed my own curse on Memnon and made the rest of the world forget his existence.
But, of course, that curse is no more. Whatever fate she had in store for Memnon, she remembers it now.