Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Ahuman! This is a disaster!”
Benedict resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his mother’s dramatics.
Instead, he took a bite of his pink toast topped with a green egg so he’d have an excuse to avoid joining the conversation.
It seemed the dramatics the night before weren’t enough.
His parents had to continue them over breakfast.
If one could call it breakfast, considering how late in the day it was. After the amount of wine they’d consumed the night before, his mother and brother had slept long. Benedict had resorted to eating a small, early breakfast to tide himself over.
“It’s a disgrace is what it is.” Borachio spread jam on his toast. “The Library should have known better.”
“It’s King Theseus’s influence on the Library. And Head Librarian Marco’s.” Benedict’s father sliced into a sausage. “The Library is only semi-sentient. It takes on layers from its king and head librarian. This is another sign of that.”
Benedict swallowed his bite, plastered a disaffected sneer on his face, and leaned back in his seat.
It seemed it was time to join the conversation after all.
“It all started when King Theseus threw his lot in with the Wild Fae Primrose. That fae lord’s love for humans is affecting the whole Court.
The Wild Fae Primrose is the cause of all of this. ”
“How right you are.” Borachio waved his jam knife in Benedict’s direction.
“That’s why it is all the more important that someone more…
supportive of our views is chosen as the next head librarian.
” Father stabbed the bite of sausage. “This is a chance to influence the Great Library away from its current love for humans. It is too bad neither of you is positioned to become the next head librarian.”
Borachio hadn’t stuck with it and had become a dissolute member of the court as soon as his time as apprentice librarian was up. And Benedict was a mere apprentice librarian himself at the moment. Thanks to the war, he hadn’t had the chance to work his way up.
“We’ll just have to influence the likeliest candidates as best we can.
” Borachio picked up his toast before taking a large bite.
“Domitius has always been more aligned with our view. And perhaps Demetrius could be persuaded. He has a regrettable friendship with that librarian who married a human, but he is of good noble stock and he married Helena Cappulet.”
Benedict’s skin prickled. Both of those master librarians were ones that Claudius had swapped for his people. Was this Claudius’s plan? Put one of his own people into position as head librarian?
Yet surely that wouldn’t work. As the Library had the final choice, certainly it would recognize a real librarian from a false one. Wouldn’t it?
There was still plenty of chaos the false master librarians, fake swordmaiden, and counterfeit member of the Court could cause for the choosing of the next head librarian.
All it would take would be a tear into the Realm of Monsters, an attack by Claudius and his followers, and the whole choosing ceremony could be disrupted, sending the Court of Knowledge into unimaginable darkness and terror.
Benedict only half-listened as his family listed the other master librarians who they thought should be considered for the position of head librarian.
In the end, there was little any of them could do to influence the decision. He suspected the position would go to the master librarian who loved the Great Library the most, and that certainly wasn’t Domitius, real or fake. Or any of the others who were in it for the power and prestige.
But he still paid enough attention to note the names they mentioned.
Anyone his parents and brother considered worthy of becoming the next head librarian could be Claudius’s spy in the Court.
Benedict would have suspected Master Librarian Domitius, if he wasn’t currently sitting in that secret dungeon.
After finishing his breakfast, Benedict pushed to his feet, leaving his plate for the servants to pick up. “Well, I’m headed for the Library.”
“Search for a way to end that binding.” His father waved a languid hand. “I don’t trust that human-loving librarian to do it properly. He will probably botch the job on purpose, hoping to force you to marry his human sister-in-law, elevating her into a noble family of the court.”
His father was horribly misreading the situation if he thought Basil wanted Beatrice to marry him. But Father didn’t understand the concept of marrying for love rather than power.
Benedict hadn’t understood it either until recently. But he’d had a lot of time in that dungeon to contemplate various things. When he wasn’t tormented by illusions, that was.
Forcing a nonchalant swagger, Benedict meandered his way through his parents’ manor house, set far in the countryside of the Court of Knowledge.
Here, a quaint village provided homes for the servants and for villagers hard at work in the industry of making paper, etching leather, mixing ink, and creating all the other things needed to make and bind books.
Most of the Court of Knowledge was formed of rolling hills with a few streams and small forests. A rather idyllic place to learn, study, and be about the court’s duty of gathering and providing knowledge.
After a short stroll down a mossy path, Benedict reached the outpost library stationed in his family’s village.
Upon entering the small, circular library, he waved to the single apprentice librarian who ran this outpost, strode between the shelves, which were embarrassingly empty given his family’s lackluster support, and reached the Anywhere Door set into the back of this particular outpost.
Unlike all of the homes given to the librarians who worked at the Great Library itself, the manor houses belonging to the nobles didn’t have Anywhere Doors.
Instead, the nobles preferred the grandeur of sprawling mansions, as if to show off their importance and wealth as opposed to the quaint cottages of the common fae.
His mind fixed on the Hall of Anywhere Doors, Benedict opened the Door and stepped through. In a moment, he went from the single-roomed outpost to the white-marbled Hall. He strode the length of the Hall and through the double doors into the calm of the greenly lit Library’s atrium.
In the warmth of daylight, the paths between the shelves looked nothing like they had the night before during the Revel. They were once again warm, inviting, and flower-filled rather than darkly sinister as they had been during the Revel.
The librarians in their gray, green, and black coats bustled between the shelves while, for the first time in a year, orderly lines of patrons waited before the desks beneath the Library’s Tree for one of the librarians to assist them.
For a moment, Benedict halted and simply breathed in the heavy, flowers-and-paper-scented air. This Library was home. Not the fancy manor house with his parents and brother spouting their nonsense. Here was where Benedict truly belonged.
He couldn’t allow Claudius to ruin this place of peace, safety, and knowledge. Benedict would do whatever it took to save the Library.
A flash of a peach-pink dress caught his eye, the ruffles swishing as she moved. Beatrice’s wavy, blonde curls flowed down her back over her gray librarian coat, and a magenta bookwyrm currently perched on her shoulder.
Perhaps the Library had known exactly what it had been doing last night, bringing him and Beatrice together. Unfortunately, only he and the Great Library believed it.
As if sensing his gaze, Beatrice looked up. When her eyes latched on to him, her smile curved downward into a scowl.
If she scowled at him, he had only himself to blame.
His parents didn’t want them to be mates because of the superficial, discriminatory reason that she was human.
But Beatrice and her family were opposed to this because of the very real, very horrible tormenting he’d done to her when they’d both been young.
Plastering on his customary smirk, Benedict sauntered deeper into the Library, headed in her direction.
Instead of darting off, Beatrice held her ground, her arms crossed and that bookwyrm still perched on her shoulder as if it, too, prepared to protect her. “What do you want?”
“We’re fated mates.” Benedict leaned his arm against the bookshelf beside her. “Perhaps I wish to spend time with you.”
“Fat chance. What are you planning? Snail slime in my hair? Spiders in my pockets?” Beatrice rolled those bewitchingly blue eyes.
He tried not to flinch at the mention of spiders and instead kept his smile in place. “Wouldn’t that be a little juvenile?”
“Juvenile is about the maturity level I’d expect from you.” Beatrice’s eyes flashed as she glared up at him. “Though even that might be giving you too much credit. Perhaps infantile would be the better term.”
“Ouch.” He pressed his free hand—the one not propped languidly on the bookshelf—over his heart. “Perhaps I’ve matured more than you think in the time I’ve been away.”
There was far too much truth in those words, much as he tried to disguise them with his light tone and easy smile.
But Beatrice either didn’t hear the truth or refused to see it. She huffed and looked skyward, as if she wanted to roll her eyes again. “Hardly. If anything, spending time in the Court of Revels would have degraded any level of sense you might have possessed at one time.”
In that, he would agree, though certainly not in the way she meant.
“Then you agree I had sense at one time.” He grinned, leaning slightly closer to her. She had a faint floral scent wafting around her, and that scowl on her lips was luring him in.
“I said sense you might have possessed. Although, even that is giving you too much credit.” Beatrice stomped her foot, huffed, and spun away, as if she’d decided she was done with this conversation.
He blinked, her movement breaking the mesmerizing pull she had on him and reminding him that he shouldn’t push her boundaries. The fated mate bond didn’t give him any rights to her, nor did he deserve any, given the way he’d acted toward her years ago.
“Wait.” Benedict reached out a hand, but he stopped short. Both because he knew she wouldn’t appreciate him grabbing her arm and because the bookwyrm gave a faint hiss.
Beatrice half-turned toward him, although she remained poised to continue her retreat. “What?”
“Look. I know you’re going to be looking for a way to end this binding.” He held out his hand, although neither of their hands glowed since they didn’t touch. “So am I. It would only make sense that we look together.”
All right, so he was desperate for any crumb of time he could have with her. It didn’t matter if she scowled and glared and spat insults at him the whole time. He would take whatever she’d give him.
“Why would that make sense?” Beatrice spun the rest of the way toward him and ticked off on her fingers.
“It would make more sense to search separately to maximize our efforts. And I can’t trust you not to sabotage our efforts just to torment me.
Besides, I don’t really want to spend time with you, and I highly doubt you want to spend time with me. ”
“You might be surprised.” He stepped away from the bookshelf, crowding her space slightly.
That was the truth, or as much of it as he could tell her.
He held up his hand and began ticking off just as she had.
“If we search separately without coordinating our efforts, we could end up searching a book the other person had already searched. That would hardly maximize our efforts. And, no, I’m not going to sabotage our efforts to torment you.
I have as much vested interest in our situation as you do. ”
While he didn’t actually want to end the binding, he knew what it was like to be bound and forced to do things one didn’t want to do. He wouldn’t do that to another person. If she didn’t want to be bound to him as a fated mate, then he would do all in his power to free her.
More than that, her family was somehow connected to the Wild Fae Primrose.
He wasn’t sure how, but the gossip at the ball the night before had confirmed that much.
It was awfully coincidental that the Wild Fae Primrose started operating in the court within a couple of years after this family of humans moved in.
Beatrice didn’t know it, but she was going to lead him right to the Primrose.
“Vested interest in not finding yourself married to a human.” Beatrice planted her hands on her hips. “I know how you feel about humans.”
Benedict bit his tongue. He wanted to correct her. Desperately. But he had an image to uphold, and the fate of the Court—and the Library itself—depended on him keeping it.
So instead, he finally worked up enough nonchalance to shrug. “That could be my reason. It is certainly my family’s. Now, are we working together or not?”
“Fine.” Beatrice spat the word before she whirled away from him once again. “But we’ll start after our shift. I’m not going to shirk my duties at the Library for this.”
“Ah, I see.” Benedict’s grin actually held a hint of genuine emotion to it this time. “You’re going for the assistant librarian spot that will open up once a new head librarian is chosen.”
“And I’m assuming you’re going for it too.” She bustled away, the bookwyrm still balanced on her shoulder.
“Of course I am.” Benedict wouldn’t deny it. The promotion to assistant librarian would mean access to his own House. He could finally break away from his family and become the man he wanted to be rather than the one his family forced him to be. “May the best librarian win.”
That parting shot made her spine stiffen and her footsteps turn into stomps, much as he’d known they would.
Perhaps annoying her wasn’t the smartest plan, if he wanted to remain in this binding with her and if he wanted to get close to her.
But as she kept reminding him, he’d never managed to be smart when it came to her.