55. Everett
Everett
Ishut the book with a snap, sending a plume of dust into my nose. I stifled a cough as I reshelved the tome on one of the towering shelves in the Hall of Archives.
“What are you even looking for?” Vera asked, scanning the spines next to me. “We’ve already gone through a dozen other books.”
We’d been here for a couple hours, ever since we returned from our day of amulet hunting.
We were the only ones in the Hall of Archives, save for the record keeper, who sat perched behind his pedestal in the back of the room.
He was frail and hunched over, with pale, parchment skin and eyes that never seemed to blink.
“Something we can use to decipher the symbols on the crypt wall,” I replied.
“What do you think that’ll help us find?”
“I don’t know yet, but anything that sheds more light on this kingdom is worth learning.”
She picked up another book and ran her fingers along the pages. I watched, transfixed, imagining those same fingers dancing across my skin. Heat burned through me, and I looked away as she said, “You still don’t trust the Elders.”
“Of course not. And after today, I don’t think you do, either.” I kept my voice quiet. “Otherwise you would’ve told them the warning the siren gave you.”
Her nose twitched. “Maybe she was lying.”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye.
“Come on, Vera. You might be reckless, but you’re smart.
The Elders are keeping something from you.
The siren asked what you were willing to surrender.
She asked if you knew the cost.” I took a book off the shelf.
“I’m not about to let you surrender anything for these people. ”
“And you think the answer might be here,” she said, eyeing the hundreds and hundreds of books.
“Well, we can’t all stab or fire-breathe our way out of problems like you and your brother,” I said with a smirk, then turned a corner leading to another row of tomes, glancing over historical records, almanacs, and religious texts.
Knowledge always paved the way when magic or brute strength failed.
She snorted. “I suppose Nox and I have that in common.”
“You two are far more similar than you think, trust me.” I opened another book, but when I saw that it was poetry and not ancient languages, I slammed it shut. The sound echoed eerily in the quiet hall.
Vera, who was still on the row around the corner, shoved aside a few books on the shelf between us to create an opening. She rested her elbows on the wooden shelf and quirked an eyebrow at me. “You seem tense.”
My jaw shifted. “This place is too quiet.” And I can’t think with you here.
She smirked. “It’s a library, Everett.”
“Still, there should be…” I waved my hand in the air, searching for the word.
“Life. It feels off.” I couldn’t shake the strange feeling this place gave me.
Our little library at the Keep was nothing in size compared to here, but it was constantly surrounded by sounds.
Flames crackling as Milo experimented with new spells.
Arowyn and Kieran target practicing in the corner.
Faint scraping of chairs, footsteps, and low chatter from outside the workshop.
The palace was full of commotion the day we got here. Movement and whispered conversations, staff going about their jobs. Today, there was nothing. It made the sore muscles in my shoulder twitch with nervous anticipation.
Or maybe it was just her.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that dream last night.
She didn’t know I had truly been there, but her nightmare called to me.
It had been a long time since I’d dreamwalked without meaning to, but sometimes when my magic sensed heightened emotions around me, it would pull me into that person’s dream.
I saw Mortep and those cell walls closing in on her, and all I wanted was to take her pain away.
Then she kissed me. She thought none of it was real, but Fates, I could still taste her.
I forgot what it was like to truly feel her.
Free and reckless, with an edge of heat simmering just beneath her skin.
I wanted it to consume me. Her flames were the most exquisite form of torture, and now that I was back in the blaze, all I wanted was to feel it again.
Yet here we were, alone in the forced silence, a constant reminder that I should keep my distance. That things weren’t so simple between us anymore.
“Maybe you need a break,” she suggested, snapping me from my thoughts.
“Not until we’ve found something.” I motioned to her. “I’m surprised you’re so calm after today.”
“Me, too. Honestly, this is the most calm I’ve felt in days. Weeks.” Vera chewed on her bottom lip. “I know everything’s going wrong, but things always seem better when I’m…”
She trailed off, and I set the text in my hands down. “When you’re what?”
Her eyes slid up to mine. “When I’m with you.”
It was so simple, but the words squeezed my chest. The fact that I could still be a safe space for her, even after all this time apart, felt better than any touch.
Before I could respond, she moved farther into the shelves on her side. “I get what you mean, though. About this place,” she continued, as if she hadn’t just cracked my heart wide open with four words. “It doesn’t feel like the Keep. It’s always warm there. And loud,” she added with a chuckle.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t think anything will ever feel like it. That’s home to me.”
“You miss it,” she said.
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes. I miss them all, as annoying as they can be.” I wondered what Nox, Devora, and the rest of them thought was happening. If they assumed we found Vera and were on our way back to Drakorum on the Grand Dragon, safe and sound.
If we didn’t get off this island, there would be no one to tell them why we never made it home.
“You’re going to see them again, I promise,” Vera said, making me look back at her between the books.
I shook my head. “That’s unsettling, you know.”
“What is?”
“How you always seem to know what I’m thinking.”
Her lips tilted upward. “You’re easy to read, Swift. If you know where to look.”
I hummed, moving down the row to another section of miscellaneous books.
We both perused in the quiet for a few minutes, still finding nothing of use that looked like the symbols I saw.
I pushed a stack over to see Vera across from me again, those gold eyes meeting mine through the small space between spines.
She chuckled. “This is a familiar view.”
I couldn’t stop the snort that left me. “I never thought we’d be joking about that.”
She shrugged. “I meant what I said to Tessa earlier. I don’t want everyone to always tiptoe around me. I’m not going to fall apart.”
“Nobody thinks that.”
She narrowed her eyes, as if she didn’t believe me. “I am funny, you know. I have fun.” Her lips twisted. “On occasion.”
“I’m sure you do. You and your captain, off gallivanting across the Triad Realm.” My tone was dry, but I raised an eyebrow at her in challenge. Imagining her and Starke together, and the way she’d let him into her room and closed the door the other night, made envy writhe in my chest.
She laughed. “There’s that jealousy again.”
I reached the end of the row and pivoted around the corner, back to the one she was on. She leaned casually against the shelves. I prowled closer, noticing the way her spine straightened and her smile faltered as my arm brushed her side.
“Of course, I’m jealous.” I leaned in and gripped a book next to her shoulder, my eyes never leaving hers. I was bordering on something dangerous, being this close to her, but I could never resist the pull.
“He got to be with you for an entire year,” I said, voice low. She held her breath, and my arm bracketed her in as I pulled the book out. “He was with you every morning, every evening, while I went to bed dreaming of you. He had it all,” my gaze drifted to her lips, “and I only had memories.”
“You’re wrong,” she breathed out. “He’s just a friend.”
“A friend?” I hummed, then leaned back. “He doesn’t look at you like a friend.”
She grasped the book I held in front of my chest, fingers grazing mine.
It rested in the middle of us like a shield, but I didn’t know which of us it was protecting more.
“It doesn’t matter how he looks at me. There’s nothing going on between us.
” Her grip tightened. “There’s never been anyone else, Everett. ”
The question was on the tip of my tongue. Then why did you leave? But I didn’t want to start another argument. She said I used that as a weapon any time I was upset, and maybe she was right. Right now, I didn’t want my logic to guide me. I didn’t need answers.
I just needed her.
I slowly took the book away and set it on the shelf behind me, lowering the barrier. “Do you still love me, Vera?” I whispered, so quietly the silence of the library seemed to swallow the sound. Her forehead pinched when I took her hand. “Do you still want me?”
“Yes. I—” Her breath hitched. “I don’t know.” I stilled, waiting for her response, and her fingers shook in my grasp. “I don’t know. I’m a—a tangled mess, Everett.”
A tangled mess. She said the same thing last night in her dream.
“Then let me untangle it,” I murmured. I kissed her palm, then her wrist, feeling her pulse pound beneath my lips.
She inhaled as I tenderly brushed my lips over the scar on her forearm, the number forever tying her to those horrid cells.
I moved higher, trailing kisses up her arm, the crook of her elbow, her shoulder.
The top of her shirt slipped, exposing her collarbone, and I ran my lips down to the birthmark resting just below.