25 #2
“That…that huge, intimidating dragon out there?” Faye asks incredulously. “It is really yours?” Aris scoffs and I can feel his chest swelling with pride. I roll my eyes at him mentally.
“He’s not mine. We…are bonded,” I explain.
“She is mine,” he contradicts.
“Possessive, weird, bossy demons.”
“That’s in our nature, round-eared halfling.”
“Go. Food. You. Now.” I slam the shield down, right in his face this time.
“And you can talk to him mentally?” Faye continues.
“Yeah, isn’t it like that with all bonds?” There we go. Aris said I should learn something, so I can ask her, right? Since I’m already here.
Her eyebrows shoot up and her cheeks flush with color, and I wonder whether I just unknowingly broke some fae codex of some kind.
“I’m sorry…I just…I don’t know so many things about this world,” I say truthfully.
Her eyes rove over my face again before she tilts her head curiously. She surprises me when she says, her eyes shining with unexpected warmth, “That must be hard.”
I look away, not sure what to do with her empathy. Fae aren’t exactly soft-hearted. Curious, yes. Nice, sometimes.
“It is…most of the time. And awkward, I guess,” I admit after a moment. I can give her this after she’s been so nice.
Her lips spread into a radiant grin. “Now we’re both weird.
I like that. And to answer your question—because I just read a book about bonding: no, it isn’t like that with all bonds.
Every bond is different. There are all forms of bonds, and every single one is unique.
The common theory is that bonds are shaped by magic and the imagination of the sharers.
They create it together, with its own set of rules. ”
Oh gorgeous. So the bond to Caryan—that mental bridge between our minds and souls—it’s something I created too. I really don’t know what to do with this information.
I’m glad when Fae keeps rattling a lot more facts about bonds while we walk on, steering my mind away from Caryan and that glittering, blocked bond right behind my ribs.
I watch her from the side. She’s forgotten her hood, talking with her hands now, her eyes bright with a new intensity that makes her look almost joyful.
Even her aura has shifted. I wonder if she notices.
She seems more confident, more alive—as if this is where she belongs. As if knowledge itself is her element.
Her voice finally subsides when we stop in some kind of vault. I hadn’t realized how deep underground we’d walked. Only now, as I feel the heat of this world’s core and Aris’s bond is really nothing more than a muted thread, does it hit me.
“Where are we?”
“This…this is the real archives,” she says, her voice falling to a hushed whisper.
Then she raises her hand and presses it to the inside of another metal door adorned with horned faces.
The door sighs open into a hollow of stone and old paper.
A circular hole yawns beneath us, its center black as pitch, swallowing the light.
Around it, galleries have been hewn directly into the rock, level upon level, each holding pale rows of shelves and desks that cling to the stone.
Lanterns ring the void, their glow never quite touching its heart.
A single narrow marble stair ribbons the inner wall, its steps worn to a satin sheen, spiraling downward beside the darkness, disappearing long before it should.
I supress a shudder. Where does it end? What lies beyond the reach of light?
Faye leans over the marble rail with me. “Don’t look down too long,” she whispers. “People get…contemplative.”
“How many levels are there?” My voice comes out small; everything eats sound down here.
“Seven that we admit to,” she says, mouth quirking.
“But we live on the first three, mostly.” She points to the ring we’re standing on.
“Level one is the reading hall. It’s the heart of the archives.
Acolyte carrels, long tables, common room and tearoom, and the head scribe’s office through that arch. If you need anything, you ask here.”
Her finger trails to the next balcony below, where iron lamps halo quiet, hooded figures gliding between shelves as they stack books.
“Level Two: Histories healing, brewing, illusions. I should warn you. The manuals are ward-latched. But nonlethal,” she adds quickly, then less surely, “mostly.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Ward-latched?”
“Yes.” She gives me a pained smile. “You’re better off asking before you touch anything.
Some of the spells can be quite nasty—I once earned myself a rash that lasted a full week for picking up the wrong book.
” She shrugs. “The book-lift stops there, though, so it’s always busy, and there’s usually someone around to help.
It’s warm, too, smells of ink and wool, and there are a few cozy armchairs by the fire. It’s my favorite level.”
“And that one?” I nod to the third ring, where little alcoves have been carved into the stone.
“Level Three—Arcana & Languages: Rune-keys, translation primers, lexicons. But that’s also where we keep the dead tongues. It’s the quietest level and, honestly, the last we’re allowed to go to. But it’s got sound-dampened alcoves for long translations.”
“Well, I guess that’s my level,” I mutter, my stomach churning from the feeling of being locked under a mountain. “So how many more levels are there?” I ask, peering into the dim below. “You said ‘seven you admit to.’ What did you mean? How many more are there?”
Faye’s hood slips back as she smiles. “We don’t know. There are seven named.” Her gaze drifts downward. “But the shaft goes farther. Old doors. Older wards.” She hesitates. “We don’t shelve there, though…”
She pauses, and I swear I hear something hissing up from the very depths. A sound that makes my hackles rise.
“Why?” I ask. “What’s down there at the bottom?”