42 #2
She draws in a sharp breath. Her hood has slipped back, revealing the other earring still there, twin to the one in her fist. The pendant is a tiny dragon, its tail shaped like an arrow.
“What would you know of hiding? Of running? Of fighting to survive?” She storms past me, bumping her shoulder into mine—surprisingly strong—as she pushes me aside.
“A lot. I was held captive by a magic harvester and forced to find people for him—people he would carve up, drain of their magic, and kill. When I let someone go, he’d lock me away and have me beaten by his henchmen.”
She pauses at the door to the archives, a hand on the handle. But she hasn’t yet pushed it down, so I keep going.
“You know the other time I ran out of here? It was because I can’t stand closed rooms. People make me nervous because I’ve never even had a friend.
Honestly, walking through campus every day—let alone having breakfast or dinner in the great hall—makes my skin crawl.
I’d rather hide somewhere every single time.
And above all that, I’m tired of being what they all want me to be when I don’t even know who I am. ”
The words tumble out in a rush, tasting strange and humiliating. I’ve never voiced any of this in such a raw and honest way. Why did I just say it? Maybe because a part of me feels like she’d understand—because she’s been through dark times too.
“And I saw the campus feeding you as well, because it sometimes feeds me when my anxiety’s really bad and I don’t make it to the dining hall,” I go on quietly, hoping she won’t run off.
Faye’s eyes land on Aris, sprawled at my feet, pretending to sleep.
“That’s why he’s here. Like an emotional support dragon,” I add quietly.
“Demon,” he rumbles sleepily, cracking one eye open to confirm he’s very much awake.
“Busybody,” I shoot back.
He just yawns.
I see Faye’s shoulders tense before she lets out a long, shaky breath. “I could use an emotional support dragon too, I suppose.”
I smirk. “Trust me—comes in handy.”
Aris rolls his eyes, mentally clears his throat, and I send a tiny apology his way.
Slowly, Faye returns and slumps down into the chair opposite me. “Huh, and here I was, thinking you were pampered and arrogant because you’re oh-so-special.” Her tone is sharp, but when I glance up, her full lips twitch with amusement.
I can’t help but smile back. “Believe me, a lot of people probably think that.”
“I don’t. It was a joke—or maybe a tiny part of me thought it once.
I couldn’t have said it otherwise,” she muses, gazing up at the dark ceiling.
“But, no, deep down, I thought it must be exhausting. Being stared at that much. It would drive me mad. I’m lucky I’m so unimportant that no one cares about me hiding here. ”
I can hardly hold her gaze and, instead, focus on the spines of ancient books. “It does get exhausting. And it’s only gotten worse,” I admit.
She blows out a long, theatrical sigh. “Well, it is unusual to see a student being trained by a high lord. Even the scribes talk about it—and they usually never talk about anything that isn’t a book.”
I hang my head. And here I thought the library was the only safe place, as long as I didn’t think too much about the fact that it has no windows and only one exit. That down here, I’m a nobody. So that’s why they sometimes stop to look at me from under their hoods.
“Maybe a hood would help,” I murmur, imagining pulling it over my face—how soothing it must feel to just disappear for a while.
“Oh, it does. That’s why I’m wearing one.
” Faye’s eyes light up, reminding me of the sea on a sunny day.
Then she leans forward, her elbows on the desk between us, her fingers so close to mine she could touch them.
“Alright,” she says softly. “Since you’ve shared your secret, it’s only fair I give you one of mine.
Our kingdom, where I grew up, was tiny—not yet part of Palisandre, still independent.
We had no ruler. It was a sacred place, run by its own laws, devoted to preserving knowledge.
I grew up in libraries, and books were pretty much the only world I knew. ”
I hold my breath as her aura darkens.
“One day, when I was seventeen, they came and raided the whole temple. I think they were warriors from the north. Brutal, cold men. Since the library was warded, my father ordered me to hide there with the other younglings. No one had breached the wards in centuries. But they tried anyway. I hid there with the other scribes. My dad was outside, fighting. When they all died, the elder scribes, acolytes, and priests went out to help. They never came back.”
Faye’s eyes are suddenly brimming with sorrow, and I want to hold her—but I don’t dare, afraid to spook her. I’m all the more surprised when she takes my hand and squeezes it.
“I stayed down there. I should have gone out. I heard them scream. I stayed. I did nothing to help them.”
“You’d be dead if you had,” I say quietly.
She pulls her hand back, as if afraid I’ll recoil, and shakes her head.
“The library fed me. Kept me alive. Us —me and the few remaining younglings. There were a few fae women my age, but most were no older than thirteen. Days later, the oldest of us finally found the courage to go out. To see. To bury the dead. But they were waiting. They tortured us one by one and—”
Silence. Then: “They raped us before they killed us.” Her eyes—those beautiful, living eyes—go vacant.
“Not me. It wasn’t yet my turn. They didn’t find me beautiful enough.
But I—I never felt so useless. If I’d had magic in my veins, I would have burned them all to the ground.
Or drowned them. Abyss, I wish I had. I prayed to the ancient gods to give me magic, just once.
A tiny spark to do justice.” The emptiness in her is replaced by rage, by raw, furious determination.
“But I had none. I was just a girl. A lesser fae. I had to watch. How they raped all my friends, one by one, and then slit their throats. Discarded their bodies as if they were ruined things. When they dragged me away because it was my turn, the Dark Lord suddenly showed up. He and his men. They butchered all of them—and at the front was Kyrith.”
She traces a bruise on my hand, as if she knows who caused it. “I know he’s been cruel to you, but I’ve never seen so much fury and hate in anyone’s face as his when he found us. He killed his own men, I later found out. Men he grew up with. They…they were from his former cadre.”
She lets go of my hand again. “The high lords brought me here. The library became my sanctuary. They offered me the chance to become an acolyte. But I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve any of it. Only shelving books, for the rest of my life.”
“That’s not true.”
That fire still burns in her eyes when she meets mine. “You know, some warriors escaped. They left before the Dark Lord came. I want to hunt them down. I want to kill them, one by one. Sometimes I lie awake at night, imagining it. I even dream it.”
She takes out a moonstone and stares at it—the stone I’ve seen in the belts of healers.
It glows faintly in her hands as if it held some kind of light.
“Meanara herself gave this stone to me. She came down here once to heal me when I fell down the stairs. She said I could try to become a healer instead of an acolyte if I wanted to. To join her in the temple. To come back to the daylight.” Faye’s face scrunches up as if she’s in pain.
“But I don’t deserve it. I deserve to stay down here until the end of days. ”
She stands so abruptly that several sheets fly from the desk, and then she runs off, the stone gleaming on the wood in her absence.
I follow her, darting after her into the archives, but she’s already gone—swallowed by the endless dark rows between the shelves.
I jog down the long corridor until I spot a figure moving in a very dark aisle, the shelves filled with black-bound books.
I skid to a stop and turn in, but the figure is already gone.
I sigh and run down the aisle, throwing out my talent to find her.
It’s so easy—my talent tugging me along, urging me farther and farther.
This row of books is endless. And it turns darker and darker the farther in I go.
The light illuminating the shelves is no longer bright, but faint, as if the magical flames don’t have enough power to burn fully.
Here it smells older—of salt, as if the sea were close, and of old dust, dried parchment, and, strangely enough, smoke and fire.
I look up and catch a glimpse of a grayish robe between the shelves again, right at the end, before it disappears into another corridor to the right.
I pick up my pace, cutting through the corner—only to find yet another empty, long tunnel of shelves and books.
I can’t help it—the archives down here suddenly feel more like a labyrinth than a library, and I shudder at the memory of my time in the enchanted maze in the garden of Caryan’s fortress. As if someone built this to hide something rather than merely to store knowledge.
The further I push, the more the archives become like some kind of cave system. I want to turn around, but then I spot that damn hood again between shelves. Is Faye playing some silly game? When I look over my shoulder, Aris is suddenly gone too. I must have lost him somewhere.
But when I cut through the next corner, a hand suddenly grabs me, closing around my wrist—and eerily gleaming blue eyes stare into mine from a face cloaked in shadow beneath a hood, the same strange blue hair spilling out from beneath it, glowing with the same unnatural light as her irises.
“What—”
“Give me the stone,” the acolyte rasps in an otherworldly voice, and by the sound of it—and the look of her bony hand—I can tell she’s old. But her eyes…they’re unfocused and milky, and she’s speaking in a way that makes my skin crawl.