Chapter 18
“This is impossible,” Ryn mumbled, her face still far too pale and her eyes even larger than normal. “There’s no way. It’s not real. She couldn’t have. No one is that powerful.”
“What are you talking about?” At least, that’s what Xavi tried to say, but he’d only gotten about three words out when a small hand was clapped firmly over his mouth.
“Do. Not. Speak,” Ryn hissed fiercely. “Not one word, do you understand?”
They were lying so close on the floor that he could see every freckle that dusted her nose, every shift in her brilliant gray eyes. A shiver rippled through her body, her lips parted slightly, and her fingers trembled where they touched his face.
And for a moment, Xavi was distracted by the strangest thought. He could not remember the last person who had touched him in this form. Perhaps the human, Sky, but she had known only Lesh, and viewed him with little more than shock and pity.
Before Ryn—before her alarmingly casual pats and brushes of skin on skin—he could not even recall the last time someone had chosen to remain this close, let alone reached out to him with sympathy or affection.
After so many centuries alone, he ought to be used to isolation.
To prefer it. But not every part of him did, so it was with the oddest sensation of regret that Xavi reached up slowly and carefully.
Wrapped his hand around the fragile bones of her wrist and tugged ever so gently.
“Explain,” he said. But quietly. He had no desire to be shushed again.
Ryn did not say a word, only scrambled to her feet and backed deeper into the shadows between the towering shelves, gesturing for him to follow.
Whatever this place was, she clearly had some knowledge of it, so he swallowed his frustration and followed until her back hit the wall and one hand clapped itself over her mouth.
For a few moments, she seemed to hold her breath as her eyes darted from side to side. Then her hand lowered slowly, and she looked up at him, her expression very like that of a startled deer who’d just come face to face with a storm cat.
“Ryn.”
Something about the sound of her name seemed to snap whatever hold this place had over her actions.
She blinked and shook her head. “You said my name,” she murmured, looking slightly stunned, but also pleased. “That’s the first time you’ve said my name.”
Was it? Given its effect on her, perhaps there truly was something to the idea of power, even in a human name. He would have to remember that, should there ever be a moment in the future when he needed to command her attention.
“Would you care to tell me what about this place has you behaving as if you’ve seen a ghost?” He was careful not to say it loudly, but she still winced.
“All right,” she said, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a rush. “You aren’t going to believe me. But above all else, you must avoid being heard or seen. No one can know you’re here. Because if they do…”
“Where, Ryn?”
She seemed to brace herself. “We’re in… the library.”
He regarded her quizzically.
“At my university,” she continued. “Where I studied. The library. You know, the place where all the books are kept?”
“I do know what a library is,” he grumbled under his breath. “Are you suggesting the fae somehow picked us up, threw us all the way across the continent and then dropped us?”
It seemed impossible. Or at least unlikely, given that he’d been unable to leave Dunmaren since the onset of the curse.
“I don’t know,” Ryn whisper-shouted, throwing her hands up in frustration. “It’s said the fae can walk between worlds. What if she could open up a portal to this place? Galloping ghosts, Xavi, what if this isn’t some sort of dream world after all? What if we’re actually here?”
Perhaps she was right and the fae’s magic could do such a thing. Strange, though, that Ryn looked so terrified. Because he would have thought that being instantly transported to her home with no need to cross a hostile wilderness in the middle of winter would have delighted any sane person.
But then, Lady Camryn Halivard was clearly not sane, or they wouldn’t be in this mess.
“Surely you don’t doubt my ability to protect you from whatever threats can be found in a library.” Unless the human world had a far different notion of libraries than his own. “Or are there monsters lurking among the shelves?”
She shot him a look that openly questioned his intelligence.
“The problem here is not whether you can protect me. If these people see you…” She shuddered.
“None of these scholars have ever seen a night elf in person, but they’re quick to believe the most terrifying and bloodthirsty stories, which means that today, you are the monster among the shelves.
Half of them will faint, the rest will run away screaming, and someone is bound to call the city guard.
And as competent as you are, I doubt you can defeat the entire city guard without at least some degree of murder or maiming, which I would prefer to avoid. ”
Oh. Yes, he supposed she had a point, but he didn’t have to like it. Also…
“I am not a night elf. I am Lycori.”
Her expression shifted to long-suffering annoyance. “Do you think it will help if I announce that you’re actually a cursed warrior from a long-forgotten race of immortal beings who might look like night elves but are in fact their distant ancestors and far more magical and dangerous?”
“No, I…” Oh. She was expressing sarcasm. Xavi gritted his teeth to keep from making a sound of frustration that was likely to provoke another over-enthusiastic shushing. “Then what do you suggest?”
“We have to remember the terms of the curse. Everything that fae woman said… and didn’t say.
Hopefully, then we can figure out what we’re meant to do in order to get out of here.
” Ryn tapped one finger on her lips. “She said we had to prove ourselves worthy of standing by a king’s side.
Be wise, capable, tenacious… What else?”
In truth, she’d given them little else to go on, which seemed strangely vague for an enchantress claiming to be trapped by her own magic.
“Sacrifice,” Xavi finally recalled. “And great suffering.” And she’d said that last part with so much anticipation…
“Well, for your part, I suppose sacrifice means not hurting anyone. Or perhaps protecting me from my own ineptitude. I’m just not sure how I’m meant to demonstrate sacrifice in a library.
Except perhaps by not reading something I desperately want to, but I can genuinely say I’ve never felt less like reading in my life. ”
All of this speculation was assuming that the fae had been telling the truth about anything, which Xavi had privately begun to doubt. But perhaps that discussion was best left to a time when they could speak more freely.
“Very well,” he muttered. “If you can refrain from reading, then I will do my very best to refrain from maiming anyone.”
Ryn squeaked, then clapped a hand over her mouth again—clearly to hold back laughter—so Xavi waited in disgruntled silence until she managed to control it.
“You have a very strange idea of humor,” he informed her. “Now please tell me that you have a plan. It should be simple enough, given that you are familiar with these people and this place.”
“Yes, well…” Ryn sighed and moved silently down the row of books to peer around the end of the shelf.
“A few months ago, that would have been true. But I left because… Well, I left because they kicked me out. So if anyone realizes who I am, they will probably call the guards on me. I might be able to blend in if I had my robes, but I don’t, so the minute I walk out there, everyone is going to know I don’t belong and start asking how I got in. ”
Xavi walked forward to join her, a decidedly wicked grin beginning to tug at his lips. “So you’re saying you require a diversion?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”
“About night elves, and other things that don’t belong in libraries.”
She turned on him with a scowl. “No, you may not turn into a gryphon and terrorize the librarians.”
Pity. It would have solved a great many problems.
“A cat, then?”
“No storm cats either,” she said sternly. “We don’t have those in human lands, and there would probably be a riot.”
“A smaller cat then,” he suggested impatiently.
“Those are actually allowed in libraries, so they might not make a fuss.”
Of all the ridiculous, impractical… “Who makes these rules?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t me.”
Frustration stiffened his neck and strangled his patience, bringing the hot, bright glow of magic to his eyes. “And how long do you suppose I will submit tamely to these pointless human rules before I decide to solve this problem in my own way?”
Ryn sucked in a quick breath as she glanced up at him. As if remembering suddenly who he truly was.
Not a lackey. Not a pet. Not a character in a story. But the villain who had lured her into this enchantment in the first place. The one who would cheerfully have sacrificed her to the curse to save his people from extinction.
“Xaviel, no,” she murmured. “Please. Even if there were no trial. If there is any chance that this is real, then these people don’t deserve to die.”
She thought he was just going to go out there and start murdering librarians?
Stung, he recoiled and retreated to the shadows again, feeling strangely unsettled by the knowledge that she believed him capable of such a thing.
Even as Lesh, he had never gloried in wanton killing, though it was true that the value he’d placed on mortal lives was decidedly less than it should have been.
He’d been far too focused on his own needs and preferences.
Indeed, he wasn’t certain whether he had even paused a moment to mourn the previous brides’ sacrifices.
Still less to wonder what became of those they left behind.
If he had mourned them, shouldn’t he have remembered their faces?
“I’m sorry,” Ryn whispered. “Xavi, truly. I didn’t mean… Well, I didn’t mean to imply that you…”
“You did.” And perhaps she was not wrong to do so.
Perhaps this trial was not without purpose after all, if it could remind him how cheaply he’d begun to hold the lives that did not directly benefit him.
How far he’d strayed from the vows he’d sworn, first to Kel’s father, and then to Kel himself.
He’d blamed the magic of the curse, but was that fair?
What if Lesh was only an excuse? Only an outlet for his frustration, futility, and rage?
“Truly, I am sorry…”
The light scuff of footsteps was his only warning, and it was almost too late.
“If you do not stop whispering this instant…”
A portly, balding man in a black robe rounded the end of the bookshelf, murmuring his admonition as loudly as possible without causing even more of a scene than he was attempting to prevent.
His gaze immediately fell on Ryn, and he reacted to her presence with an almost comical expression of surprise.
And Ryn… She whirled, putting her back to Xavi before spreading her arms wide and looking honestly as guilty as it was possible for a person with such an innocent face to look.
“I can explain,” she burst out, way too loudly. Somewhere across the library, a book hit the floor with a loud cracking sound.
The librarian cringed and began to turn a rather startling shade of purple that did not seem either normal or healthy for a human.
“If any books are harmed because you decided to come sneaking around in my library, I’ll be after your head, Miss Ryn.”
“I’m sorry,” she babbled quietly, “so sorry. I just…”
“Now, what are you doing back here? And dressed like that? At least wear your robes if you’re trying to get away with illegally accessing the university’s resources.”
Ryn’s mouth flopped open. And then, because she was a scholar and not a hunter or a warrior, she made the childish mistake of looking back over her shoulder—an unmistakable tell that there was something there she wished to hide.
Thankfully, the black-robed human was also a scholar and not a trained guardian, so it did not seem to occur to him to wonder why she’d looked. Nor did he take a moment to glance into the shadows for himself.
But even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because Xavi was no longer there to be seen.