Chapter 22
The next morning, Morvyn was all smiles, carrying the tools and parts Arlo had requested as we walked to the library. No trace of the night before was on his pale lips.
“Let’s see if that human is good for anything besides eye sweets for you,” he said with a pestering smile.
I cut him a hard look. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, so we’re pretending you don’t constantly look at him yearningly every time you’re near him? Got it,” Morvyn said as we turned to the stairs that led to the library.
He was insufferable. But I was thankful he was avoiding the topic of the deipnon the night before.
As we walked through the halls in the portion of Naiadon that Hylos and his friends occupied, it was more empty than when I first arrived, as though they were restricting the number of sirens allowed in that section of the castle.
Since Calypstra had revealed who I truly was, the unsettling shift was enough to unnerve me.
It was for my protection. Morvyn, however bothersome, was a welcome reprieve from the seriousness of the fact that my life was in danger.
When we settled into the library, Arlo was silent, uncomfortable in Morvyn’s presence and still uncertain of mine as he unstrung the virginal.
I tried my best not to stare at him to avoid any more of Morvyn’s pestiferous taunting, and set out to get my hands on whatever it was that glowed on the second floor of the library.
I took my time, fingertips grazing the leather-bound spines on the first level, appearing to search for books to take back to my room.
“Find anything good, Elowyn?” Morvyn said. “More smut, perhaps?”
I scowled in his direction. “I need something to pass my imprisonment with.”
“Aren’t you the luckiest prisoner in the world, to have such beautiful jailers?”
I rolled my eyes.
“How do I access the second floor?” I asked, heart thrumming but my expression steeled as that strange glow glimmered in the corner of my eye. Whatever glowed was just above where Morvyn lounged, pale fins kicked up as he picked off the platter of fruit laid out for Arlo and me.
“The stairs are just over there,” he said carelessly as he threw his chin at the back corner of the library.
Perfect.
Red silken skirt in hand, I curled up the spiral mezzanine stairs and made my way to the bookshelf that held the glowing light. With each step closer, that strange light shone brighter and brighter. What could it possibly be?
With each careful step, I watched for any movement from Morvyn, having no clue what I would do even if he caught me. Then, Arlo looked up, his eyes wide in fear.
Shit.
I shook my head no at him, willing him to understand.
Do not say anything.
Please, do not say anything!
I felt it in my bones. This, whatever it was, would help us get out of here.
“Aren’t you meant to be toiling away at that instrument, Tiny Toes?” Morvyn sneered at Arlo.
I froze. I couldn’t see where Morvyn was from my angle. If he walked toward Arlo to bother him, he would see the light reacting to me.
Arlo quickly turned back around to the instrument, pretending to work at it.
“Good little human.”
Arlo bit his bottom lip, holding back whatever slew of curses he had running through his mind to ensure Morvyn stayed put.
Perfect. Then Arlo looked at me briefly and gave me a small, affirmative nod.
I was in the clear.
Heart lodged in my throat, I took one steady step at a time. The spine of a book was coming into view at the center of that light, almost too bright to look at. I lifted a hand to shield my eyes and stretched out to reach it.
I just barely touched the grainy, worn, sky-blue canvas that bound the text when a song like a birdcall tolled through the library in a cheery twittering. Then the light vanished.
Arlo coughed loudly to cover the noise.
“What’s wrong with you? Do you have the plague or whatever you puny humans get?” Morvyn said.
“Just something caught in my throat,” he said, hitting his chest hard.
“Humans are so bizarre,” Morvyn muttered.
Arlo looked back up at me, raising his eyebrows. I gave him a smile and a nod. I had whatever it was in my clutches. He turned back to the instrument.
My heart steadied as I peeled back the hard cover, the pages stuck together, unopened for some time.
I flitted through the pages, greeted by rows of neat handwriting in precise lines, in my language.
But the pages weren’t water-stained like the other texts Lumina had left at my bedside, just well used.
The first page, in a different handwriting from the rest, read, To my one and only. May this journal hold your mind as you hold my heart.
A journal? But whose was it? I turned to the next page. It was dated in the top right corner: Spring 5339 AT. That was only twenty-seven years ago. How did it end up here?
“Elowyn,” Morvyn said.
I shut the book quickly.
“Yes?” I looked over the marble half-wall, down to Morvyn, who was standing and staring up at me, hands on his bony hips.
“What are you doing up there?” he asked, pale brow raised.
“Are you going to watch my every breath? I wasn’t aware I was even in danger here among all of this ferocious …” I looked around. “Literature.”
Morvyn nervously rubbed at the nape of his neck. “Sorry, you were just being so quiet and—”
“It’s a library, Morvyn, you’re meant to be quiet.”
Arlo let out a laugh.
“Quiet, terra.”
“I am not the one yelling,” Arlo said in a low, steady voice.
Morvyn shook off whatever his instincts were telling him.
“Arlo, are you content?” I asked, repeating his accusation against me from the first time we were in this library.
Arlo’s head hit the open lid of the virginal with a thud, drawing a hiss of pain from him.
“What?” he said, rubbing at the top of his short-sheared scalp.
“Are you content … with the food?”
He looked up, scanning my face for meaning until it clicked.
“No. I am not content.”
“What’s wrong with the food?” Morvyn said, genuinely offended.
“For starters, it’s stolen cargo from my ship.” Arlo scowled.
Morvyn smirked. “True.”
“Morvyn, we need something more satiating. Maybe cooked fish and bread?”
He let out a melodramatic sigh.
“Fine, come down here and we’ll go together,” he answered.
“No,” Arlo said quickly. “I need someone to test the keys while I tighten the strings.”
Morvyn eyed us both curiously, but relented. “I will be quick.” He turned to Arlo. “And if you do anything stupid, I will know, Tiny Toes.”
Arlo huffed back in response.
Morvyn left, and I rushed down the winding stairs, the book against my chest as I made it to Arlo’s side.
“What the fuck was that—”
Quickly, I slapped my hand over his mouth. His eyes flared in surprise. His soft lips brushed the palm of my hand. He smelled like sea and pine planking and perfection. Warmth curled in my lower belly.
Infernum, it was going to be next to impossible to think logically if he had me in a heady high every time he was near me.
“In that lulled state, they can hear everything you hear. See everything you see. We might already be found out from what you just witnessed, but don’t make it worse.”
He nodded in understanding and I removed my hand.
“Do they know my thoughts?” he asked.
“No, those are safe, at least so they say,” I answered. “We need to think of a—” How could I word it so that the sirens wouldn’t know what I was getting at?
But Arlo seemed to already understand my meaning, nodding along. He propped a hip against the instrument and crossed his strong arms, processing.
“The sirens are very kind,” I started. “They take me all over this place to show me around.” I willed the thought into his mind. I could find a way out for us while they continued to parade me around this place.
He nodded. “I see. Well, if the sirens are so kind to you, then I should really get to work on this instrument. You know, to return the favor. After all, your comfort seems important to them.” Then he began loosening the strings quickly, unstringing the instrument. He was slowing his repair.
A heart-faltering smile sliced across his face as he looked back at me.
He was so handsome. Too handsome. And bloody smart. Thank the Guardians. He would earn us more time together and I would look for a way out for all of us.
But there was something I needed to do first. I owed it to Arlo to tell him the truth.
“There is something else I should tell you that the sirens already know,” I said, swallowing my fear. “The reason I was on your ship.”
He turned back to me, waiting.
“My name is Elowyn Blackthorn. I am the king’s daughter.”
Arlo searched my face for meaning. “But why would the king allow his only daughter to be transported on a cargo ship?”
“Because he doesn’t care about me and—” Nothing in me wanted to claim the truth, but I had to. “I was on my way to marry my betrothed, Sir Cedric Gyldford, at Whiterok.”
Arlo took a step back, like the words were a physical blow.
“It was against my will,” I answered quickly.
He remained tense, thoughts lingering in his honey-soaked eyes.
“And I was an accomplice in this forced betrothal.” His voice dipped into a lethally low octave.
“There was no way for you to know,” I said softly, taking a step closer. It was not his fault.
“No one should be forced to be with or without someone against their will.”
“Unfortunately, that is exactly the fate of a king’s daughter, legitimate or not,” I said with a weak smile, looking down.
Softly, Arlo brushed a curl behind my ear, sending sparks of pleasure across my skin. His hand lingered there for a moment. I looked up at him.
“It shouldn’t be anyone’s fate. You only have one life. You should be with who you choose.”
Our eyes met, and it felt like he’d poured sunlight into my soul. Then his gaze shifted from my eyes to my mouth.
Did he feel it too? This strange attraction?
I leaned in closer.
“Elowyn, I … I can’t.” He pulled away, taking all his warmth with him. “There’s someone else—they’re waiting for me.” The sentence was like an arrow stuck in my chest.
“Oh.” I took a step back too, shoving down every feeling this man that I hardly knew made me feel. “Of course.” I smiled cheerily, despite wanting to die of sheer embarrassment. “My apologies for being so forward.”
Dumb. I was so fucking dumb.
He reached for my wrist, but I maneuvered out of his reach. “Elowyn, please don’t be ⒈／⒋ It’s not like that, it’s—” he started, making the situation all the more mortifying.
“Okay, you land-loving lot,” Morvyn said from the top of the staircase, a platter of food in hand.
Thank the Guardians above. A distraction. For the first time, I was thankful for that annoying, pale buffoon. “Terra grub is served.” He glanced between us. “Oh, great … more sexual tension. Brilliant.”
Arlo huffed, then returned to his work at the virginal.
Morvyn escorted me back to my room soon after, thankfully.
The time after that horrendous situation was unbearable.
I tried my best to pretend like I didn’t wish every window in Naiadon would shatter so I could drown to death to avoid sharing the same space as Arlo after I’d completely misread his feelings for me.
At least the blue journal was in my grasp, safely nestled between two other books as Morvyn and I walked the empty halls of Naiadon.
I thought Arlo wanted to kiss me? I was such an idiot.
Of course a man like Arlo had someone else.
A beauty waiting for him in a port somewhere.
He was handsome and kind. Men like him had women waiting for him.
But me? I had no one. Maybe a spare cook’s son to screw behind an oak tree in secret. But not passion. Not romance.
I would only ever have secrets or betrothals.
“Nixie and Lumi mentioned going to a picnic in a little while. You should join them,” Morvyn said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Are picnics not meant to take place outside?” I asked.
“When you see the glade, you’ll get it. Who knows, maybe you’ll even have a little fun, princess.” He winked.
I rolled my eyes. “Not a princess.”
We paused at my door. Morvyn lingered in the hallway, bathed in the soft glow spilling from the sea through the glass windows.
“I believe the qualification is to be the daughter of a king.” He booped me on the nose. “Check. And to of course have a royal air about oneself, and occasionally I suppose you meet that requirement. When you aren’t scowling or cursing wickedly.”
“Once my father had my mother executed and me delegitimized, I was no longer considered a princess. The only reason you and the others insist I’m his heir is because your leader seeks a strong ally in his war.
Unfortunately for him, all he got was a waterlogged, illegitimate daughter who was in the process of being banished on a damned cargo ship. ”
“Well,” his lips quirked to one side, “who doesn’t love a wet princess?”
My eyes widened at the crass comment. “You’re absolutely repugnant,” I sneered.
“I heard you were positively sopping when they found you,” he continued, earning a smack on his arm from me.
“All thanks to Tiny Toes and his terrible steering,” he chuckled.
A smile swept across my lips, betraying my attempt to maintain composure. “You’re abhorrent!”
Morvyn had an irritating talent for cracking through my defenses and making me grin despite everything.
Our laughter settled.
Morvyn leaned against the wall across my door, his figure blending into it as he folded his long limbs before him. “Just so you know, I do care.”
“What?” I asked.
“Last night, after Calypstra outed you, you asked if I care. I do. When she did that, despite you holding it together wonderfully, I realized how afraid you might truly be here. How strange this all must be for you. I just kept thinking that I don’t want you to feel more uncomfortable because of us. ”
“But why?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know, even if it was just a lovely lie told to keep me complacent.
“Besides you seem like a decent person, despite your terrible taste in men,” Morvyn started.
My face contorted in an attempt at offense.
“Because I think you need someone to care about you. Someone who believes in you for being you, not just some rich asshole’s daughter.”
For a second I let myself believe Morvyn cared. That the others maybe cared too.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime, Princess.”