Chapter Fifteen
Instead of playing chess with Zoe, I found áedán in the Archive, surrounded by books.
It was where I was supposed to be, where I'd told him I'd be, and that brought on a twinge of guilt.
But the guilt slipped away, drowned by infatuation as I looked at him.
áedán had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.
The sight of his forearms shouldn't have affected me the way it did.
With his hair bound by a cord, his jawline and the column of his neck drew my gaze.
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, pushing back my desire before it became physical.
“There you are.” áedán looked up with a welcoming smile. “Agnes showed me the kelpie books. So far, the stories recorded look accurate.”
Zephyr jumped onto a nearby table, his lion's tail swishing dangerously close to an illuminated manuscript left near the edge. Agnes appeared from between the stacks, gave the griffin a withering look, and relocated the manuscript to a safer spot on the table.
“Mr. Clarke.” She adjusted her spectacles as she returned to her work. “I trust you'll keep better control of your companion.”
“He didn't even touch it.” I motioned to Zephyr, but she was already gone. “And I fail to see how I'm responsible for him.”
The griffin sneezed and rolled onto his back, paws in the air. I reached out to scratch his furry belly. His purr was loud enough to echo off the vaulted ceiling.
I pulled my laptop out of my leather satchel and set it down on áedán's table. “We should work chronologically forward so we don't miss anything.”
“Always so organized.” But áedán was already reaching for a leather-bound volume, his fingers careful on the ancient pages. “This one's from 1342. Written by a monk who lived near Loch Awe.”
We settled into the work. The Archive was quiet except for the whisper of turning pages and the scratch of my pen.
Light slanted through the tall windows, catching dust motes in golden shafts.
This was my happy place—in a library, surrounded by piles of books.
áedán's presence only added to my joy. But Zephyr was unimpressed.
He lasted approximately twenty minutes before he huffed, stretched, and bounded off toward the door.
“Looks like your friend is bored,” áedán said without looking up.
“Probably for the best. Agnes did not look happy.”
“Listen to this.” He read, “'The water-horse came when the river flooded and guided the children to safety. The village gave thanks with flowers and songs.' No mention of drowning. No teeth or violence.”
I leaned closer to read over his shoulder and tried not to breathe too deeply.
If I did, I might end up sighing over his smell.
“Still accurate. Maybe we should go backward from the modern stories instead of starting with the past. Your clan didn't start fading until recently.
So the change couldn't have happened too long ago.”
“You're right.” áedán peered over the books until he found the oldest. He slid one to me and opened the other.
We flipped through the two books, scanning the stories. Nothing. After six more books, I sat back and sighed. Something felt off. So, I opened my laptop.
“What are you doing?” áedán leaned closer.
“I have a weird feeling. I'm going to check something.” I drew a book to me and searched for it online. Then I frowned. “Damn it.”
“What?”
“I was just wondering if maybe the books were republished and the newer versions were different.”
áedán went still. “Look up another.”
“Okay.” I grabbed another book and looked it up. “No, it's the same. It was just a thought.”
“Give this one a go.” He handed me another book.
I tried again. The book was written in 1943. I realized I'd been looking up the oldest books in our pile when I should have started with the more recent ones. Oh, well, I was already in the middle of it.
I brought up an online copy and scanned the book. “Holy shit.”
áedán leaned closer. “I don't see it.”
“Right here.” I pointed at the page on the screen. It's just a little change. It portrays kelpies with red eyes. It's a single line, but it's wrong.”
He flipped open the physical book and brought up the same page. “In the name o' the wee man!”
I blinked. “What?”
“Just a saying.” He looked at me. “You were right.”
I tapped the screen. “This book was republished with an altered version.”
“A wee change here, another there.” áedán handed me another book. “Try this one.”
I looked up the book online. He leaned in closer, and we searched page by page for any discrepancies.
“There!” áedán pointed. “It says kelpies have magic that can stick people to their backs. Page 213.” He flipped to the same page in the physical book. “It's different!”
“Small changes that no one notices.” I shook my head. “This is unbelievable.”
“Look at this one.” He grabbed a slender book from the pile to his right. “It's called 'The Kelpie's Revenge,' published in 1983.”
“The Kelpie's Revenge? That sounds bad as it is.”
“It's not. It's aboot a kelpie avenging a human who was robbed and beaten near his loch.”
“Oh, all right.” I looked up the book. “Oh, fuck. This is entirely bad.”
He read aloud in a theatrical voice, “'The beast rose from the depths, its eyes burning with hellfire, its mane dripping with the blood of children—'“
“That doesn't even make sense.” I made a face at the screen. “How could a kelpie's eyes burn and its mane drip blood when it was coming out of the water? And children? Really?”
“It gets better. Look. 'Its terrible hooves struck sparks from the stones as it galloped toward the screaming maiden—'“ He broke off, laughing. “Sparks. From hooves. On wet stones?”
I couldn't help smiling. “Maybe they were magic sparks.”
“Magic sparks.” He shook his head, still grinning. “The author clearly dinnae ken the first thing aboot combustion. And he certainly never met an actual kelpie. We dinnae gallop dramatically. We're much more subtle.”
“Subtle?” I raised an eyebrow. “You showed me your horse-form at our second meeting.”
“I knew you were a Velascan. And I wanted to make an impression.” He pointed at the screen. “Listen to this bollox, 'Its fangs dripped with venom, each tooth as long as a man's forearm.' Kelpies dinnae have fangs. We have normal teeth. Bonnie teeth, actually.”
He smiled at me, showing those bonnie teeth, and something warm unfurled in my chest.
I cleared my throat. “And your mouths aren't large enough to hold teeth that big. You'd have to be giant horses.”
“Writers always prefer dramatic lies to boring truths.” áedán rolled his eyes and motioned at the screen once more. “Look at that. It claims kelpies can shoot fire from their nostrils.”
“Can you?”
“If I could shoot fire from my nose, do you think I'd have spent the last three centuries hiding in a loch?” He grinned at me. “I'd have become a circus attraction. Made a fortune.”
“áedán the Fire-Breathing Kelpie.” I gave him an impressed nod. “It has a nice ring to it.”
“I'd need a top hat.” He mimed tipping an invisible hat. “Ladies and gentlemen, witness the most fearsome creature in all of Scotland—now with added pyrotechnics.”
I laughed, and he grinned at me. The Archive felt smaller suddenly. Cozier.
“How do you even know that word?”
áedán made a face at me. “I read, Ethan.”
“Read! Oh, damn it all! We need to document this.” I pulled out my notebook.
“What's the laptop for, if not for taking notes?”
“Oh, I'll use it as well.” I took some screenshots of the books, going back to the earlier ones to document those as well. “But I like to write things down. You never have to charge a notebook.” I frowned. “I mean a notebook with pages, not the device.”
“They have notebook devices?”
“I thought you read?” I teased. Then I explained. “It's just what they call a type of small computer.”
“Oh, I see.”
I opened my notebook to a fresh page and recorded the earliest date of a change: 1943. Then I scowled at the page. “We should record the differences and when they were first published. Or rather, republished.”
At the top of the page, I wrote the word “Original. Then, on the page to the right, I wrote “Altered.” I went through the books, noting their titles and publication dates in my notebook under Original. Then I noted the republished dates and the changes under the Altered column.
áedán frowned at the proof, written on my pages, but didn't say anything.
We kept looking for more altered books, but the atmosphere had shifted.
Our banter came easier, punctuated by áedán's running commentary on the absurdity of the alterations.
My stomach forced us to take a break and grab a quick lunch in the dining hall.
But after we ate, we went right back to the Archive.
We had proof that someone was altering the kelpie stories, and that was a huge step forward.
“This one claims we can control the weather.” áedán shook his head at an online copy of a book from 2014. “I can barely control my hair.”
“Your hair looks amazing.”
“Does it?” He ran a hand through it, and I watched the dark strands fall back into place. “In the old days, everyone just wore it long. But I see a lot of men with short hair now. Except for you, that is.”
“Mine isn't as long as yours, though.”
“It's long enough to make me feel more comfortable aboot mine.”
“You should feel very comfortable. Confident, even. The long hair suits you.”
The corner of áedán's mouth lifted, and his eyes went sultry. “Does it?”
“Yes.” I was proud of myself for holding his gaze. And for not blushing.
We had moved closer while we worked, leaving only a few inches between us, and the afternoon had stretched into evening without my noticing. The Archive's windows showed deep blue twilight. áedán had made the time seem short.
“Maybe we should make sure we got all the kelpie books,” I said, my voice unsteady.
áedán nodded and stood up. “There's another shelf back here.”
I got up and followed him into the stacks. The shelf he stopped before was high enough that I had to stretch, my fingers just brushing the spine of the first leather-bound volume. áedán reached up at the same moment, and our hands collided.
Neither of us pulled away. áedán's hand slid over mine, his fingers longer, their pads smooth despite his age. I could feel the pulse in his wrist, or maybe that was my heartbeat.
“Ethan.” áedán's breath brushed my cheek.
I turned my head. He was close enough that I could see the glittering striations that brightened his green eyes.
“I should—” I started, but didn't finish the sentence.
The moment stretched. His thumb moved against the back of my hand.
My breath caught. I turned toward him, my body stretched taunt, feeling strangely vulnerable.
I was about to kiss him when I noticed a gap on the shelf.
A space where a book should be. In any other library, I wouldn't have thought anything of it.
But this was the Great Archive, and we should have been the only ones reading those books.
“Something's missing.” I lowered my hand. Losing contact with him felt like cold water thrown in my face, but this was more important than romance.
áedán blinked, following my gaze. “You're right. There should be a book there. Maybe it's been moved?”
“I don't think so.” I looked around the Archive for Agnes, but spotted Eleanor Finley approaching, her charm bracelets jingling softly.
“Looking for something specific?” Eleanor looked from us to the shelf.
“There's a gap here.” I pointed to it. “Do you know what belongs there?”
She peered up at the shelf, going from book to book, and then smiled. “That would be the Kilmartin Journal. Thirteenth century, but documenting oral traditions from much earlier.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“One moment.” She hurried away. A few minutes later, she returned with a large, leather-bound book that she set down on a nearby table. After flipping through the book, she looked up. “I don't have any record of someone signing it out.”
“Then someone took it?” áedán asked.
“No one would do that.”
“Maybe you forgot to write it down,” I suggested.
Eleanor lifted her chin. “This isn't the only record. You need approval from a senior archivist to remove anything from the Archive.” She flipped to the back of the book, stopped at a page, and shook her head.
“These are the most recent sign-outs, and this is where the approval form would be.” She flipped the page, and behind it was a pocket full of slips.
She removed the slips and looked through them.
“None of these are for the Kilmartin Journal.”
“Could it have been misfiled?” I looked at the stack of slips, thinking how easy it would be to misplace one.
“I don't misfile things, Mr. Clarke.” Her tone was more worried than offended.
“This is irregular. Very irregular.” She closed the logbook.
“I need to bring this to Agnes's attention immediately. Excuse me.” She hurried off with the huge book clutched to her chest, her vintage dress swishing around her legs.
I watched her go, my mind already spinning. “Why that book?” I said, more to myself than to áedán. “Of all the manuscripts in here, why would someone take that specific one?”
“Maybe it's a coincidence.”
“You don't believe that.”
“Nae.” He looked over his shoulder at the bookshelf. “I don't.”
He turned back to me, and we stared at each other. The moment from before was gone, replaced by something heavier. The missing book felt significant. Had the person behind the alterations been in the Great Archive?
The image of that person on the fourth floor of the Archive, the one I'd seen watching me, came to mind, and I shuddered.
“We should stop for the night,” áedán said. “We've been at this for hours.”
“I'm fine.” I went back to our table.
“I'm not fading right this second, Ethan.” áedán came up behind me, reached around me, and gently closed my laptop. “And it's time to get back to us.”
My breath caught. I wanted to turn around and kiss him, but I froze. “What do you mean?”
He shifted and sat on the edge of the table. “I want to kiss you again. And this time, I wullnae stop there. So, if you dinnae want that, tell me now.”
I couldn't breathe properly. “I've been thinking about kissing you all day.”
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“And?” His voice was soft, careful.
“And I want to kiss you again.” I wet my lips. “I want more than that. Tonight.”
áedán smiled, slow and devastating to my heart. Then he leaned down and kissed me.
It differed from the last time. áedán kissed me slower, with more intention.
His hand came up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheekbone, but he didn't press himself against me as he had before.
And I needed that. I whimpered, the only way I knew how to express what I needed, and he pulled me against him.
His erection pressed into my thigh, and the feeling of that thick, hard length nearly sent me to my knees.
When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
“Come with me.” I took his hand.
His eyes darkened. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”