Chapter Eleven
Ena
After they finished eating and dressing, Ena followed Ty out the door and into the labyrinth of passageways.
Unfortunately, in order to reach the Archives, they had to cross through the Great Antre—which was apparently what the gigantic central cavern she’d initially met Cole in was called—and she understood now why Cole liked to make his presence known there.
It felt as if she and Ty were on display as they walked across the intimidating space to the staircase that was carved into the walls around it.
The other daemons eyed them, and Ena did her best to appear as an obedient witch-slave, walking a step behind Ty, with her head slightly lowered as he’d instructed, but she didn’t miss the smug looks of satisfaction many threw her way when they noticed her collar.
Although she thought she caught a few pitying looks too.
She saw others wearing them, as well—the imperi—carrying things to and fro, in and out of rooms, and down the many passageways, and it was strange.
In her Coven, all witches shared the work.
A witch’s Gift determined what path they were best suited for, for serving Gaia, but no one was relegated to work that did not suit them, nor were they forced to serve others.
Everyone chose to help one another, taking turns with the most undesirable tasks.
But to see an entire group of people forced into certain tasks by virtue of perceived slights against daemons, or more specifically, Cole, made her feel incredibly uncomfortable.
After ten minutes of winding down endless passageways, Ty stopped and led her through a set of large, double-arched doors with golden doorknobs.
They opened into a large chamber—not as large as the Great Antre, but still impressive.
The most astounding part, though, was the shelves and shelves of books that lined the walls, stretching up to the ceiling of the cavern.
Ena had never seen so many books in her life. She’d thought that Heran had had an impressive stash of spellbooks, journals, and histories, but this was way, way more than that.
In the center of the room sat several large wooden tables with dimly lit darkrock lanterns placed atop them.
Hard-looking wooden chairs were placed around them for seating but scattered around the room were several cozier-looking chairs, too, decked with furs like the ones in Lara and Steig’s chambers.
The whole area was so incredibly inviting, which surprised her.
Branching off the far end of the chamber was a dark passageway, and out of it came an older man. He had gray hair, receding at the top, but long on the sides, that was tied back into a short ponytail. He wore similar black robes to the timekeeper but had no imperae collar.
He shuffled closer to Ena and Ty, a smile gracing his wrinkled face, causing his kind brown eyes to crinkle at the corners. “Ty, my boy,” the man greeted warmly. “I’d heard you’d returned. Safe and sound, looks like?”
“Yes, Nial,” Ty greeted, smiling in return.
“Good, good. It’s wonderful to see you,” Nial said, placing his hand in a fatherly way on Ty’s shoulder, and it warmed Ena’s heart to see it. She had been starting to think all daemons besides Ty, Turner, and Lara—and maybe sometimes Steig—were assholes.
“What can I do for you both today?” Nial asked, his eyes darting towards Ena in a curious way.
“Ena is our new…guest,” Ty replied, pointedly avoiding her degrading title, which was interesting. “And she’ll be working on a project for me and the king, so she’ll be needing access to the Archives on a regular basis.”
“I see, I see,” Nial mumbled. “And what kind of resources will she be needing?” he asked Ty, his eyebrow arching as if communicating something unspoken.
“She’ll need volumes on Wiccan and daemonic history, runes and Imbuing, and…I’d like her to have full access to my private reserves,” Ty said.
Nial nodded in understanding.
Ty’s private reserves…that must be the books he got from Petyr. Did Nial know about them? Did he know about the amulet?
Ena looked over at Ty, hoping for more explanation. He looked back at her, giving her a small reassuring nod.
He knew what he was doing, and he’d explain later.
“Certainly. Give me a few minutes and I can have her set up in your usual alcove,” Nial said before glancing at her curiously again, then shuffling off to get a large wooden cart with metal wheels.
He immediately began filling it with books that he pulled off the shelves, not even bothering to look at the titles as he stacked them on the cart.
“Your usual alcove?” Ena inquired with a smile, as Ty guided her with a hand on the small of her back towards one of several recesses carved into the chamber.
Inside was a small table and two cozy, fur-laden chairs.
It was more sequestered from the rest of the Archives than any of the other alcoves—whomever sat in here could avoid being seen by anyone who entered through the front doors, and she knew that was a purposeful choice.
“Yes, I found myself visiting the Archives quite a lot before my most recent mission. For…my own curiosity.” Ty gave her a small smile, and a glint entered his eye.
The way he was still talking in code told her that Nial most likely did not know about the amulet, which made sense, since they’d said only Steig, Turner, and Lara knew about it.
As Ena and Ty sat down at the table beside one another, she turned to him to confirm.
“He doesn’t know?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“No,” Ty replied, equally quiet. “But he’s loyal to me and was to my father. That’s why he’s helping me, keeping those books for me, even though he doesn’t know what’s in them.”
“What does he think you’re working on?” Ena asked.
“I don’t know. He’s never asked. I’m sure he suspects it’s something Cole wouldn’t like but…I can’t tell him. Not without risking the work we’re doing.”
“Because of your uncle Zak?”
“Yes, exactly,” Ty replied, his tone going steely.
“But where does he keep the books? And what if he’s found with them?” Ena looked around but couldn’t see the old man taking books off the shelves anymore. Had he gone down that dark passageway again?
“In his private chambers, through there,” Ty said, gesturing at the passageway in question.
“Cole isn’t suspicious of him, not like he is of me, so I don’t think he’d go looking.
But if he did, well, the old man specializes in keeping rare manuscripts and tomes.
My hope is he’d be able to play them off as being of strictly academic interest.”
“And why is Cole so suspicious of you? You’re his nephew. Shouldn’t that garner some goodwill?” Ena asked.
“It’s…because of my father. They didn’t get along. Cole didn’t agree with the way he ran things.”
Ena put two and two together. “Your father was the king before Cole? Before he died?”
“Yes,” Ty said, looking at Ena, assessing her reaction to that information.
That was certainly interesting, and made sense for Cole to mistrust Ty if he didn’t get along with his father.
From everything that Ty had told her, his father seemed like a good man and likely had different ideals than Cole.
She wondered vaguely how daemons chose who was king anyway, given that Ty’s father and his brother seemed so different from one another.
Just then, Nial came shuffling over, pushing the cart full of books.
“Okay then, here we have the most comprehensive tomes on runes, Imbuing, and daemonic history. Don’t have much on Wiccan history, for obvious reasons, but there’s a few mentions in some of these,” he said, gesturing to a smaller, distinct stack of books.
“And of course,” he said, picking up a discreet burlap sack filled with books at the bottom of the cart. “Your private reserves.”
“Thank you, Nial,” Ty said kindly. “This is a great start.”
“Of course, of course,” he responded, waving them off. “Just shout if you need more.”
Ty nodded, and Ena gave the man a small smile before he left them.
Looking through the cart of books, she felt almost giddy. All this new knowledge at her fingertips…she couldn’t wait to dive in.
Back home, she’d read almost every book in Heran’s possession—multiple times.
She had fond memories of sitting in Heran’s altar room late at night, sounding out words with the matriarch’s help so she could practice new spellwords and potions.
She’d wanted to learn everything she could, and Heran had encouraged her to.
Except, of course, for the knowledge that had been hidden from her. A wave of resentment trickled through her, souring the fond memory, but the feeling was lost when Ty opened the sack that contained the books he’d gotten from Petyr, and her eyes landed on a book she recognized.
It was a large book with a dark-green leather cover, and it looked old, just like the other copy she’d seen a few months ago. She picked it up, placing it on the table and flipping to the title page, where her suspicions were confirmed.
The Evolution of Magic, it read. The same book Heran had showed her after she received her Gift.
“I don’t believe it,” Ena mused in awe. “This is the same book Heran showed me months ago, explaining how witch and daemon magic come from the same source. I’d never seen it before then, because she’d hidden it. I can’t believe Petyr had a copy of it too. I wonder where he got it from.”
“I don’t know how he got these particular books, but Petyr was…industrious,” Ty said with a melancholy smile. “He was known to procure books that fascinated him through whatever means necessary.”
“No wonder you two got along,” Ena said wryly.
“Yeah, we really did,” he said, a regretful tone in his voice.