My fingers fly.
Unfastening the stays, I toss the bracer onto the table, knocking over the glass I’d caught earlier. Yanking back the black material, the whole of the mark reveals itself—stark against the pale of my wrist.
Lady of the Veil.
“I fucking knew it,” Eve whispers.
Me?
I’mthe demon with the insignia of the veil?
How?
I can’t—I don’t understand how this could happen.
Houses in the hells require the god of death’s approval andmatriarch-led propositions never gain it. None of this makes sense.
Eve’s bracer joins mine and, ripping back her own sleeve, she plants her wrist beside mine.
Vessel of the VeilandLady of the Veil.
“We have a House.” Eve’s bewildered yet bright laughter fillsthe archives.
“We have a House,” I echo the sentiment, staring at our wrists with sheer disbelief.
As my mind continues to whirl at the possibility and the impacts likely to follow, Eve hits my leg with the back of her hand, earning my attention.
My eyes snap to her. “Eve, what in the—”
The words catch in my throat as I follow Eve’s frozen stare and findfourveiled constructs. Standing along the length of the table across from us, they remain motionless. Yet somehow, an unfelt breeze billows the edges of their shimmering veils and curled ruffles of their sleeves.
Silence sits heavy upon the center of the table.
Hands clasped before them, they wait.
“What do they want?” Eve whispers, and like her, I’m unable to look away.
I answer with a tiny shrug and even tinier shake of my head. “I’ve no idea.”
The construct on the far left lifts a hand and waves a wrist. A wash of tingles race down the back of my neck as a scroll of parchment appears beside our bracers and unfurls.
A contract?
Fully unrolled, it’s blank.
Bright blue letters—common tongue letters—sear across the surface and darken, burning themselves into the age-worn paper.
We are your archivists.
You inquire, we answer.
“Magic castle with magic staff… of course there’s a magiclibrarywith magiclibrarians,” Eve muses.
More blue blazes on the parchment.
A single word.
Archivists.
