Why?
What could demonspossibly want here?
I wander farther into the room, ash billowing with each step. My toe strikes a broken chair leg and it crumbles. The sudden sound launches a host of sparrows through the window on the other side of the room, over the gardens.
All the devotees that night were in the sanctum. There would have been no lives to claim here, no souls to want.
No.
Not want.
Hide.
What would Netharishide?
Records of her story?
Of my birth?
Too little, too late.Fated Celestialsbared those secrets.
As I approach the corner tucked behind shelves I oft claimed during my short residency, it becomes clear the plush armchair I favored no longer exists. Its skeletal remains darken the marble floor.
With a quick brush of my arm, I clear the nearby windowsill of debris and glass clatters to the floor as ash takes to the air. The sound rings louder than it should with little else in the room other than open space and marble. Claiming the makeshift seat, I lower my gaze to the floor, to my trail of footprints through the ash.
“Ves?”
My head snaps up, startled by the sound.
She stands in the doorway, her brows creased.
“Eve,” I reply, surprised. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Lilith told me—”
“Do not lecture me, Ves,” Eve warns. “Not today.”
I shake my head, stammering. “O-of course. I just—I didn’t think you’d want to be alone, but then I saw…”
The expression on Eve’s face softens as she meanders into the library, following the path I cut through the ash.
An extended silence hovers between us as Eve draws closer, her eyes trailing about the room. She’s in as much disbelief as I found myself upon entering.
“Why would they do this?” Eve asks breathily.
“I don’t know,” I answer with a shrug. “But it can’t be anything other than intentional.”
“Agreed,” Eve replies, pursing her lips. “There isn’t a page left intact.”
Plopping herself onto the sill beside me, she gestures at the bouquet with her chin.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper over flowers,” she says with the same kind of self-loathing huff I often give myself. “Not my proudest moment.”
“Good thing you’re in kindred company,” I say with a halfhearted smile.
My temper has gotten the better of me more times than I can count. I’m certainly not going to shame or ridicule Eve for the same.
“What made you come up here?”
I sigh. “I hoped to find details regarding Celesta. Insight relating to where she may have gone.” I spin the flowers in a slow twirl.
