“Starting now,” I said, letting my voice carry. “My chosen quest is finding a way to break your spell.”
She turned toward me slowly, one perfect brow lifting in dry, unamused skepticism.
“Happy?” I added with a smile.
Quinn blinked once. “Ecstatic.”
She didn’t smile, but there was a softening around her eyes. A loosening in her shoulders, as though she’d finally exhaled.
I counted it as a triumph.
Small, maybe. But a triumph all the same.
The rest of the ride stretched in quiet. Quinn rode a little ahead of me. She hadn’t said much since our “quest” agreement, but the tether between us had gone warm and steady, as though it approved. Saints knew I wasn’t trying to earn its approval. But I’d take silence over the gutted look she’d given me by the stream. Thistle hummed an old tune I didn’t recognize. Vesper perched on the saddle behind her like a monarch presiding over his domain.
By the time the first signpost appeared on the edge of Pinehelm, I was more than ready to stretch my legs. The trees thinned, giving way to low hills and clustered rooftops. Shop signs carved from driftwood swung lazily in the breeze. At the center of town, a spire leaned west, tired of holding itself upright. Carts rattled over cobblestones worn smooth by years of passage, and the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer echoed through the hills.
Thistle halted her horse in front of an unassuming red brick building.
The placard overhead read simply:
“Branrir’s:Knowledge, Mostly Useful”
I eyed the dust-smeared windows. “This is it?”
Thistle nodded, swinging down from her horse with a grunt. “This is it.”
Quinn dismounted beside me, brushing a curl from her face as her eyes swept the shop front.
I nodded toward the door. “Ready to go curse-hunting?”
She let out a soft breath. “I suppose I do not have a choice.”
“I suppose not,” I said, inclining my head.
Her lips curved—too much to be a frown, too little to be a smile. Thistle reached the door first, giving the worn wood a firm shove. The hinges groaned like an old man rising from his chair.
I braced myself for the smell of dust and age but found something else entirely waiting on the other side. The scents of ink and lemon balm wafted through the air, as if someone had spilled tea over half a library.
The door swung shut behind us with a slow, deliberate moan.
10
QUINN
Ifollowed Mav and Thistle inside, my boots brushing over a faded rug. The congested air held its breath, as though the building had been swallowing its own secrets for centuries and was not yet inclined to release them.
Not a shop at all.
A mind, mid-wander.
Shelves lined the walls in architectural defiance—slanted, shored up by broken chair legs and wishful enchantments. Scrolls were stacked like firewood beside a hearth that had never known flame. Piles of books—leather, canvas, bark, one bound entirely in stitched feathers—leaned toward collapse but somehow never fell. A few volumes hovered among bobbing lanterns. Above the counter, a lopsided sign announced in fading gold:No refunds for truth. At the back, a narrow spiral staircase climbed upward. One might live here for years and still fail to discover every title hidden in its corners. Behind me, a tome shifted. Not the soft rustle of pages, but deliberate movement. It slid two inches to the left as I glanced over my shoulder.
The tether at my ribs stirred, drawing inward. Ahead, Mavhad strayed several paces, arrested by a shelf with a handwritten placard:Geographies of the Disproven.
Of course, he would find the section for doubters.
I moved carefully, mindful of the peculiar hush living here. The air buzzed with a curious intelligence, as though the shop itself observed us.
