Nothing.
"It's not just sealed," I murmur, running my fingers over the gaps in the shelves. "It's been removed entirely. Destroyed."
Ivy nods grimly. "Someone didn't just want it hidden—they wanted it erased. Whatever happened, someone made sure no trace remained."
We search every corner, every hidden shelf, but find nothing. Whoever purged these records did it completely.
"There's one more place," Ivy says finally, her expression troubled. "His study. Personal chambers. If there's anything left about Julia, it would be there."
"Breaking into the archives is one thing. His private study..."
"Is exactly where he'd keep something he wanted hidden." Ivy's hair shifts to determined crimson. "Let me do it. He already doesn't trust me — if I'm caught, it won't change anything between you two. But if you're caught breaking into his study..."
She's right, and I hate it.
"Are you sure?"
"I've been sneaking around this palace since you got here, and I know several secret passages and chambers. I'll be fine." She grins, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Give me a few days. If there's anything to find, I'll find it."
A day later, Ivy slips into my chambers just before dawn, her wings pulled tight against her back. She's clutching something wrapped in dark cloth.
"You found something," I breathe.
"His study was warded, but not against fae magic." She unwraps the cloth, revealing a slim journal bound in faded blue leather. "It was hidden in a locked drawer, beneath a false bottom. He didn't want anyone finding this."
My hands tremble as I take it. No name on the cover, but the dates...
"Julia's?"
Ivy nods. "Read it. I'll keep watch."
I open to the first page, and the elegant handwriting makes my breath catch:
He doesn't know I'm writing this. He would be furious if he knew — he wants to protect me from even my own thoughts, as if words on paper could somehow make the truth more real. But someone should know what happened, in case I'm not able to tell it myself...
My hands tremble as I turn the page.
The healers say I'm dying. They don't use those words, of course — they speak of "complications" and "unforeseen developments" and "careful monitoring." But I can read the truth in their silence, in the way they avoid my eyes when I ask direct questions. Something is wrong with me — something connected to him, to the darkness he carries in his blood. I can feel it spreading through me like ice in my veins, like shadows taking root in places light should live.
Julia. This is Julia's journal.
I sink to the floor between the shelves, moonlight pooling around me, and continue reading.
He blames himself. Of course he does — he blames himself for everything, carries guilt like other men carry swords. He thinks the curse that was meant to destroy him is destroying me instead, that loving him has poisoned me. He spends hours trying to draw it out of me, to take the darkness back into himself, but it only seems to make things worse. Every time he tries to save me, I watch a piece of him die.
The curse. What curse? Who cursed him?
I've begged him to tell me where it came from, but he won't speak of it. Only that his father is involved somehow. Only that the price of loving me might be both our lives. He thinks he's protecting me by keeping secrets, but secrets are their own kind of poison.
His father. Erlik. The name surfaces from fragments I've gathered — the ruler of Kara Cehennem, the demon realm. Malakai's father, who he hasn't spoken to in centuries.
The entries grow more fragmented after that. Dates skip days, then weeks. The handwriting deteriorates from elegant script to something hurried, desperate.
He's getting worse. The more he tries to save me, the more unstable he becomes. His shadows don't obey him anymore — they move with their own intent, reacting to emotions he can't control. Yesterday he nearly killed a servant who startled him in the corridor. He didn't mean to — I saw the horror in his eyes, the way his hands shook afterward — but the shadows moved before he could stop them. They wrapped around the poor man's throat like a noose.
Just like today. Just like my arm. The parallel sends ice through my veins.
I'm afraid. Not of him — never of him — but of what he's becoming. Of what this curse is turning him into. I see him fighting it, see the exhaustion in his eyes, the way he flinches from his own reflection. He's terrified of himself. Terrified of what he might do to me if he loses control completely.
