And if I’m going to be spending most of my nights at Bluestone in my dorm again, then I’ll need good books—and those go fast at the start of the semester.
Given that it’s the first evening back at Bluestone, the library is quiet as I weave around the reading desks.
The air is thick with a soft silence that’s broken only by a faint cough somewhere above, on the aisles that stretch along the balcony.
I see no one but the librarian as I scurry past the study desks. His narrowed eyes lift to me for only a moment before he returns to reading the newspaper.
I reach the stairs before the heels of my loafers are thudding on the wooden steps all the way up to the second floor.
The balcony wraps around the lower level, but the shelves are narrower and windier, and every time I go through them for the krum section, I find it that bit harder to breathe.
Maybe it’s all the times Dray locked me in closets that’s made me somewhat claustrophobic, or just that the second floor of the library is a maze.
Could just be the dust.
I stifle my breaths as I march through the aisles until I find the unpolished brass sign bolted to the wall.
‘KRUM FANTASY’
I veer right into the nook, squared sections cosied with little glow lanterns and reading tables. It’s in the third squared nook that I find the best section.
The shelves are full.
If I had waited until tomorrow, or after classes are done for the day instead of rushing up here on my lunch break, then I doubt there would be so many books left.
I have to compete with the made ones.
Even still, I have read a lot of these already.
So—once I toss my bag onto a reading table—it takes me a while of wandering the shelves, running my fingers down dusty spines, reading blurbs on the backs of the books, before I have a small stack of just three hugged to my chest.
My neck is craned as I eye the top shelf full of colourful spines and glittering letters.
An especially thick spine catches my attention—and though I have no idea what it’s about, I know it’ll keep me busy for a week.
My loafers crease as I push up on my toes and reach out my free hand for the book.
The sleeve of my cardigan slips back, revealing the soft white of my shirt’s cuff.
I reach higher, pushing myself taller, and my fingertips just graze the spine when I feel it—
My breath bolts to my chest.
I freeze.
Because the faintest breath rustles my frazzled ponytail, sending chills down my spine.
And not a heartbeat after, a sunkissed hand grazes over mine.
Goosebumps erupt over my arm.
I’m stiff against the intrusion, watching the hand pass over mine, then the fingers grip the spine of the book.
I recognise not the hand, but the ring on its pinkie finger, the platinum band with the crest of the Sinclairs.
My heart skips in my chest.
The hand slides the book off the shelf, and it disappears behind me.
