My eyes blur, but I keep going.
Some entries stretch back decades. Some centuries. Some, impossibly, millennia. My father always told me the Fae kept records of everything. Now I believe him. Pity they are atrocious at keeping it organized.
The light outside shifts as snow darkens from silver to blue, then sinks into the inkiness of night. My eyes burn, and my head tips back, my neck stiff from hours bent over the desk. The fire crackles softly. Papers rustle as a draft slips beneath the door.
Only now do I realize how dark it has become outside.
My sore eyes widen.
Lord Luceran’s supper.
He does not like it cold.
I shove back from the desk and leap to my feet. The chair screeches across the stone as I sprint for the door, throw it open, and hurtle down the spiral stairs. By the time I reach the bottom, my breath is ragged and I no longer know which direction I am facing.
Left. Right. Past the forbidden door. Past the windows overlooking the rose garden.
I skid into the galley.
As always, my arrival is far from graceful. I crash into the counter, sending two pots clattering to the floor and a ladle spinning away like a startled bird. I wince, praying no one heard.
But of course he did.
“You are late,” Lord Luceran booms from the dining hall.
I swallow hard. “I apologize, my lord,” I say as I crouch to gather the pots, stacking them neatly in my arms. “I lost track of time.”
I scan the galley desperately until my gaze lands on a pot perched above a dead hearth, steamless and abandoned. I rush to it, gripping the ladle jutting from a thick brown stew brimming with potatoes, carrots, and onions.
I stir. Or try to.
The ladle barely cuts through it. The stew is as thick as mud. I lift the ladle and dab a finger into it, flinching at my own recklessness. If he saw me taste it, I would be lucky to be merely scolded.
It is bone cold. Not just because it has been sitting out, but because nothing warm survives long in this castle. The air devours heat faster than fire can make it.
“Damn it,” I mutter as I crouch to check the hearth. The last ember has shriveled into a black husk. There is no saving it, not in time.
“Neve Devlin,” Lord Luceran calls, his voice rolling through the walls like distant thunder. “If I have to wait a moment longer…”
My stomach flips.
I have no choice.
I take a bowl and fill it with the stew. It looks delicious. It smells delicious. Maybe he will overlook the fact that it is cold. Or maybe he will murder me on the spot.
I balance the bowl carefully between my hands, praying the stew does not slosh or drip. At the doorway I stop, glance around, then snatch a sprig of parsley from a clay jar. I crumble it and sprinkle it on top, hoping the bright green will distract him from the temperature.
I draw in a steadying breath and step toward the dining room.
The hall is vast, lit by low-burning candles in gold sconces and the faint glow of moonlight pushing through the windows. Lord Luceran sits at the far end of the impossibly long table, a solitary figure in a space made for feasts and courts.
His hair is tied back, a stark white ponytail trailing down his back like a ribbon of snow. His heavy fur coat hangs over the back of his massive chair. Tonight he wears a powder blue shirt, the top buttons undone, revealing a glimpse of the runes etched into the pale skin of his chest. They pulse faintly, a quiet, dangerous heartbeat of magic.
With every step I take, I feel myself walking deeper into his aura. It prickles along my skin like icy sparks, tightening the air around me until my breaths grow shorter, thinner. For a moment, Luceran’s eyes flick toward me. Then, just as quickly, he looks away, his gaze distant, fixed on something far beyond the walls of this castle.
I wonder if his thoughts wander as much as mine do, if he thinks of anything beyond frost and authority and the weight of his own solitude. If hewaswatching me in the reflection of that silver plate. Then, I remind myself who he is.Whathe is. Fae.
He has his choice of flawless, ageless females with skin like starlight and eyes like cut gems. I am nothing to him. Just a human girl with windburned cheeks, chapped lips, and a braid tied too quickly in my rush to survive tonight. Disgusting, perhaps. Certainly beneath him.
