“I made him to keep an eye on you, yes, and to protect you.Notto spend hours in your bedroom in the dead of night,” Oberon said in a stiff voice.
“It isn’t like that!” I insisted, cheeks scorching. “I swear, it isn’t. I had a nightmare…about the Rot. He just sat with me and used his magyk to stop more from coming.”
Oberon eyed me carefully for a moment, but apparently decided I was being truthful. “You told me you would take charge of him now. I expect that means you will teach him some basic manners, such as not breaking and entering into young ladies’ bedrooms.”
I let out an involuntary laugh. “Are we speaking of Devil or Sir Toby?” The hound raised his three heads off the rug and I tossed each one a ball of sausage, then looked back at Oberon, who was still frowning.
“Marina…”
“Why must I teach him?” I snapped. “Perhaps you should not have let him run completely feral the twenty-two years he’s been underyourauthority.”
Oberon raised his hands and sighed in defeat. “You are right. I only want to–” He stopped speaking and squinted at the window, where something small was buzzing against the transparent barrier of magyk. I shoved my chair back and went over to inspect.
“It’s Primrose!” I cried. “Let her in!”
Oberon waved his hand, creating an opening for Prim to zoom through. Deftly avoiding Sir Toby, who leapt to his feet and snapped at her, she flew straight toward the faerie king and hovered in his face, chittering angrily. He listened with a rather bemused expression, and as I sat back down, I realized that some of her shrill speech was finally intelligible to me. I made out words like ‘rude’ and ‘everything I’ve done’ before she fell silent and dropped onto the table, strolling between the breakfast plates and examining her options.
I leaned forward and grinned. “Hello, Prim. Would you like some tea?”
She made a face, then hopped onto the edge of a biscuit and crossed her strange, scaly legs before breaking off a tiny chunk to eat.
“Apparently, I am a monster,” Oberon chuckled, “for not keeping my barrier open specifically to her.”
“Is she your spy?” I asked. “Is that how you know what Titania is up to all the time?”
“‘Spy’ is such an…uncouth way to phrase it,” Oberon sighed, “but, yes, I suppose she is.”
Having eaten her fill of biscuit, Prim took her time selecting a large raspberry and carried it over to my plate, then kicked at my fork.
“Cut it up for you?” I asked, and she nodded. “Why can’t I understand her yet?”
“You should be able to once we unlock more of your…other side,” Oberon said. “Her speech is so fast and high, human ears cannot pick it up.”
“When will we be doing more of that?”
“Today, hopefully,” Oberon said, draining his cup of tea and standing. “But first, I have other duties to attend to. I thought you might like to explore the library while I’m gone.”
“Yes, please.” I let my gaze roam over the almost never-ending shelves of books and a little bubble of eagerness appeared in my stomach.
“Wake Simeon if you need assistance,” Oberon said, motioning to the owl-man’s nook between bookshelves. He came around the table and leaned down to briefly kiss the top of my head. I was taken aback, but the gesture also flooded me with emotions, which were only enhanced by my new magyk. Once he had left the library, I took a moment to blink tears from my eyes.
“Have you seen Devil? I mean…Puck… or Robin? This morning?” I asked Prim quietly, keeping my eyes on Simeon, in case he had been instructed to eavesdrop.
The little faerie responded by putting her hands on her hips and waggling her feathered eyebrows.
“It isn’t like that,” I laughed. “I just wondered if you’d seen him.”
She nodded, stuffed a piece of raspberry into her mouth, and held up one miniscule finger. I waited as patiently as I could until she swallowed, then took flight and hovered beside my ear.
“Gone,” came her shrill, intentionally slowed-down voice. “Antidote search. A week, maybe two.” My heart sank, and I wondered if Oberon had warned Devil away from me…or threatened him.
“Well,” I murmured, “if you see him…give him my thanks.”
Prim bowed in midair, then flew in to kiss me on the cheek. It was a strange sensation, like being prodded by the head of a pin, made all the more odd by the gentle breeze from her tiny, whirring wings. Before I could say goodbye, she was gone, and I was left alone with Sir Toby, a silently sleeping owl, and thousands upon thousands of books.
The library was far more cavernous than I had originally imagined, filled with hidden nooks and crannies. Along the far wall, carved into the back side of one bookshelf, I found a nearly-hidden staircase with a series of intricate tapestries displayed above it. I carefully set down the small collection of books I had already accumulated to examine them. There were twelve in all, each depicting a single individual, with writing at the bottom that I couldn’t decipher. After siftingthrough my own books, looking for some sort of dictionary or key, but coming up empty, I walked slowly up and down the staircase, running my fingers over the indecipherable words.
“I see you’ve found the only thing that passes for a temple in the Arden.”
