He might not be able to handle the idea of another war, but if it were to protect Delphi from the Lord of Plagues? He wouldn't stop until he had torn that ancient bastard limb from limb.
Tenebrys never thought he would be able to get revenge for the fae lord sending the sickness that killed his people, but if he dared to show his face in Tenebrys's realm again, he would get the chance to destroy the fucker once and for all.
25
Delphi collected the piles of notes and journals from the old lab before heading for Maela's library. She didn't want to be surrounded by the ghosts of her parents' failures, and the bad energy in the room was getting to her.
Delphi had been feeling different in the past few days. She didn't know if it was the quality of the sex that had put her in a good mood, but she didn't want anything to ruin it.
Her magic was changing too. The glowing little ember in her was burning hotter every day and she was testing it little by little. There was no more broken lab equipment, but none of her experiments compared to last night's release of power.
Her magic reacted every time she lost control with Tenebrys, and even though her skin wasn't still glowing from within, power was still pulsing in her veins.
Delphi placed her hand on her chest where the light had bloomed. "I won't smother you anymore, I swear. Not for anything in the world," she promised it.
She set out her notes on one of the heavily carved wooden desks in the library and tried not to feel like she was invading someone's space.
She could see that Maela's spot had always been in the window seat, and she didn't want to disrupt that. The tender way Tenebrys had touched the old robe told Delphi that he had a lot of memories of her there. Good memories were something Tenebrys needed to be reminded of.
Delphi searched the drawers of the desk, and found a blank journal, a quill pen, and still sealed inks that hadn't dried out.
"Okay, Delphi. Two problems: find out if the plague is still active and figure out what Narcisse summoned for the power he got to curse Ten. Then try to understand shifters and my magic along the way. Damn, that's four problems."
Delphi was used to working alone, so she didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about talking out loud to herself. She left her papers and went to have a look at the stacks for information.
Now she had time to explore properly, Delphi went up the stairs to see what subjects the books were about on the next level of shelves.
There was an ornately carved wooden pedestal by the balcony railing with a thick book open on it. Curious, Delphi went to see what Maela had been reading.
The book looked more like an expensive leather ledger, and it took a few long moments to figure out what she was looking at.
At the top of each column was a glyph. Delphi looked about and laughed in delight when she spotted the same glyph painted on the top of the bookshelves beneath her.
"You clever thing, Maela. It's an index." Delphi wanted to hug the book in delight.
Apart from the magical books that were locked behind the glass, Delphi didn't know what else was in the library and thought she was going to have to search for things, one by one. She should have known that a smart woman would have organized her books properly.
Delphi ran her finger down the lines of book titles in one column and the corresponding subjects in the second. Maela did indeed have books on shifters, and Delphi noted down their location and hoped it contained fun pictures of anatomy. Purely for scientific reasons of course.
By the time she went back to her desk, she had a fresh pile of books to work through. She detoured back to the cabinet of magical books and selected one on sigils and another on a history of the fae. Delphi didn't understand why a history book about the fae would need to be locked up in a warded cabinet, but she trusted Maela's reasons for doing it.
Delphi opened the book on sigils and started comparing them to the ones that her mother had been drawing. One of the problems, she soon discovered, was that sigils were highly individualized to the user.
Despite that, Delphi began to recognize more and more of the small symbols and circle patterns as she got closer to the final sigil in the book. She tapped her pen thoughtfully.
What if Cassia had realized that creating something individual wouldn't work, and that there were tried and true rituals for summoning certain demons? As if it were some kind of personal address that could be used to send a message?
She stared at the name of the demon before getting another book from her pile. It was a glossary of recorded angels, demons, and ephemeral beings.
According to the publisher's mark on the inside of it, it had come from one of the universities in the very south of Kyllene, where calling on spirits, djinn, and daemones to assist sorcerers was more common.
Just the thought of summoning anything that powerful and then trying to force it to work for her made Delphi's spirit recoil. Maybe it was because she had been on the verge of being a slave before.
Once when she was about thirteen, Narcisse had taken her to the Dark Market in Montcrillon. He had been meeting with a woman there who sold illegal and exotic ingredients.
Delphi had seen a flesh auction first-hand that night. Frightened people were sold off to masters who would do whatever they liked to them. Girls younger than Delphi already had the dead-eyed looks of those who had lost all hope.
They had been moving past a stall when a tall man dressed in blue and gold robes had stepped out and caught Narcisse's attention. He held a tall black staff in one hand, decorated with a red stone. The man had a strange odor, like rich perfume and decay.
