Marc had told me the library was in the tower, but I hadn’t expected it to extend beyond a single floor. I looked up. And up.
A spiral staircase in the center of the room led to landings at the second and third stories. Narrow walkways jutted out from the edge of the room at each floor, with a single path leading to the staircase. Most of the space was completely open. At the fourth floor, the stairs spiraled up to a small hole in the ceiling—no landing, no trapdoor.
I climbed the stairs, marveling at the sheer number of books visible with every revolution, but too curious about what was on the hidden level to stop and inspect any. When my head came even with the floor of the top level, I noticed the plush carpet first. It looked soft enough to sleep on. I climbed two more steps, my upper body now in the top tower room, and patted the carpet. Definitely soft enough to sleep on. Climbing the final steps, I took in the room as a whole and fell in love.
My suite in the castle lacked for nothing, but left me feeling shabby, inadequate, and overcrowded. This room outshone my guest room to the same degree the suite outshone the townhouse I shared with Sofia and our father. Instead of inadequacy, though, I felt envy for the first time since entering the castle. This room combined the simple elegance of the dining room with the opulence of the blue salon to create a sumptuous, yet tasteful, whole.
The furnishings showed no sign of wear, cushions as plump as if never used, candles with untouched wicks, velvet upholstery without the nap rubbed thin. Everything was in simple earth tones, from rust red to chestnut to beige, giving the space a warm, welcoming feeling. In this space, I didn’t even mind the mahogany clock sitting on one table.
Then I noticed the ceiling, and love was no longer strong enough to describe how I felt about the room.
I stood in the apex of the tower, where it tapered to a point. But instead of stone rising overhead, a cone of glass topped the room. The roses that covered the entire building trailed over the glass in a living curtain. Sunlight cast hints of pink and green over everything as it shone through petals and leaves.
A crick in my neck forced me to stop admiring the kaleidoscope of roses, and I made my way to a door that led to the balcony encircling the spire room. A waist-high wall of carved stone latticework enclosed the area. Seven columns extended up from the balustrade to support the eaves of the glass roof, which extended over the balcony as well.
Wonder had allowed me to ignore the pull of node power up to this point, but the longer I marveled, the stronger it became. This time there was a sense of direction, a tug leading me back toward the tower room even as it tightened like a noose around my chest.
With a sigh, I went down to the third floor of the tower. The pull faded, but the magic was still a vise around me, slowly easing as I made my way over to the bookshelves. The same stone lattice as on the balcony bordered the walkway from the stairs to the books and the ledge around the perimeter of the room. I trailed my hand over the books, wondering where to start. There had to be thousands on this floor alone.
The answer to every question ever asked must be available somewhere on the pages in this room. The trick would be finding the answers I needed.
I’d start with books on magic. Anything about the Node Wars would be potentially useful, but I’d also take biographies of mages with node-ties. Or really anything that described the natural flow of power throughout the world.
Ley lines crossed the land in every direction. The magical rivers flowed into nodes, absorbing and emitting minuscule amounts of power as they went. Where ley lines met, the power gathered in oneplace with relative stability, even with more power constantly pouring in. Spells that would be impossible with only a mage’s reserves, and dangerous if cast using the volatile ley lines, were possible when a mage tapped into the power of a node. But ever since the wars ended, the nodes had all been locked, so only mages of certain bloodlines had access.
That was all I knew about nodes. If I wanted to understand how Lady Cecily cursed Felix, I needed to know something more than what every child learned in school. The little I knew certainly didn’t help me. Even for an enchanted castle, nothing made sense. Perhaps a pregnancy explained Cecily’s node-tie, but it didn’t account for how truth-telling magic could be used to truth-read written statements. It didn’t explain how the duke could lie while at Truthhold, when the node’s power blocked anyone else from doing the same.
I scanned the bookcase in front of me, hoping to find books that might help me make sense of all the impossible things happening at Rose Castle. The first shelf held a collection of gothic novels, with a lone volume of poetry at one end. The next had a few more gothic novels, a handful of adventure stories that made my fingers itch, and a treatise on medicine. I mentally marked the location of the novels that called to me, wondering if there would ever be a moment I could open one. Given that I couldn’t even read the contract binding me in peace, I doubted it.
I scanned a few more shelves and found much the same thing in each bookcase. For the most part, the shelves contained novels, though no more than a dozen of any genre seemed to be grouped together. Then the books would switch to a different genre, only for the first to reappear on another shelf. Interspersed at random intervals throughout, I found the oddest things: another book of poems, a biography of King Ranaski IV of Gostet, a gigantic tome written in an alphabet I didn’t recognize.
This library could very well contain the information I needed, but I’d have to look at every single book to be sure.
“Now would be a great time for a little direction,” I muttered, rubbing at my sternum. The magic had loosened around me. I knew it was there, but could easily ignore it. There was no pull directing me to the book I needed. The power could prevent me from becoming distracted from my goal, but not guide me to a solution.
I took it as a positive sign that the magic no longer pinched. Searching the library counted as fulfilling the terms of my contract, so I had to hope that meant the answers I needed might be here. Since I was mostly finding novels on this level, I decided to check the other floors before starting a systematic hunt for histories and biographies. I walked down the spiral staircase, returning to the ground floor.
The volumes there proved more promising. I took my time looking over each shelf. Treatises on topics from animal husbandry to millinery dominated the shelves, but several biographies and histories popped up in between the rest. I wanted to map out what I was seeing and untangle the mystery of how the books were sorted, but that wasn’t my purpose.
Hunger distracted me when I was only about halfway around the room. I had found a few books that might be worth a closer look, but nothing quite matching what I wanted. I still hadn’t even the faintest notion of how the books were organized.
With a groan, I arched my back, stretching out the kinks from bending over while I tried to read the spines of the books on the lowest shelves. I had to eat. Surely the node respected such a basic need and wouldn’t punish me for not continuing my hunt.
I patted my pocket, the paper within crinkling. If I was lucky, I could even read over the terms of my imprisonment at the same time.
Eight
Isabel
???
Glancing at theclock in the blue salon on my way out of the library, I realized that I had spent longer than I thought browsing the shelves. Noon had come and gone. I hurried to the dining room, but Felix and Marc must have already finished their meal.
“I guess it didn’t occur to anybody to summon me for the meal,” I muttered, looking at the empty table. I wasn’t used to depending on someone else to provide my food.
“I did tell you luncheon was served at noon.”
I jumped sideways, then glared at the duke. “Tsy take it! Can’t you wear a bell or something?”
