In the center of her palm was a bright red mark, like fire poking from beneath her own skin. She didn’t recognize the lettering, and soon it faded away, leaving nothing but a ghost of the fiery sensation. Kane closed his eyes and took in a long breath as if savoring a high-end spirit.
“That is a well-won secret. Even better than I thought.”
Erinna continued to stare at her palm and felt the arcanum twine invisibly around her hand. Talent prickled in response, ice bloomed briefly within her veins, and Erinna could swear she felt a fastening tug between the two of them. An invisible binding that united them. It was time to admit that maybe monsters still roamed the earth, and she had just made a deal with one of them. A half-breed. A demon.
When Kane opened his eyes, they were bright embers. Their gazes locked, the air tightening between them like a drawn bowstring.
“Any regrets?”
“Let’s get to work, Atwater,” Erinna grumbled, shaking away creeping doubt.
He ran a hand through his hair and gave her a sheepish grin. The previous heaviness gone—replaced by mild irritation on Erinna’s part.
“I can’t technically give you those books. Your father was clear that I couldn’t technicallygivethem to anyone else. But I know a way around that.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. If she were the one to grab a bit of his power, Erinna would have sent a scorching bolt at his face. “So help me, Kane.”
“Relax. It will work. Just give me time to collect, and I’ll meet you on the top floor.”
Erinna wanted to stop him, grab his coat, and force him to stay by her side. But the man slipped into the shadows with near inhuman speed. She was left to her own devices. To wander the shelves, waiting for help, feeling utterly useless.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Erinna’s fingers curled around a dusty scroll. She unfurled it carefully—a summons to a palace in the Great East that no longer existed. The parchment crumbled at the edges; it was at least sixty years older than her. She cursed and dropped it back on the shelf, watching dust motes spiral up in the stale air.
Focus. Raye had given her a task. A location, a title, and a small promise that there was a book that may help her come to understand the Talent that lurked within her.
The library stretched far beyond what she imagined. Each towering shelf was heavy with the dust of forgotten years. The witchlights flickered the deeper she roamed, casting dancing shapes across the bindings of old tomes. Most bore no titles. Others whispered warnings in scripts so faded, Erinna had to squint to read them. She kept moving, trusting Raye’s directions.
After the tenth intersection, Erinna started to believe that Raye had been misguided. That there was no such book to help her with her Talent.
Then she stopped.
A crooked desk was wedged between two leaning shelves, its wood blanched with age. This was where Raye said it would be.
Erinna scanned the cluttered surface. Old quills. Broken seals. A teacup filled with something that might once have been liquid. And there—half-buried beneath an avalanche of loose pages?—
Her fingers found the cover first. Worn leather, warped at the corners. The title, though faded, could still be read beneath the glow of flickering witchlights. “On the Domains of Witches and Wickedry,” she murmured, brushing away cobwebs and dust.
This was it.
Beneath the book were folded, crumbling notes. Erinna spread them open with deliberate care. The late Chancellor's handwriting filled each page in cramped, urgent lines. Warnings. Names she half-recognized. One line stood apart.
In time, the shield will come—beware the rise of Starhaven.
Erinna frownedand slipped the piece of parchment between the pages, tucking the book beneath her arm. Another journal snagged her attention. Not because of the title, but because someone had used it. More recently than the rest.
An illustrated book of genealogy. Northern tribes and kingdoms, their lineages branching across vellum in fading ink. She flipped to the front matter and went still—a publication date that predated the Veil itself. Before the Great North had become the sequestered, outcast continent.
Her mother was from the north, maybe there was information on her heritage in there. Erinna’s thumb hovered over the front page, tempted to dive in and search for her own name buried somewhere in those ancient roots.
No. Her father’s bloodline was the one marked with the curse. That was what she should focus on next.
Still. Knowledge was knowledge. She slipped the book into her bag.
Erinna moved to the next closest bookshelf. At least one section had been labeled:Blessings. She sighed and tapped worn and weary spines.
