Magic,it suddenly came to her. If there was a place for her to learn more about it, and the tumult her fairy godmother had alluded to, it would be here.
“More tomes for Ginny, eh?” The librarian, Mr. Ravel, pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose and continued reading whatever was on his desk. “If she keeps this up, we’ll need a cart to haul back all her books once she leaves. Well, what is it today?”
“I’d like whatever you have on the history of magic,” said Cinderella.
Mr. Ravel’s eyes flew up from his page. “Excuse me?”
“I said, I’d like—”
“Yes, yes, I heard the first time.” Mr. Ravel threw a quick glance over his shoulder; he looked worried someone might hear. Then, glowering at her, he whispered harshly, “Does Ginny think I’m hiding something from her? I told her I gave the duke all I could before he was exiled. Everything else was destroyed: the paintings, the books, everything.”
This wasn’t at all what Cinderella had expected to hear. “Destroyed? But why?” She swallowed. “Because it’s forbidden?”
“Obviously, you dimwit child!”
“But why... why is it?”
He scoffed. “I suppose you’re too young to remember its perils—always praying that our prince or princess wouldn’t be cursed at birth by a dark fairy. The council spent years working to ban magic, and we are all better for it.”
The speech sounded rehearsed, like something Mr. Ravel wassupposedto say. “What would happen if a fairy were to sneak back into Aurelais and use her magic?”
“She would be executed, most certainly!”
“Executed!” Cinderella cried. “But magic can do so much good. Why would the king—”
“Shhh!” the librarian cried. “Enough with the questions. We shouldn’t even be discussing this. Are you trying to get me dismissed? Tell your mistress I value my position here, and I don’t want to hear about this ever again.”
“Yes...” Cinderella said, stricken by the librarian’s outburst. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now if there is nothing else—oh, hello there.”
A group of young girls entered, distracting Mr. Ravel as Cinderella slipped into the library. Once she lost herself among the stacks, she let out a sigh of relief.
So it was true: magicwasforbidden.
Did that mean Lenore had put her life in danger by helping Cinderella go to the ball?
Cinderella’s thoughts spun wildly, trying to make sense of it all. She had so many questions.
She spent the next hour searching the library for vestiges of the mysterious magic archive. But as Mr. Ravel had warned her, everything was gone. Which only made her wonder—why was magic so dangerous that there weren’t even books about it?
Tired and about to give up, Cinderella suddenly remembered the mysterious note she’d seen in the book she’d borrowed for Genevieve.
We must bring magic back. Maybe 36 ships and 47 pirates can help. —Art
The numbers had to mean something. Thirty-six ships and forty-seven pirates... Could they be shelves and books in the library? And art... Could she find a clue in the art history collection? It was worth a try.
“Besides,” she murmured to herself, “if there used to be fairies in Aurelais, then they couldn’t have gotten rid ofeverything. There has to be something—maybe a book on painting or sculpture that refers to magic.”
Unfortunately, even as she pored over the books in the art section, she couldn’t find anything. Shelf thirty-six, book forty-seven was a volume on medieval needlepoint. Shelf forty-seven, book thirty-six was a tome on painting without color. She was about to give up when she returned to the fiction section where she usually borrowed novels for the duchess. If she couldn’t find something for herself, she could at least bring Genevieve a new book.
As she scanned the shelves, she wondered whether the thirty-six might have been eighty-six. After all, the note had been old and smudged... there! Book forty-seven on shelf eighty-six caught her eye. It was nearly the last book in the collection, a slim volume wedged between two thicker ones.
The Historical Tapestries of Pirates.
Her heart jumped. “That doesn’t seem to belong here.”
The edges of the spine were singed, many of the pages ripped out. But as Cinderella closed the book, about to give up, she heard something flutter inside the book’s spine. Carefully, she looked inside, and pried out a tightly wrapped scroll.
