Page 2

The guards always locked the bookbinding tools—specifically my scalpel—in the cabinet at the far end of the workshop after hours. For good reason, the Barren Masters didn’t trust the women they’d enslaved when our kingdom fell. The only weapon I had was my hairpin; inside it was a needle tipped with Harrow Root gel. Placed near an artery, it would kill in seven seconds. I pushed my hood back and pulled the hairpin free, testing its weight in my hand as my curls fell. I’d never killed before, but that didn’t mean Aster hadn’t trained me in the art when I had demanded to join the rebellion at fifteen.

Moving with my back to the bookshelves, I stayed hidden in the dark corners until I was within striking distance. Books shuddered silently behind me—not enough for anyone else to notice—the magical ink inside the leather bindings urging me on.

I gave a dip of my head in reply. Frickel had his back to me, his attention fully on Ember. Her eyes widened as she spotted me.

“You wouldn’t be the first to steal. Books have gone missing.” Frickel sneered. “Who are you? Tell me…” His lips hovered near her mouth. “So many of your lot have died trying to get into the archive. That why you’re here?” His head tilted as his nose ran along her jaw, and it turned my stomach. “Or did you come to see me?” He grabbed a handful of Ember’s dress, and his ink-stained fingers yanked the fabric up her legs. “And before you’re taken in marriage…”

In the far corner of the room, a book tore itself free from the shelf and struck the floor between us. A warning. Frickel jumped. Then his gaze landed on the book lying on the floor. His face twisted in anger, and he spat towards it. “Keep out of this.”

Clever library.

It hated Frickel as much as the apprentices did.

My grip tightened on the pin. Our training had been clear—silent and without hesitation. It would look like he died of a failing heart, but after this, there was no going back. Sooner or later, they would find out that I had killed the Grand Master of the Library, and it would mean my death.

I lunged toward him, years of buried rage consuming my movements and stripping me of any remorse. My pin flashed in the dim light as it found its mark on the right side of his windpipe near the carotid artery—just as I had practised. Frickel’s eyes widened as his hand flew to his neck and he spun around on me, his other hand crashing into my cheek. My face snapped sideways, the white, burning sting making me stagger backwards, but it only took a second to find my footing again.

I internally started counting.

“You!” He choked out a gasp, and I took another step away and met Ember’s wide eyes. A sharp lift of my chin told her to run, but she only took two steps toward the window. If her hands hadn’t been bound, she would have picked up the knife and stabbed him through the heart. Frickel staggered sideways and braced his hands on my desk.

His breathing was shallow, his cheeks flushed as his eyes narrowed with hatred. “How did you…?” The poison was flooding his veins now.

In reply, I pinched my thumb and index finger together—the sign of the rebellion. But when my hand shook with adrenaline, I stilled it and took another step back.

He sneered, and then his throat constricted as he tried to scream for help. Over and over he struggled for air until he collapsed onto all fours and then rolled sideways on the floor. I studied him for a second—my first kill—and waited for rage or guilt or relief… but only a hollow nothingness existed inside me. If I were lucky, my heart had become as desolate as the winter lands around the city.

Needing to prove that he was truly dead, I crept closer and kicked his rib cage. A place I had been hurt many a time by that man while being his apprentice. When he didn’t move, I pulled the pin from his neck and placed it back inside the hairpin case and rewound it through my curls. I might need it again before the night was over.

2

Master Frickel’s body sprawled out on the workshop floor, his hollow, lifeless eyes glaring at me. In the struggle, the copy of Wild Witch Traditions must have fallen and was now tucked under his shoulder. I had finished restoring the ancient edition last week, and the magical words were only beginning to return to its pages. On seeing the bent spine, I tugged it free from beneath Frickel’s body, the smooth leather grounding me for a second.

The library purred, and I gave the shelf filled with scrolls on phoenix lore an eye roll. Happy I’m saving a book, or is your book magic that bloodthirsty? A subtle rumble came from the scrolls. Had they read my mind, or was crazed Yule magic already sweeping over us?

A snarl to my right had my gaze leaving the scrolls… Ember. I had let my mind wander too far. Anyone could have heard Frickel’s body hitting the floor. Nausea twisted in my stomach at the thought of what he might have done to her if I hadn’t arrived in time.

Breathe.

The image of Aster’s warm, fight-hardened hands on my shoulders five years ago as he guided my breath training came to mind. I calmed myself enough to stop my body from rage-shaking. I closed my eyes for just a beat and listened for oncoming footsteps, hoping that the guards hadn’t heard us, that the sleeping powder in their pitchers had worked.

Focus.

Once I had gained a semblance of control, I rolled my shoulders and slipped on the mask I used for all these operations.

Ember huffed, still hunched on the floor of the alcove on the other side of my desk. Tears of pure violence streamed down her cheeks as she struggled to free her hands. Scanning her for injury, I hurried to her side and brushed my hands down her sleeves, trying to rid her of Frickel’s touch and knowing it would take a lot more than that. Her light-blue apprentice tunic was crumpled, but nothing more. And in a place like Craven City, or the cursed Barren Lands, you had to find something positive to latch onto. If you let your mind go too dark, you mightn’t come back from it. I had seen that happen.

I undid her binding with a tremble in my fingers, careful not to touch the torn skin on her wrists. Before turning to go back out into the hall, I pressed my forehead to hers to let her know I was sorry and relieved, even if I couldn’t say the words. There were listening runes throughout the library just waiting to record what the apprentices said, especially the Annatalian ones. Glowing spots of silver in the corners or crevices, and in the Surveillance Room in the palace tower, a mage was always listening.

These silver runes weren’t common. The dual runes took years to perfect and required someone observant at the other end to keep track of everything that was said. They were therefore reserved for prisons, King’s buildings, the homes of powerful officials… and spying. But that was enough. No rebel ever assumed a room was safe. They would never trust us, and they were right not to.

My cousins and I wore enchanted anklets which hid our royal identity, but the guards had ear-tagged us the moment we arrived. That gold tag on our ears had become a symbol… a sign that we were children of war, descendants of people they had slaughtered a decade earlier.

My gaze slipped back to where Frickel lay dead on the floor, and the sweat on my right palm, the hand that had killed him, became sticky. I wiped it off on my black cloak. The door was closed, and I pointed to the window to tell Ember to leave, but she shook her head.

She was infuriatingly determined. It ran in our blood.

Books rumbled to my left, by the door. Was the library alerting me to someone approaching? I stilled, listening for movement.