Page 58

Heat bloomed everywhere his breath touched.

It would have been a far more effective retort if my body hadn’t betrayed me so thoroughly. But I gathered what dignity I had left, turned my head just enough to catch his eye, and gave him my sweetest smile.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Your Majesty. I came for the library, of course.”

Then I slipped out of his grip and stepped away toward the shelves, entirely too pleased with the low, frustrated sound he made in the back of his throat.

I drifted down the nearest aisle, trailing my fingers along a row of cracked leather spines. The old habit rose up before I could stop it. That familiar, hungry pull I’d felt in every looted bookshop and abandoned library across three years of running. Then a title snagged me, and I tugged the book free.

It fell open to a painting of a creature I knew far too well. A Gryphon, rendered in flaking gold leaf, every feather and talon labeled in a flowing script that rippled and rearranged itself as I watched, into words I could read… like magic.

My breath caught.

A bestiary.

An entire book of them. Creatures I had spent three years learning to survive by trial and terror, and an enormous amount of luck, lay out here in neat, beautiful, meticulously catalogued pages.

“Okay, so I don’t know how it just magically changed into English, but do you have any idea how much this would have come in handy?” I whispered, turning to a page on a manticore.

Atlas came to stand at my shoulder, and I felt rather than saw his smile.

“Ah. Yes.” There was something warm and knowing in his voice. “Your field guide was very informative indeed. Though it did have its mistakes.”

I went still. Then I turned to look up at him, narrow-eyed.

“Yes. I noticed you corrected them.” I let the pause stretch. “As well as my thoughts on you.”

His mouth twitched.

“Well, you didn’t think very highly of me now, did you?”

“You took my journal, hunted me through an apocalypse, and made yourself at home in my dreams entirely uninvited.” I arched a brow. “I called you a great many things in those margins, Your Majesty. ‘Insufferable’ was one of the kinder ones.”

“I am aware. I read every word.” And the soft, unbothered way he said it, as though my furious scribbled hatred had been something to treasure, made my chest do something complicated.

“More than once,” he whispered, and I tried my best not to show him how much that affected me. To know that there he had been, waiting to capture me and reading every word I had written, and more than once.

The fact gave me goosebumps.

I looked back down at the bestiary, and the ache that rose up caught me off guard with how sharp it was.

“I still feel a little lost without it, if I’m honest,” I admitted. “Which is ridiculous. It was a battered notebook full of bad drawings and even worse language. But I wrote in it every night for three years. Even if I had nothing to say, I’d write a word or a sentence, just so I could remember. It was the one thing that was always mine.” I huffed a small laugh. “Now it’s a whole world away, and my hands don’t quite know what to do with themselves at the end of a day.”

For a moment, Atlas said nothing. Then, gently, “Why did you keep it?”

I glanced up, surprised. In all the time he’d had the thing, in every dream, every argument, and every careful correction inked into its pages, he had never once asked me that.

“Because it was the only weapon I had,” I admitted. “When the Rift opened, I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t even shoot a gun. I watched my uncle get taken, and I ran, because running was the only thing I knew how to do.” The old guilt turned over, familiar and dull. “So, I started writing instead. Everything I saw. Every creature, every weakness, every stupid little thing that worked. I told myself that even if I never learned to fight them, even if I didn’t make it, then maybe the next person would. They’d find my notes, and they’d know how to survive better than I did. It kept me going, kept me writing.” I shrugged, suddenly self-conscious beneath the weight of his attention. “My dad always said information was the greatest weapon there was, and for a long time, it was the only one I had.”

When I looked up, the warmth in his eyes had deepened into something that reddened my cheeks.

“You turned your fear into a weapon for strangers you would never meet,” he breathed. “Do you understand how rare that is?”

“It wasn’t brave, Atlas, it was just all I could do.”

He shook his head. “No, it was both.” He reached out, tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering at my jaw. “Then let me give you more than a notebook. Let me teach you. Every creature in my world and in yours, their natures, their weaknesses, the way they think. I will have my finest warriors train you to fight them properly, if that is what you wish.” A pause, and then, dry as old wine, “Though it would seem you managed that part well enough on your own and need to give yourself more credit. I saw it for myself, remember.”

A laugh burst out of me.