Page 11

“Noted,” I say, and take the lead. My footsteps echo with every step.

Revelin matches my pace, his smirk impish. “If you’re wrong, vampire, you’re buying the next rounds at the bar—when we find one, of course.”

I side-eye him. “You could buy and sell any bar you walk into. Why is that a stake? None of you are hurting for cash, rock star.”

Dezi laughs, and it’s a sound that makes the flames in the sconces flicker. “I think it’s the principle, witchling. Obviously, the cost isn’t high enough to be a true punishment, but it will sting the pride. I accept, Your Highness.”

Tiernan’s voice echoes from the stacks nearby. “Khol and I believe the room is clear. We couldn’t find any other heartbeats or people in the territory we checked on the ground floor. It’s too big to search everywhere, though.”

“Then join us as we look for secrets, Tier. I don’t expect you to spend the next year and a half exploring this damn Mary Poppins room until you’re one hundred percent certain.”

With a sigh of relief, my leopard and basilisk rejoin us. They’re still keeping a close eye on our surroundings, but I think everyone is doing that. We’ve been ambushed too many times not to keep our heads on a swivel.

Turning to look at the rows of books nearby, I frown. The shelves are organized not by author, but by intent. The first few aisles are histories—records of Fae wars, treaties, scandal. Revelin points out a title that translates roughly to Comprehensive Index of Fae-Court Bastards, which makes me snicker.

Of course, these fuckers would need to keep track of that; who knows when the next war or political assassination will take out an entire family?

“Don’t get distracted,” Tier teases, but his words lack heat. He looks up, watching the shadows of the upper balconies. “By the way, if they are monitoring us, it’ll be from the blind spots.”

Dezi hums, his red eyes scanning the upper areas before he murmurs, “They’d be fools to leave this unguarded normally, but the evacuation of the throne room tells me it was likely a castle-wide alarm. They wouldn’t have ushered us to our room without fanfare if that wasn’t the case.”

“And they tried to guarantee we wouldn’t leave, plus we haven’t seen a soul since we escaped,” Khol adds. “I think whatever the fuck is going on is scaring the shit out of the royals here.”

“Yet here we are, out and about, defying the Fates to send a monster in our path,” I mutter. “It’s so on-brand for us that we should have T-shirts made or some shit.”

The air grows colder the deeper we go into the massive space. Lanterns don’t reach the back aisles, but the books here glow on their own, casting gentle auras. I think their code is red for hexes, gold for glamours, and blue for necromancy, but that’s just a guess. I’m careful not to touch anything, but I run my eyes along the spines, memorizing titles as I pass.

What I wouldn’t give to have unlimited time here so I could develop my magic more—being hunted sucks ass.

A nearby spiral opens into a sunken reading pit—a circular space lined with velvet benches, and with a single black table in the center. The surrounding vibe tells me that this is where the forbidden books live. When I look to the shelves surrounding the table, I see that some are wrapped in chains, others sealed with wax, but all of them radiate a don’t-fuck-with-me energy that raises the hairs on my neck.

Revelin points at the table. “Pretty sure everything here is the kind of thing we’re looking for. Though, I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to access them all without setting off alarms or protection spells. Also, you owe me drinks, vampire.”

I step into the pit, walking around the area so I can look at the books housed there more closely. My men follow, and Khol is first to reach for a book, his long fingers moving with snake-strike precision. He selects a narrow volume bound in snakeskin, although he shudders as he holds onto it. Dezi goes for a thick, ancient codex covered in shifting runes that make my head throb if I look too long.

Good for him, because I’m not going near that thing. The last thing I need is a fucking magical migraine.

There’s a feeling in my chest as I watch them, a pulse that draws my attention not to the books but to the table itself. There’s something beneath it, so I walk closer to run my hands over and under it. That’s when I find a shallow drawer with no handle. I lean in and nudge it with a knuckle, hoping it’s spring-loaded. It slides open soundlessly, revealing a bundle of parchment tied with a black silk cord.

“This feels important,” I say as I look at Revelin.

His beautiful eyes go wide as he studies it. “That’s court parchment—only legal records or magical contracts get written on that stuff. Why the fuck would someone leave that here without a single spell to protect it?”

Tiernan materializes at my side, scanning the shadows behind us. “You should let them check to see if it’s⁠—”

Ignoring his warning, I untie the cord. My magic prickles, warning me, but the bundle doesn’t bite. The top page is a list of names, written in a spidery, silvery hand. Some are crossed out in red; others are circled, annotated, or underlined. The script is in Old Fae, so I can’t really read it, but I recognize names when I see them.

“It’s a registry of bloodlines—royal ones,” Revelin whispers. “But it matches nothing I’ve ever seen before, even in our royal library. I don’t even recognize some of these people.”

My breath hitches when I reach the bottom of the page and there’s a listing that catches my eye. A name that is familiar, with an annotation that I think indicates a birth. “Revelin, translate for me.”

“Juniper Réalta Maidine, birth of a child during the First Court Wars. Fled across the Veil with the babe, then returned with a human child to preserve the royal line. The entire branch of the family tree was killed in a raid by orcs at the behest of the royal line of Harvest. The child was never located, though the human changeling perished with her in the attack. Succession was activated when a tertiary line was located and coronated to continue our fight against the lighter courts.”

The note is in elegant script, circled twice with a symbol that looks like a crescent moon stabbed through the heart, and I blink at Rev. “What does that mean?”

“Her name means… morning star, Sassy,” he says in a rough voice.

Dezi turns his crimson gaze on me, tilting his head. “Which, translated into another, more familiar form… is Morgenstern, witchling.”