Page 96

I shook my head. “I can’t do this.”

He didn’t play coy and ask what I meant. “I’ll always respect your wishes.”

The sentence held a hundred possibilities I was sayingnoto.

The man who called himself king of monsters would always respect my wishes.

“I have to go,” I murmured, untucking my legs and pulling away. To avoid leaving on a bleak note, I summoned vexation I no longer felt and arched a brow at the vampire king. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way back to my rooms from here.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

One of my bookswas missing. I frowned. I had been rotating through the books since the librarian apparently made a stink about them being gone for too long, but the one missing wasn’t just any book, but the one I’d tucked my notes inside of. Had I returned the wrong book by mistake?

Amalthea was called away on court business. Normally, she accompanied me when I refreshed my stock of books. I debated waiting for her, but I was so close to getting this latest passage fully translated.

It had been coming more quickly, even though I was splitting my time between practicing my mental shields with Raphael, physical training with Demos, andtranslating. Progress had been the slowest on sparring, but Raphael appeared almost frustrated by how quickly I’d developed my mental shields.

Translating… I was close. There were a few gaps I could infer, but there was one term in the opening I couldn’t grasp. Though I could translate other pages, the opening pages of a grimoire served as critical context for the mythical tome. I’d seen something similar to at least one of the mysterious glyphs in the missing book, I was certain.

This is the book of the necromancer. The witch who alone serves Anagenni, they who _______. Through the goddess’s will, the necromancer has dominion over bone and blood, ____ and ____. The ______ bow to the necromancer.

I made a quick calculation and decided my desire to finish my work outweighed how uncomfortable the librarian made me.

The librarian was surprisingly absent from his post. I took that as a good omen and went inside, scurrying around the stacks of books to find the now familiar corner that held the Old Runyk books.

Where is it?I scanned the spines, but the book I was looking for wasn’t there. I squatted low and pulled out each book one by one. Maybe it hadn’t been reshelved? That would mean I’d have to ask the librarian, and just the thought sent a shiver down my spine. Maybe it had fallen behind a piece of furniture in my room.

“Looking for this?” an old, cracked voice said.

I jerked upright and turned.

The librarian stood just a few feet away. His appearance was every bit as ghastly as I remembered, skin as thin of the frailest parchment bound in the texts he guarded. But that wasn’t what I focused on.

The missing book was in his hand.

“Oh, um, yes,” I squeaked. “I didn’t mean to return it. I wasn’t done with the book.”

“Of course,” he said congenially.

He made no move to give me the book, so I was forced to walk to him and take it. I opened the front and frowned.

“Or were you looking for these?”

He held a few sheets of parchment aloft, covered in my drafted translations. Relief went through me at the realization I wouldn’t need to start all over again.

“Yes, thank you.” I held out my hand, but the librarian kept the papers lifted.

I looked up at him in confusion.

“Did you think,” the librarian said mildly, “that I would not figure out what you were doing?”

I took a small step backwards. “I’m working on a project for the king.”

The librarian barked a laugh, the sound like a crack of thunder. “Did you think I wouldn’t know who you really serve? That I wouldn’t recognize you for what you really are? As if the king would ever ask for this. When he learns what I’ve done, he’ll reward me.”

What he’s done?

His voice turned into that hypnotic lull of a thrall. “Now stay still so I can kill you.”