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With that, she glances at Elixir. Everyone follows her gaze and settles on him. My brother hears our heads veering his way, but when his attention ticks over to Juniper, his irises flare, briefly but safely. Then he looks away.

How intriguing. My brother often responds like this with her.

It’s not lost on Cove, who watches him carefully. Nor does the reaction sneak past Puck, whose brows stitch together. But ironically—seeing as it has to do with his woman—he doesn’t comment for once in his outspoken life.

Likely, he doesn’t want to interrupt Juniper. She resents being cut off. All of us have learned the unfavorable consequences of that.

Lark’s sister trots away, retrieves a pack slumped nearby, and returns while plucking the Book of Fables and her spectacle case from its contents. Feathers, branches, and droplets emboss the tome’s spine. The hinges have dulled over the centuries, and animals including lions, bears, wolves, hares, and ravens embellish the cover.

Puck takes the bag from Juniper, and after she perches the glasses on her nose, she thumbs through the pages until reaching the most crucial one: the Fable created with its mysterious passage about the second way to the preserve our world.

“I’m still hunting through this,” Juniper prefaces. “One, other potentially coded messages stored inside the book. Two, any historical clues that predate common knowledge. Three, additional changes in font that I might have missed during my last reread. Four, feasible patterns in the Fables’ titles. Five—”

“Five?”Lark exaggerates.

“Five,” Juniper snaps, a scowl leaping off her face before she returns to the book. “Five…and this is important…any changes in texture.”

Elixir hears something preemptive in her voice because his features purse. “Texture,” he repeats.

“Creases in the pages that form shapes or words, thickness that emphasizes passages the way an underline mark would, or areas where the parchment is smooth or coarse,” she explains. “Or perhaps the textures of the letters and sentences themselves. What if there’s something there? Any of us could feel that.” Juniper swipes off her glasses and meets Elixir’s remote stare. “Unless we aren’t meant to. Unless the signs are hidden.”

Perceptive, indeed.

Our earlier hope that Elixir might have access to the second way, given his power to see what others can’t, had waned after The Deep’s flood.

Prior to that event, Elixir had insisted he knew nothing, despite the role his Unseelie ancestor and her Seelie nemesis played in the Book of Fables. Since then, Juniper has narrated the tales to him, but it hasn’t unveiled a forsaken thing. He seems to know as little as the rest of us.

Yet this idea has merit. What if Elixir feels his way through the Fable, touches and follows it as he does the humid mist or the tunnel walls of his domain? What if he uses texture to guide him?

Puck gives Juniper a proud wink. They must have talked about this at length.

Elixir hesitates until Cove presses into his side. “I will try,” he grunts. “But I promise nothing.”

Juniper’s shoulders rise with confidence, and she extends the book to him, the pages spread open. I restrain the urge to move in closer. Elixir isn’t a creature to be smothered.

Those gilded orbs cascade shut. Our group waits as he rests his fingers on the title, then glides them like water over the parchment, from the illuminated artwork—raptors, stags, and serpents—to the paragraphs. His digits sink down the page, gliding from left to right like a wave, his arms moving as though he’s playing the harp.

Then his hands seize up, halting on the last word. His eyes flip open, and he growls in frustration before yanking his fingers back.

Fucking Fables. I lean against the railing in defeat and tuck Lark into me, trading sad grins with her.

Puck’s chest falls. Juniper’s face sags as she draws the book to her small frame. Regardless, the speed at which she progresses from disappointed to pragmatic is a testament to her nature. Puck once likened her to a steadfast tree, and I can see why.

Come to think of it, with her eyes unfettered, the irises transcend from the green of a woodland to something infinitely more vivid, almost Faelike. I would spend more time on that oddity if my mind weren’t toying with me, and if the probability weren’t beyond farfetched.

“Well.” Juniper pats the book’s binding. “It was worth a try.”

“Or two,” Puck advocates. “Or three.”

“He’s right,” Lark says. “Could take more than one attempt.”

Ferocity and something akin to shame dig trenches into Elixir’s face. Long strands of black hair tumble over his profile as he stalks to the opposite side of the bridge, where he grips the railing. The scales of his wrists glint like shards of glass.

Cove hastens to his side, rubs his bicep, and murmurs, “You tried.”

While they whisper in private, Lark makes the best of it. “What’s next on your list?”

“Ten other possibilities,” Juniper says lamely, her sullen expression suggesting it’s not an impressive number.