Page 104

SCARLETT

“Good night,” Scarlett chirped, placing her hand upon the door handle.

“Next week then?” Finn called from the table where they had been playing cards.

“Is this a standing weekly dinner invitation?”

“Would you accept such a thing?” Callan countered from where he stood beside her.

“Next week then,” she agreed with a smile.

She slipped from their rooms and headed for the bridges, but before she entered the main atrium, she turned down a side hall. She had been exploring this side of the palace the entire last week and had found a little used closet. She slipped into it now and unstacked boxes. She opened the bottom one and pulled out the pants, tunic, and jacket she had stashed there a few days ago.

Silent as a wraith, she took off the pale green dress she had worn to dinner. She breathed deep as she slid on the clothes. It wasn’t her usual suit of stealth, but it was nearly identical to Eliza’s uniform she so often wore around the grounds.

She went to the corner and pulled an old sheet off the brooms and mops. She had stashed weapons behind them, and she strapped them to her body by muscle memory alone.In one of the dagger sheaths, she shoved three candles and matches. Then she braided back her hair and slung a lightweight cloak around her shoulders.

She had been watching the guards all week, too. She had learned their schedules, the places they left unguarded. They all reported unusual movements to Sorin. If she were seen going to the library this late, he would be told.

So she would not be seen.

She wasn’t ready to tell him her theories yet. Not until she had proof. Not until she had all the pieces.

Coincidences were not a thing in her world. She was learning it was all connected.

And she was in the damn center of it all.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She pulled her hood up and drifted down into that place she’d been ignoring for months. She took a step from the cage where she kept Death’s Maiden locked up tight. She let that darkness rise and writhe and twist, her shadows darkened as they embraced that darkness.

In less than three minutes, she was inside the library and striding amongst the shelves of books, deeper and deeper into the passageways. She sent her shadows ahead of her, feeling out the way so she did not need to light any torches.

Not until she had opened the passageway did she light a candle as she peered down into the darkened staircase. She looked behind her to see a small lever on the wall. A way to close the door from the inside.

And reopen it, she hoped as she pulled it.

When the door had slid completely shut, she pulled a long knife from her belt and began her descent.

PART TWO

THE STARS

CHAPTER 33

CALLAN

Callan looked up from the book he was reading and stole a glance at Scarlett seated across from him in the library. They had continued to meet in the library nearly every afternoon. When she had returned from the mortal lands, she had started researching something in the Old Language books and had become even more interested in what King Deimas and Queen Esmeray had sought in Avonleya.

A weekly dinner had also become a thing ever since that first one a few weeks ago. He looked forward to the relaxed and casual dinners when it was just them and Finn and Sloan. She seemed to enjoy them, too, although that might be because she tended to hand Sloan his ass in billiards nearly every week.

She was leaning back in her chair, biting her lower lip in that way she always did when she was reading something particularly interesting. It was her hand, though, that caught his attention. As she read, crystals of ice crackled and danced at her fingertips. Fire. Water. Ice. Whatever magic training she was doing with Sorin seemed to be paying off. Maybe that meant they’d be able to return home soon.

He’d seen her displaying those powers more and more since she had returned from the mortal lands on the day Eliza had literally dragged him to the Fire Prince’s private chambers,demanding to know where she had gone. The two Fae princes had left through a water portal to go speak with this Sorceress person. He, Finn, and Sloan had taken seats while they’d watched Sorin’s Inner Court pace and bicker and snap at one another.

She had never spoken of that day or told him what had happened between her and the Prince of this Court, and no one else had bothered to either, but he could not get her from his mind. How she had leaned into him in that stairwell. How she had let him hold her for those minutes while she had collected herself.

“You are staring, Callan,” she said, drawing him from his thoughts. Her eyes were still on the book before her.

“How would you know?” he teased, reaching over and flipping her pages.