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“I’m not allowed inside, your majesty.”

I glance inside. All I can tell is that it’s as dim as anything else in this part of the castle. “Will you wait for me?”

“Yes, your highness.”

“I’ll hurry.”

“Take your time.” He motions for me to enter.

I do, and I can hardly believe the sight. The shelves are far taller than any other library I’ve been in and the books appear even older than the ones in the other private libraries. None of the spines have any lettering, at least nothing I recognize. There are strange markings, but perhaps they’re in an ancient language.

That sure won’t help me.

I eye the spines as I make my way through the rows. They seem to go on forever. And being in the castle instead of the academy or the public library, it seems like they actually could go without end. It makes me wonder how many times that old servant has waited for someone like me to exit this place.

It also makes me wonder if any book in here about Queen Sirena would have more information than I’ve already found. Given my uncle’s obsession with her, he had to have already gone through every book in here with even a mention of the ancient queen. On the other hand, it seems like the castle’s hidden books would have more secrets than any other. Although, it might also be easy to miss a book in here given that none have a decent label.

I keep going and going for so long, I start to wonder if the library really does go on forever. The floor dips down, and the light becomes dimmer. I could actually be below the ocean floor at this point. And I haven’t come across anyone since entering. The library must be so well hidden, nobody worries about having someone there to protect all the books.

I continue watching the spines for any sign of something I might recognize, but I still can’t read a thing. This is probably a futile trip, other than seeing all these ancient books. I stop and pick one at random, running my fingers along the cover. It’s so soft, and I open it with ease. The pages fan open and glow just slightly.

Interesting. I watch in amazement as the light gets brighter and the pages flip themselves, stopping about two-thirds back. They rest on one another, and the glow intensifies.

The first thing I notice is a drawing of what looks like Queen Sirena.

“What the …?” I pull the book closer and stare at the image. It’s more rudimentary than others I’ve seen, but it does look like her—and like me. The two mysterious royal mermaids with tridents and pink hair who both killed their fathers.

The urge to shove the book back onto the shelf is overpowering. It’s impossible that I picked this one book at random. Impossible! Yet here I am, looking at the page about her. There’s no way I’m going to be able to read what’s written.

I study the fancy script and realize the alphabet is the same. None of the words look familiar … until they do. Almost none are spelled right—or I should say modern—but sounding them out, I can figure out what most of them are. It’s a slow and tedious process, but I get through the first paragraph. The gist is that she was betrayed by her father when he gave her to be raised by someone else.

I pause and try to make sense of that. Dad raised me. He may have worked a lot, and I rarely saw him, but he didn’t hand me over to someone else. Although, in a way, sending me to the academy is like having someone else raise me. Other than visiting to see Middlebrooks, he was completely uninvolved with me since we arrived. That could be it, or I could be grasping at straws. Not everything in my life has to align with hers.

The next paragraphs talk about her becoming one with her trident and finding love. The tidbit about love is interesting. It’s curious, not to mention frustrating, that there isn’t one book with everything about her. This author didn’t write much more about her love life other than she found someone who treated her well. I want to know if she got a happily ever after.

It doesn’t say. Of course not. I’m going to assume she got it. And even if she didn’t, Bash and I can have ours. I’m not doomed to relive every aspect of her life. I hope.

I finish reading the page, and don’t learn anything else. The rest tells about her long and successful reign as a beloved leader who nobody was able to defeat. I’ll definitely take that, as long as it comes with the unmentioned happily ever after.

After I’m done, I re-read everything to make sure I haven’t missed anything. And I haven’t.

So much for this trip. I haven’t learned anything new—nothing life-changing anyway. She found love, and she was betrayed by her father.

Maybe what I need to do is stop trying to figure out what happened to her and start making my own destiny. Isn’t that what Bash has been telling me all along? Even though he was wrong about me not having to follow Queen Sirena’s footsteps—or tail flips—regarding my dad.

It makes me curious to see if I’ve come into my full power yet. I need to get back to the academy and hold my trident. That’ll be the real test.