Page 4

Chapter four

Roisin

T he air was a tad musty in the underground library. Not as fresh as the air outside in the garden. Golden lights lit the staircase as I padded down the stone steps and hurried across the floor, passing rows upon rows of bookshelves. The long table in the center of the room was a warm, well-worn timber that once would have been a magnificent tree. I trailed my fingers along the edge. Had our Fae ancestors helped the Fellowship build this library? It seemed plausible to me if the stories about us living in harmony were true.

And they were. Father and Mother had told me the stories themselves. They would never lie to me or my brothers and sisters. We were family, even though our royal duty was to the Summer Court and our Spring of Life.

My power had never been more at ease since Ciara fixed the spring. There was no longer the constant pressure of ice wanting to escape from my hands. I could let out a sigh of relief. I glanced around and did just that. The sound echoed inside the enormous library. I covered my mouth to stop from giggling, so no one heard it echo too.

I had little time before everyone noticed my absence. Even though I didn’t have Fae royal guards with me, my brother and sister were too observant and too protective. They’d notice I was missing and follow me, but I wouldn’t let them stop me. Nor would I let the Fellowship members stop me from testing my theory.

The Fellowship was all about following rules to keep order and protect the Infinite Spring that ran from a fountain wall inside this secret place. We comprehended little about the Fellowship. We’d only recently learned of their existence. Which was the strangest thing I’d ever heard. A secret society to protect the Fae that the Fae didn’t know existed.

There were so many questions yet to be answered.

Ciara might have saved us from mortality, but there was more to be discovered. I was certain of it.

My feet stopped moving as I reached my destination.

I’d reached the bookshelf at the end of the library, but this was no ordinary bookshelf. This was a magical one where if humans took a book from the shelf, the entire collection of books would disappear and a new collection would replace them. The Fellowship said they’d lost many important books on the shelf and didn’t take a book from the shelves any longer because of it.

I saw it as an opportunity to learn more.

Who’d placed the magic on the shelves? Was it a Fae? Witch? Or other? And why? Why would a magical bookshelf take books away and not give them back? Was someone playing a game with these humans? Or giving them clues?

My family didn’t consider I was the smartest. They saw me as the artist, the one who painted pretty pictures and wrote beautiful poems. There was more to me than the creative side. I had a fully functioning mind that was good for other things. That’s why I was here. There was a book on the shelf that had an obscure image on the spine, but I believed it had a hidden meaning.

The Fellowship wouldn’t let me take the book. My family needed their help, so they would never have listened to me if I’d said we needed that book. They were all blind to what was right in front of our faces.

There was nothing special in appearance about this bookshelf. Someone had made it from the same wood as the other shelves in the library. Displayed in a neat and ordered fashion sat the spines of the books. The bright lights in the library glinted off the titles. There were so many to choose from that if I’d loved books as much as Ciara, then I’d bet my fingers would itch to take every single book from the shelves. But I had one goal.

One book to take.

So what if the others disappeared, and we’d never see them again? They had to go somewhere when they disappeared, so the books couldn’t be lost forever. Simply lost to us. For now, at least, because if the book had the clues in it we needed, then we’d find all the knowledge that was lost to us. We’d find our history, the history of the Fellowship, and how we were all connected.

How our power would help heal this realm.

How we’d become what we once were, but even better with the knowledge we would now possess.

As it was, my fingers itched to paint the bookshelf and have a reminder of this place and moment in time. I’d already sketched it with paper and ink, but it was in black and white. There were no vibrant colors, and I loved color. The more color, the better. That was why I wore rainbow-colored dresses.

Every world deserves color. Happiness. Love.

I aimed to bring it to everyone.

My hand reached for the book with the navy-blue cover and the tiny words Sarod embedded on the spine, hidden amongst the other letters that only I’d noticed with my artistic nature. I’d hidden words in my paintings too sometimes that no one in my family had ever noticed. No wonder I was the only one who’d noticed this clue.