Page 14 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Lorel

I am dozing when Sila returns. I had bathed and sat with my thoughts and I could only conclude that I am tired beyond measure.

I cannot draw a logical conclusion to anything Sila said and yet nothing that is happening makes any sense.

She was not the only one with an interest in my death.

And now it seems she is the only one with an interest in me living.

If I had had more sense, I would have curled up in an armchair.

As it is, I barely remember to pull my shift back on before I tuck myself into Sila’s bed.

The sheets are surprisingly soft, if a little dusty.

They have the memory of her perfume, sweet against my senses and tangled with the smell of salt and earth.

It shouldn’t relax me, but it’s comforting as I drift off.

There is a shifting weight on the edge of the bed, and the thing in my chest stirs like a cat disturbed from its nap. After a moment’s pause, it settles itself again as if content that there is no threat.

“Lorel,” Sila whispers, her fingers combing through my hair. Without my glasses, she’s a little indistinct. The blood is gone from her cheeks, so she must have washed up while I slept. “Are you hungry? Or shall I let you rest some more?”

I don’t need to reply because my stomach grumbles as if it has been waiting for someone to notice it and provide it with sustenance. I’m reluctant to move. I like the way her fingers feel in my hair, her nails gentle against my scalp.

Her face softens in a smile. “Come along then. Let us get you fed.” She moves away from the bed and if I could make a noise, it would be the most melancholy of sighs. I rub the sleep from my eyes as I sit up, and I remember to fetch my glasses before I go.

She had been so prickly before, hurt and wary as she’d turned away from me, and now she’s being so soft. I don’t understand it. Librarians are not soft with scribes. They’re not soft with anyone.

Sila has removed the books from a small table and chairs in the room's corner, unearthing it from the scholarly debris.

Are these all Library books?

I yawn wide and drop into a chair, stretching my arms high above my head and forgetting that I’m only wearing a shift.

Sila’s amusement is back, dancing in her eyes, tipping up the edges of her mouth.

It seems her good humour has returned— though whether it is from dealing with dead bodies or antagonising Mercias, I cannot say.

“Some are, I think,” she says. She leaves the room and returns with a tray.

It is far fancier than the ones from the scribes’ quarters, both the tray itself and the offering upon it.

I blink at it slowly. There is a mushroom and vegetable stew, an assortment of pickles, a round of bread, and in the corner is a soft cheese.

Only it’s drenched in a sweet golden syrup that isn’t something usually wasted on the scribes.

I look back up at Sila, uneasy. This is surely not for me.

She places it firmly on the table in front of me.

I suppose you don’t have to pay late fees then.

Sila smiles, her teeth flashing dangerously through it. “They are welcome to try. Now eat.”

Are you sure this is mine?

Sila makes a little huff of a laugh. “I am certain.”

I hesitate for a moment more before deciding that if I don’t, there is a real threat that Sila will feed me herself.

I dig into the stew, and maybe it's just how hungry I am— because I doubt there is really any difference between this and my usual fare— but it’s possibly one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Sila lounges in the spindle-legged chair across from me. She’s not watching me, her eyes focused off somewhere across the room in thought. I reach out and brush my fingers against her arm to get her attention.

“Are you still hungry?” she asks. Her face is unguarded with a gentle smile, and it takes me a moment to remember why I wanted her attention.

I haven’t finished yet.

“Hmm, I can see that now. If it is not to your tastes, I can find something different.” Sila rests her head in her hand as she leans on the table.

It’s not about the food. It’s just, what do we do now?

“Oh, I thought you did not believe me?”

I don’t know what to believe anymore. I can barely light a sigil properly, and I’ve probably only ever squished a spider accidentally.

I’ve no idea why you all want me dead. Except maybe if it has something to do with this.

I pull my collar down to display the inky black mark, only a few days older than when she last saw it and already closer to Sila’s hand-span than to mine.

I don’t know if I believe you. I don’t know if I don’t either.

It’s a lot to take in. But… it wouldn’t be the strangest thing happening right now, would it?

There’s a wry smile caught at the edges of her mouth again. “No, it certainly would not.” Her eyes are fixed on the mark across my chest, and they close off, cold and unfathomable. “It is growing.”

I think it will consume me.

“I will not countenance that,” Sila says, sharp. She takes a deep, steadying breath. “You said you could remember nothing.”

I can’t. I picked up a book from my desk. I woke up in the infirmary.

“And you have not found the book yet?” Sila taps her fingers on the table surface, her mouth pinched as if she is coming around to a thought that does not please her.

No. I have no idea where it went .

She’s silent, wrestling with something. She makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “I think I know where to find it,” she says eventually. She looks back at the mark and this time there is resignation there instead. I’m not so sure what to make of that.

How?

Sila reaches over the table, tugging my shift back up and tying it gently. “There is only one place to find such a book, and that is in the Heart of the Library.”

“You are to stay within my rooms,” Sila says sternly.

“This is the safest place for you, and thus far, no one knows you are here. There is food in the kitchenette, and you can read what you wish.” Her cloak is thrown around her shoulders, and I don’t think I could disobey the tone of her voice if I tried.

Anything?

Sila smiles, a wicked growing thing. “Look to your heart's content, little mouse. I have no secrets from you.”

I don’t think that’s true.

“I suppose I would not know. It depends on how well you can search,” Sila says.

There is a reason I’m not a researcher.

Sila’s mouth twists in wry amusement, and there is something lighter about her. “No, I suppose you are not.”

You seem pleased.

“I look forward to finding out what you discover about me,” she says. “Give me two days to make sure everything is in order, and then we shall find your missing book.”

Two more days with a growing curse mark is better than the indefinite amount that I was facing before.

It still worries me. Going into the Heart of the Library worries me too.

Only Librarians can enter the Heart, nestled in the depths of the Library.

Rarely did they take anyone else with them, because rarely did anyone else walk out again.

I will need to trust our bargain, if not her. Maybe I can find evidence of that trust hidden in her things, though. Find some reassurance that I have not made a terrible deal with some kind of horrific demonic presence from deep within the Library.

“Lorel?” Sila’s fingers caress my jaw, tipping my head up to see her. She pushes my glasses back into place. “I mean what I say— do not leave this room.”

I wet my lips, remember I can’t speak, and nod. Sila’s eyes track every movement.

“Good,” she says, and as she steps back, the shadows reach out and swallow her whole.

Surely others notice her walk through the shadows, or arrive without using a door. Though perhaps they simply do not care to notice. It may not be worth noticing.

It leaves me standing in her rooms, alone and surrounded by books and scrolls and boxes and papers.

I stare at the door. I could leave, but I doubt I would get far.

And really, where would I go? To deliver myself to the Lightkeepers?

To try and hide in the Glade? There is nowhere that Sila won’t find me.

Somehow, it is a comforting thought.

I turn my attention to the room. Some books are coated so thick with dust that I can’t begin to comprehend how long they might have sat here.

My hands come away covered in it. Had they been here since the previous occupant?

I circle Sila’s desk that sits in pride of place amongst it all, as if I am trying to sneak up on it.

It feels almost too personal to approach it. Too intimate to rifle through it.

I have no doubt that Sila has already been through mine.

There wouldn’t have been much of interest there, though.

Just some embarrassing sketches and attempts at painting I’d likely forgotten to throw away.

My heart aches a little, and it’s silly, but I miss my paints.

Miss my desk. Miss the scriptorium, even.

But this isn’t the time for melancholy. I have permission to dig through a Librarian’s things, and I won’t let the opportunity pass me by.

Some of the piles are as tall as I am, though I suppose that isn’t a problem for Sila.

I wiggle my way through and collapse into the chair.

It’s unexpectedly comfortable. I pass an eye over the stacks within arm’s reach— well, my arm’s reach— and then turn my attention to the desk.

It has a dark red leather top, worn thin in places, but cared for, suggesting that she must sometimes clear the desk.

There are two drawers on either side under it, neither of them locked.

A stand with a book open, and small stacks and piles balancing precariously on the edges.

And in the middle of it all, a research journal in what must be Sila’s hand.

Never mind what it is she writes of, the script she writes with is archaic .

The Library contains almost two thousand years of our history, since the first sacrifice and the Dawn King’s ascension.

Tastes in handwriting and illuminating came and went, and a keen eye could date a piece based on those features alone.

Elris’ work builds on the style of his master, Illuminator Valen, but it is still distinct.

And in the centuries that come after, it will anchor it in this time and place, because what came before and what comes after will forever be changing.

There is a current trending style, adopted some years back by newer scribes after an old manuscript had surfaced for copying and everyone had thought it beautiful.

It had been truly, properly ancient. Dry and cracked and brittle.

The preservation had taken three teams of scribes weeks of cleaning and copying.

That manuscript is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to Sila’s hand, and even then, the connection feels weak.

Those of fae blood, as most in the Citadel were, could live for a few centuries if they were lucky. Sila would have to be older by far for a script like this to come naturally to her. Older than that manuscript that had seemed so ancient.

I rub my fingers together, feel the dust caked to them. Not dust from a previous Librarian, but from Sila’s neglect over decades, maybe even centuries. She had told me she was a true fae, and I had not believed her.

I am a fool.

I had been raised to believe there was no true fae left, except for his majesty, the Dawn King. Benevolent ruler of us all. But I am also a scribe, and I know how histories can be written anew at any time. How stories can twist a lie into truth.

I brush my fingers lightly over the journal pages, the paper fine under my fingertips. The words looping and swirling across the page, almost illegible. I look at the closest stack to me, at the spines and begin to notice a pattern, and a familiar hand

These are not library books. These are centuries of Sila’s journals.