Page 8 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

For days, I mope around the house.

If I’m not working on my assignments with my tutor, or sifting through the books in the library, or wandering around my chamber, then I’m in the White Wing with the Bosendorfer piano.

The instrument is too grand to fit into my room, unless I take out all the lounge furniture. I fought to do that once, but Mother cut that down, fast.

‘ Guests adore when you play ,’ she said, as though to soothe my ego into dropping the bone.

I didn’t.

I took the battle to Father.

But Father doesn’t often bother with the house. That’s Mother’s domain. He dismissed me.

So, the Bosendorfer still resides in the grand parlour of the White Wing, where the foyer and the billiard room and the dining hall reside.

That is where I spend my mornings in the quiet estate my second week home. From dawn until breakfast, I perch on the cushioned stool, composing my own piece, watching my fingers glide over the keys, the rustling of the music pages accompanied by my huffs.

There is a duality to it. The niggling irritation of not quite getting the notes right, of knowing that—while I write my own pieces all the time—they will never be remarkable. Always just average.

Sometimes, I feel that echo in me, the understanding that, no matter my birth, my status, my world, I am ultimately average.

But the other side of it is comfort.

To play this familiar instrument, the one I learned on as a child, under the painted ceiling of godly figures and clouds and tears, the gold chandeliers, surrounded by fresh upholstered Victorian furnishings, grand portraits of every Craven to have ever lived stretching up the walls, and the faint background melody through the open doors of rushing steps through the foyer, the clang of silver platters being carried to the upper levels, the slosh of water in a bucket.

It is home.

This Saturday morning, no tutor on the weekends, I abandon my own composition.

Sonata No. 8 bleeds from my fingers over the keys.

There’s something in the cords and the notes that rejuvenates me. I play for hours.

Come noon, I finally have the energy to call for the car. The driver takes me to Stonehenge where I slip into the London veil.

Father is returned home from his business trip in Tokyo, and he only let me go because I said I was shopping for New Year gifts. A lie crafted to keep Mother off my back, too. I needed a way to stop her from joining me in the city today.

Because today, once I am through the veil, I take the underground and head straight for the British Library.

The exterior is as wretched as the last time I was here; that Australian-red-desert colour, a blocked building that makes utterly no sense. Hideous. A monstrosity that took more than two decades to create, a vision that was best kept in the mind, perhaps.

Still, this aesthetically displeasing beast is a hub for witches, not just krums.

Beyond the temperature-controlled vault for the collection of a once king, beyond the Treasures, is the hidden access point to my destination.

The crypts.

The flat soles of my canvas shoes squeak on the glossed limestone floors until, through the reading room, the carpet muffles my steps.

I pass by the krums littered around the tables and peppered throughout the aisles, and I head for the rear doors where the locks are electronic and the security card swipers blinks a dot of red light on repeat.

I dig out my membership card from my back pocket. Like a black, limitless credit card, it’s small and sleek, with the family name engraved on it.

I cut it through the swiper.

The red light winks green.

I push through the heavy security door.

On the other side, about a dozen librarians more of my nature—witches—zigzag through a humble foyer, determined steps and set jaws. Back here, the real work of the library happens. The preservation of an ancient collection of witchkind.

Card firm in my grip, I find the only desk in the foyer, far across the limestone floor; it is metal and bulked with a single computer stacked on it.

I approach the desk.

My shoes return to squeaking with each step. So before I have even announced myself to the witch librarian sat at the computer, he hears me.

He looks up from pink-rimmed glasses.

I tuck my card away, back into the rear pocket of my baggy jeans. “Where can I find books on deadbloods?”

His brow wrinkles. “Deadbloods?”

He runs me over with his teal gaze, then flicks his severe stare back up to my flushed face.

He recognizes me. That much is confirmed when he says, “I apologise, Miss Craven, but we have very little on your kind.”

“ Very little is something.” I shrug a shoulder, and the black sleeve of my tight-fitted sweater shifts with the gesture. “I’ll take whatever you have.”

His grunt-hum hybrid jerks his chest. “Not everything is available to be loaned out.”

Still, he turns to the computer, and the light of the monitor dances over his glasses. His trimmed nails clack the keyboard.

The noise snares my attention whole.

I wait, shifting from leg to leg, my fingers picking at my palm.

“There are ancestry studies,” he says with a curt breath, one that’s not great news, “and some blood studies. According to the directory, these are the only mentions of deadbloods. Six, in total.”

I nod, firm. “I’ll take them.”

He looks at me a moment before his tight smile cuts into his cheeks. Forced. He clacks the keyboard again, flicking his stare back to the monitor.

“There.” He hits the enter button. “I have sent the order to your account.”

I blink. “My account?”

“The Craven account.”

I frown between him and the monitor, once, twice, then, “Can’t I just take them now?”

A scoff jolts his shoulders.

“Miss Craven.” He turns to thread his fingers together on the edge of the table. “You are requesting to borrow from the sacred archives. These must be insured under your family account, which will need the approval of the primary account holder—”

“You…” I falter, and my voice is twisted in a hushed whisper, strained like a choked breath. “You sent that to my father?”

“Well, yes.”

The inhale I draw in expands my chest.

The whole point of sneaking around was to not have my parents find out what I’m up to.

“Delete it,” I say and flurry my hand at the computer. “Delete it, now, I don’t need the books, I just… You need to delete it.”

His thin mouth parts on hesitation. “I… I cannot, I’m afraid.” His hands separate, and he gives a gesture like he’s holding a football. “The system has sent the request. It is with the holder of the account now—in email.”

I run my tongue around the curve of my teeth. My mouth swells with the gesture, and my eyes are wide with faint panic rising up as an echo, and so I must look mad.

The librarian thinks so, at least.

The distaste of his pinched mouth and wrinkled nose is fleeting, but I caught it, and I itch to tear his face off.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Useless!” I snap, then whirl around.

I march out of the crypts, out of the library—and a sickly sensation unravels down my chest, a ribbon unwinding, icicles forming.

I am so fucked.