Page 28

Chapter

Twenty-Three

“ I s it documented anywhere that folks can die of boredom?” I ask as I absently flick through another massive tome containing a lot of words about useless crap like how Poseidon commands the seas, and how his trident was a present from another Idol, whose name is mysteriously missing.

What’s the point of an amazing gift like a magic fork if you will not take responsibility for it?

I once gave Gwyneth a magic carpet for her birth diurnal, and you can bet I claimed that perfect present—until I realized it couldn’t bear the weight of anything more than a couple of mice. I should know, since I tested it.

“I don’t believe that boredom ever results in death,” Nash mutters as he turns a page like it holds the realm’s secrets. It doesn’t. I already checked that one.

“What if I do something because I am bored, and that results in my death?” I ask.

His eyes flick to me for a moment. “Don’t.”

I throw my hands in the air. “It wasn’t a plan, more of a hypothetical question.”

“Then officials would list whatever actually killed you as your cause of death, not the boredom that led you to make those stupid decisions to liven up your annus.”

“My annus needs livening up.”

“That’s the last thing yours or any of our annuses needs,” Theo adds.

I pout. “Spoilsport. I would have assumed you would be up for chaos.”

“Only when it doesn’t involve risking your life.”

“I hate to break it to you, but the sunrise risks my life every diurnal.”

“Risks your life more,” Theo corrects.

Gwyneth slams her book closed, making me jump. “Daphne, come help me.”

I rise from my chair. Finally, something that doesn’t involve me staying still. Gwyneth grabs my hand and tugs me along before turning down an aisle lined with enormous bookcases. Not unsurprising, given where we are.

She turns to face me, her face displaying her let’s get serious expression that I am not a fan of. “I might have found a way out of this,” she whispers.

I glance over my shoulder. No sneaky knights. But why are we hiding out? “Okay.”

“But you’d have to pick another Lady of the Lake.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m not putting another woman in this situation.”

“I knew you’d be like that, so I was thinking, what if we find someone super old, on the verge of passing on?”

I jerk my head back. It’s not like I haven’t had the same thought, but my sister is normally the kind one, the voice of reason. Only I can make such heinous suggestions, being assured she will shut them down before anyone dies. “Are you being serious?”

She swipes her hands down her face. “No. Maybe?” She turns and stalks away before coming back.

“Never have I faced a problem I couldn’t solve.

But this? It’s like some sadistic person who demands a price for a life wrote it.

I hate it. I hate that you are caught up in it, and I will not let fate have you. Fuck that.”

My lips twitch. Gwyneth swearing is a rare treat.

Her sacrificing some poor old woman would weigh on her soul, though.

I reach out and catch her hand. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her.

“Now is not the time to panic. I need you to keep your cool, because we both know I don’t deal with smarts and logic. ”

She drags in a breath, pushes her shoulders back, and gives me a nod. “Okay. The answers are here somewhere. We simply haven’t found the right book yet.”

I skim my fingers over the spines of bound paper, hiding eons of knowledge.

“You’re right. It could be in here, or here.

” I lift random books out. The fourth one is bound in a soft hide, with no title or sign of what wonders wait inside.

I flick it open. The metal corner catches on my thumb, tearing a scratch across the pad.

“Dammit,” I mutter. A droplet of blood gathers and drops onto the edge of the book. My eyebrows dip as it sinks into the cover.

Gwyneth grabs the book. “Don’t bleed on the books,” she hisses. “The librarian will have our heads.”

“The short dude who gets off on dust and paper? He doesn’t have the balls to remove our heads.”

“Well, no, but he will get someone else to do it.”

That would be a pity. I’m quite attached to my head.

I pop my thumb into my mouth and suck off the excess blood.

A strange, almost sighing sound echoes through the library.

Gwyneth turns around, searching, her face a mask of confusion.

The surrounding bookshelves creak, and dread slicks down my spine.

The sound grows louder, as if something ancient and heavy is waking from a long slumber.

The books whisper in a language I don’t understand, but their tone is unmistakable—urgent, excited, alive.

The ground trembles beneath my feet before the aisle shoots backward, knocking me to the floor.

I lift my head and brush my hair from my face, glancing around for my sister, who is nowhere to be seen.

“Uh... Gwyneth?” I call, my voice trembling as my heart flutters in my chest. I push myself to my feet, backing away as a low groan rattles the air. The shelves beside me part, their enormous weight moving with an eerie grace as they slide open, revealing a dark passage. “What in the Blazes?”

“Daphne! What did you do?” Gwyneth’s voice echoes down the hallway, growing closer. The sound of footsteps—hastier now—rings in the silence.

The light flickers in the passage, beckoning to me like a siren’s song. The blood did something, activating the library somehow. But how? Why?

Gwyneth catches up to me, holding her own bleeding finger to match mine. I point at her finger. “What happened?”

“You bled on the book and disappeared, so I tried the same.” Oh. That was smart.

“Daphne? Where are you?” Nash hollers. I turn to look over my shoulder. I can make out their shadowy forms at the end of the passageway.

“In the library,” I yell.

“She thinks she’s still in the library,” Theo says.

“Daphne, you and your sister are not here,” Hart calls back.

“How are you speaking to me then, bright spark?”

“She has a point,” Malachi says.

“We are fine. We’re just in a different area,” Gwyneth shouts. “We’ll be back shortly.” I snort, and she shrugs. “What? I didn’t put a time on it, so they can’t get angry.”

“Daphne, walk back toward the sound of my voice,” Nash calls out.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you, so I can’t walk back to the sound of your voice, on account of me now being deaf.”

Gwyneth squeezes the bridge of her nose. “Don’t help me,” she mutters.

“She can definitely hear us,” Hart growls. “Daphne, come back right this instant, or I will punish you.”

“Threatening me with a good time won’t work. If I could actually hear you.”

“How did we end up with the one girl in the realm that can find disaster in a damn library?” Hart grumbles.

“Where do you suppose this leads?” I ask Gwyneth, ignoring Hart.

“I have no idea, but we have to find out.”

She feels it too? The tugging in my gut that makes it impossible to turn around?

The dark passage opens into another library, this one infinitely larger.

“Oh goodie, another library,” I grumble as I squint into the vast room.

This is nothing like the library we left, though.

Towering staircases lead to other levels, while vines and flowers sprawl across every surface, the scent of honeysuckle perfuming the air.

Moonlight shimmers through an enormous stained-glass window depicting a scene with two men.

One carries a quill and a book, the other a ball of magic in his palm.

I’ve never seen them before in any of the books I’ve opened.

“This is no ordinary library,” Gwyneth mutters, her eyes widening.

“What gave it away?” I ask as a book flutters past my face like a bird. It whispers secrets as it slides onto a shelf, shoving two more off the end. They circle around us, flapping and swirling.

“Welcome, Stone sisters,” a voice booms.

I spin, Gwyneth at my back, as we try to find the source of the voice. The books don’t seem concerned, but can we trust them?

“Don’t search for me. I am everywhere and nowhere.”

“Oh great, we’ve got ourselves a riddler,” I grumble.

“Who are you?” Gwyneth asks. Probably a wise question.

“I am the All Knowing.”

“Is that hyphenated, or your first and last name?”

“What?” he rumbles.

“Like I am Daphne Stone, but there’s that woman in town who is called Briar-Rose. Both are her first names.” And I’m babbling.

“Daphne, stop,” Gwyneth whispers. Fine.

“My name is the All Knowing,” he repeats.

Okay, he’s said that twice. Either that’s his name, or he thinks highly of himself. “Is that because you know all?”

“Precisely.”

“Like what type of sausage meat they will serve at morning meal tomorrow?”

“Oh, my Idols,” Gwyneth grumbles.

“No, not that,” the voice snaps.

“Then you shouldn’t go around calling yourself the All Knowing, knowing full well that you don’t know everything.”

“I had forgotten how irritating your kind is,” he mutters. “Let the other speak.”

“He means you,” I whisper to Gwyneth. “I hurt his feelings.”

Gwyneth squares her shoulders and puffs out her chest. “I am Gwyneth. Tell us where we are.”

He sighs like he’s super happy that he is now conversing with the sensible and smart sister. “You are in the living library.”

“Lorded over by the All Knowing?” I check. They ignore me, which is probably for the best.

“Only those of pure hearts and intent can enter.”

I am not sure how pure I am with the filthy things the knights have been doing to me. Perhaps the All Knowing made a mistake.

“I do not make mistakes,” he booms.

I drag my lip between my teeth. Bunkum poop . He can read minds.

“Sadly,” he agrees. “But a pure heart isn’t weighed by the things you do in the dark with those you love, but by how you see the realm and all its possibilities.”

As I consider his words, I pick up random items from the surrounding tables. Potion bottles, books, keys—lots of stuff that seems to belong here, but I have no idea why.

“I have kept watch over the knowledge which is yours by blood,” he continues.

Because we bled on a book? Nobody ever did that until us?

“Can we return at any time?” Gwyneth asks as she picks up things, too. Her big brain wants many diurnals to pick apart this library. “Because right now, we have an Idol problem, but I want to come back.”

“It is yours. You may return whenever you wish. Whisper my name, and I will always answer.”

That was better than bleeding every time.

My heart beats wildly in my chest. I might downplay it, but this feels like it belongs to us.

Not because we bled on the right book, but because we were always meant to find it.

I swallow and consider what that means. Maybe everything that has happened has done so for a reason.

My elbow knocks into a table, and a potion falls off the side. The glass smashes and douses itself over a broom.

“There’s no ‘if you break it, you buy it’ sign,” I point out.

The All Knowing grumbles something that sounds an awful lot like “I’m too old for this shit.” I grab the damp broom, used to cleaning up my own messes since I make enough of them. But the handle jerks away from me, and the broom stands upright on its own.

“I’m pretty sure this broom was enchanted before I walked in here,” I say with a defensive edge to my words. “Can you clean up my mess?”

It busies itself doing as I ask, and a tempo later, the glass is gone. “Wow, you are my new favorite,” I say. I swear the broom blushes, and it rushes toward me, tickling my ankles under my skirts. I snort a very unladylike laugh.

“Gwyneth,” the All Knowing says. “Your gift is in the wooden box on the table.”

Ooh, we get gifts? She snaps open the box, and I hurry to look over her shoulder. “A quill?” she says. As far as gifts go, this is pretty boring. “Thank you.”

My sister is ever gracious in her words, but even I can feel her confusion as her gaze sweeps the thousands of books surrounding us.

“Take it with you. You’ll need it,” the All Knowing demands.

“Do I get a gift?” I ask as the broom makes it a mission to get under my skirts. Trust me to get a perverted cursed cleaning object.

“You have it already—something to sweep away the disasters you don’t want written into history. Now leave. I tire of you and need my strength for the journey ahead.”

“Stamina, dude. You need to stretch before we turn back up,” I advise.

A force pushes against my chest, and the air sucks out of my mouth as Gwyneth and I skid along the wooden floor of the passageway and blast into the original library.

The Stirlings loom over us as I snatch the handle of the broom and wrestle it out from under my skirts.

“We need to set ground rules,” I snap. “No under the skirt action. Nothing needs cleaning up down there.”

“She collected another magical sidekick,” Hart says with a shake of his head.

“Dearest Désiré, you are the most magical, most fair, most lovely, in all the land,” the mirror man says from somewhere behind the Stirlings.

“Don’t panic, the broom isn’t replacing you,” I shout, reassuring him.

The genie poofs next to me and dips his head to examine the broom. “It’s not a threat to me,” he decides. “No wish granting ability.”

Glad we determined that. Theo offers me a hand, and the broom bats it away before offering me its handle. I take it and rise to my feet.

“No knight blocking either,” I tell the broom.

It spins to look at the brothers, and I somehow understand its unspoken question.

“Yes, all of them. Stop judging me. I have enough of that with my sword.” The broom shivers and scoots behind my back.

Great, I scared my gift away with my impure intentions.

“Don’t tell the All Knowing,” I grumble. “He seems cranky.”

“Who is the All Knowing, and where in Blazes did you go?” Nash snaps.

Gwyneth struggles to her feet, coming to stand next to me. She scratches her head for a tempo as we wait for her to make sense of what happened, because we all know I can’t.

“I think,” she says carefully, “we became the owners of the living library.”

A stack of books hits the floor behind us. We spin to find the key librarian standing with his mouth open and the discarded tomes on the floor. He stomps his foot, turns on his heel, and disappears while flinging his hands in the air.

“We pissed off the librarian,” I mutter. “But good news—we have a new library.”

“Always finding the bright side,” Hart says.

Doesn’t he realize that without a bright side, we are only left with the dark? And no one wants to exist in darkness—not even my dark knight.