Page 56

RESEARCH THE RELIC (AND OTHER LIbrARY VIOLATIONS)

ARABELLA

“The crack in the Heirloom grew last night,” Kazimir said, not looking up from the ancient text he was reading across the table.

I paused, blinking at my own book. “By how much?” My stomach did a traitorous little flip when I finally glanced at him. Damn him. Even exhausted and rumpled from hours of research, he was still unfairly attractive.

He turned a page with more force than necessary. “It went from hairline to spiderweb.”

“That’s... concerning.”

He finally looked up. “Are you more concerned about the crack itself, or the possible reason behind it?”

He was referring, of course, to the theory that our nighttime… activities… were damaging the relic. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Have you found anything useful in that book, or are you just going to tease me all morning?”

“Nothing definitive,” he admitted.

I turned a page. “It makes no sense that the Heirloom would require our union to activate, only to be damaged by the same thing.”

“Magic rarely makes sense,” Kazimir said. “That’s why I prefer to bend it to my will rather than follow its rules.”

I snorted. “How’s that working out for you?”

He gave me a withering look. “I was doing perfectly well until a certain hero came along and complicated everything.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples. This marked our third day straight in the library.

Each morning, we’d arrive after breakfast, divide tasks, and then vanish into musty stacks of histories and half-forgotten lore.

I’d been poring over pages of heroic bloodlines for so long my eyes felt like they might fall out of my head.

I groaned and pushed the thick volume away. “This is useless. According to this author, my great-whatever-grandfather could fly and shoot lightning from his fingers. I’m beginning to think these historians just made things up when they got bored.”

I stood and went to the end of the table, intending to pour myself tea, and found Kazimir trailing behind. He hovered like that sometimes now. Perhaps he was just ensuring I didn’t destroy the rest of his fortress with a wild burst of magic. Oddly, it made me feel secure.

“Maybe we’re asking all the wrong questions,” I said, handing him a steaming cup.

“Everything I’ve read so far about the First Hero only talks about his triumphs or conquests or how many times he saved entire villages.

Nothing about how to repair a magical crown that cracks because you had sex with your kidnapped bride. ”

Kazimir drank half his tea in one go, as if it wasn’t piping hot. “I imagine that scenario wasn’t covered in the epic ballads.”

“No, the bards mysteriously left that part out.” I reached for another book from the stack and examined the title. “There must be something. We’re just digging in the wrong places.”

Kazimir’s voice turned deceptively casual—even playful. “Oh, I uncovered plenty of solutions.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “You just said you hadn’t found anything.”

“I said nothing definitive .” He finished his tea and returned to his seat. “There’s a fascinating ritual that involves the sacrifice of twelve virgins under a blood moon. The text claims it can repair any magical artifact, regardless of its origin.”

“No it doesn’t.” I held out my hand. “Let me see that book.”

With a smirk, he slid the book toward me and flipped the page. I scanned the small, cramped text, then looked up at Kazimir accusingly. “That day you gave me the citadel tour, you said virgins offer no special magical benefits.”

“Not at all. I said if I needed blood, I wouldn’t go searching for virgins in particular.” His expression was infuriatingly unreadable as he gestured to the book. “There’s a difference.”

“Where would we even find twelve virgins in this court?”

He shrugged. “We could import them.”

“No.”

“Fine.” He flipped another page with mock nonchalance. “What about spirit binding? We trap a powerful entity inside the Heirloom to reinforce its structure.”

I returned to my seat across from him, taking my tea with me. “And risk having a vengeful spirit possess us while we’re using it? No thank?—”

“Bathe it in the blood of its creator?”

“The creator’s been dead for centuries,” I pointed out.

“A minor obstacle,” Kazimir said with a dismissive wave. “There are ways around that.”

I drank my tea, but he was still watching me. “You’ve got more?”

“Naturally.” He smirked. “One method calls for bathing the relic in the blood of a murdered king.”

I blinked. “That’s… Well, kidnapping King Auremar is always an option, I suppose.”

“I’ll mark that down as ‘maybe,’” he said. “Then there’s another that involves no murder at all: immersing the Heirloom in the essence of true love for three days and three nights.”

I snorted. “Pass.”

Kaz gave me a shrewd look. “Not a believer in true love, Lady Blackrose?”

I yanked my book toward me, almost spilling my tea in the process. “Are you actually suggesting these things, or just trying to annoy me?”

“Both,” he admitted smoothly. “Your reactions are entertaining. Besides, it’s good to consider all options, even the absurd ones.”

“You’re the absurd one,” I muttered, turning back to my book.

He shot back in that languid, confident tone, “You didn’t think so last night. As I recall, your exact words?—”

“If you finish that sentence,” I warned, “I’ll set you on fire again.”

“That’s not quite what you said.” He chuckled, warm and low. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“What, vetoing your increasingly horrific suggestions?”

“No.” He motioned to the shelves. “The books. The environment. The entire library ritual. You like it.”

I hesitated. It was unnerving how sharp his insight could be sometimes. “I do,” I admitted. “When my father wasn’t watching, I read anything I could scrounge up. I prefer it to trivial skills like needlepoint.” I shuddered. “At least reading doesn’t draw blood, usually.”

For a while, neither of us spoke. The library’s hush surrounded us, broken only by the rustle of pages and the scrape of Kazimir’s quill across parchment. Eventually, everything I read blurred together. I rose from my seat, heading for the rows of shelves.

Kazimir glanced up briefly, eyes tracking my movement before returning to his text. “Try not to set fire to anything important.”

“I haven’t accidentally set fire to anything in ages.”

“The warning still stands.”

I strolled through rows of towering shelves, letting my fingertips skim the worn spines. We already had more than enough texts on the table to occupy us until we went cross-eyed, but I craved one more sweep for anything new.

A faint scuffling noise made the hairs on my neck stand up.

I whirled in time to see the edge of a dark robe disappearing between shelves.

The librarian. I’d never actually spoken to the man—if he was indeed a man and not one of Kazimir’s magical constructs.

Pip had told me the librarian preferred to remain unseen, and rarely spoke to anyone unless they disrespected a book.

I’d never seen him up close before, though I’d sometimes felt his stare.

Curiosity got the better of me. I edged around the corner, only to find empty space. More shelves, more books, and the certainty that someone was silently judging me from the shadows.

I heard another shuffle and spun again. This time, I glimpsed an unnaturally thin figure with skin like bleached parchment. Perched on his nose were enormous spectacles magnifying bug-like eyes. His spindly fingers fussed over a chained grimoire’s spine with near-reverence.

“Hello,” I ventured.

The librarian froze and drew his shoulders up, visibly cringing at my acknowledgement. Slowly, he turned, lips set in disapproval. Then, slipping a rag from his sleeve, he dabbed at the book cover, as if my very voice had contaminated it.

He lifted his gaze to me, behind those unnerving lenses. “You’re Lord Blackrose’s… acquisition.”

“I’m Lady Blackrose,” I replied with forced politeness.

He made a sound both acknowledging and dismissive. “He throws books.”

The bizarre statement made me blink. “Pardon?”

“When they don’t contain what he seeks,” the librarian clarified, continuing his meticulous wiping.

“He hurls them at the walls. Tears pages. Breaks spines. The red volume on eastern necromancy has a tear in page seventy-three from when he flung it at the wall two years ago. The black grimoire of soul transmutation has a bent corner from being dropped in frustration. The?—”

“I get the idea,” I cut in, slightly mortified.

“In total, I’ve catalogued four hundred and thirty-seven incidents of abuse.” He finished cleaning and returned the cloth to his robes with a flourish. “Do you throw books, Lady Blackrose?”

I shook my head. “Never.”

He gave a curt nod, still displeased but slightly less so. “Good. The Dark Lord thinks because he owns the citadel, he owns the knowledge within. But knowledge belongs to itself.”

I found myself oddly charmed by his fierce protectiveness. “I’ll be careful.”

Satisfied, or at least no longer brimming with scorn, he reached into his robe once more and retrieved a thin volume bound in midnight-blue leather. “This might help with your search. It details artifact repair through non-sacrificial means.”

I accepted the book with surprise. “Thank you, that’s very kind.”

“It’s not kindness,” he insisted, glaring over his spectacles.

“It is efficiency. The sooner you find what you seek, the sooner these books can be properly reshelved.” His gaze shifted to something behind me, and his expression soured.

“He’s coming. Tell him... tell him if he damages another binding, I will reorganize the forbidden magic section by color rather than subject. ”

Before I could respond, the librarian seemed to dissolve into the shadows between bookcases, leaving me to wonder if I’d only imagined him.

“Arabella?” Kazimir called, his footsteps approaching. “Are you lost?”

I turned to face him, clutching the blue book to my chest. “Not lost. Just making friends with your librarian.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Magister Vellum spoke to you? Willingly?”

“If you can call threatening to reorganize your books by color ‘speaking willingly,’ then yes.” I glanced back at where the man had been. “Is that his real name?”

“It’s the only one he’s given me.” Kazimir’s gaze caught on the slim book in my arms, and he reached for it, flipping the cover open before passing it back. “Interesting. He rarely suggests anything.”

“All I did was promise not to throw books,” I said, lips quirking. “He seemed convinced you were the real menace.”

“Ah, he mentioned something about that.” Kazimir shook his head. “Some texts deserve to be flung. Especially when they’ve wasted hours of my time.”

I tucked the book under my arm. “So, did you come over just to defend your book-hurling habit or to make sure I’m not setting anything on fire?”

He leaned in, that sharp, smug confidence rolling off him. “Neither. I’ve been staring at the same page for twenty minutes while picturing you instead of deciphering magical theory. And I kept thinking…”

“Yes?” My pulse sped up despite my best efforts to seem indifferent.

“The Heirloom reacts to our… activities,” he said, his gaze dipping provocatively. “But we never tried a controlled experiment to confirm whether the crack expands after every encounter, or only certain types.”

Heat flared in my cheeks. “Uh huh. So you’re proposing?—”

“Research,” he clarified, looking far too triumphant. “Documenting which activities impact the artifact… and to what extent.”

“Meaning we’d have to keep testing. Does this involve your ‘various surfaces’?” My words came out flat even as my heart lurched with a traitorous thrill.

“Naturally. We should be thorough.” His smile was wicked. “We’d vary location, intensity, specific acts… even fantasies.”

“Fantasies?” My voice came out slightly strangled.

His smile turned slow, dangerous. “You do have fantasies, Arabella.”

I parted my lips, but no sound emerged. Of course I did. Over the years, but especially recently, lurid images had skittered through my head. But confessing them out loud?

“You can face down a Dark Lord”—his voice dropped—”but you can’t speak of what you dream about?”

Those words stung my pride, and I shook my head. “It’s different,” I managed. “I… it’s not something I’m used to sharing.”

Kazimir stepped closer, curiosity in his eyes. “Then let’s make this fair. I’ll share one of mine first.”

His breath skimmed along my cheek. “See that low shelf over there? I’ve pictured bending you over it, right in the midst of these forbidden texts with Magister Vellum lurking nearby. Would you stay quiet, or would I have to clap a hand over your mouth while I take you from behind?”

My heart hammered. The ferocity in his expression—the warm, electric undercurrent filling the air—damn near stole my voice.

“Kaz…” I whispered.

He brushed a thumb over my lower lip. “Does the possibility of discovery excite you, Arabella? Knowing how we might be caught?”

It did. Gods help me, it absolutely did. But I tried to muster logic. “We’re supposed to be researching,” I said weakly, even as my body betrayed me by leaning toward him.

“This is research,” he murmured, trailing his fingers down the curve of my neck. “Or a needed distraction to clear our heads.”

Trapped in his gaze, I remembered all the reasons I should refuse. But that swirl of warmth in my stomach, the memory of his hands on me, the promise of danger— Well, it was potent.

“So, Lady Blackrose?” He took the book from my arms and set it carefully on a nearby shelf. “Shall we begin our experimental trials? Right here?”

I tried to say no. I should have said no. But my traitorous lips parted, and I barely managed a whisper.

“All right,” I breathed. “Okay.”