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Aurelia

I should have gone upstairs to pack my things.

There was no use in staying in Nea Sterlis any longer, but I couldn’t bring myself to give up just yet.

Nor could I regret the resources I’d expended trying to win Selene.

It had, objectively, been a failure, but it hadn’t been a waste.

Nothing that concerned Selene could have ever been a waste.

So I sat in the bar of the Palace, sipping a glass of whiskey and wondering just what in seventeen hells I was going to do now.

I untied my bow tie and unbuttoned my tuxedo shirt, feeling better almost instantly.

The thing had been choking me.

I drained my glass and motioned to the bartender for another.

The wolf shifter nodded.

Her smile was sympathetic.

“Don’t drown your sorrows just yet,” she murmured as she passed me my glass.

She gazed at something just behind me.

My heart fluttered into my throat, and I slowly turned around.

Selene, looking resplendent in her light blue evening gown, a bevy of diamond stars in her hair, clutched The Book of Hours to her chest.

She’d wrapped it in white tissue paper, but I knew it was the Book .

It had to be.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to choke out without sobbing with relief.

My chin quivered involuntarily.

Selene grinned, her smile a dazzling thing.

She laughed, too loud for some in the bar, apparently.

But not for me.

Everything she did was perfect in my eyes.

“Come on,” she urged me.

“I have a cab waiting to take us to the train station. We can still make it.”

I glanced back at the bartender, who laughed along with Selene.

“Whatever she is up to, you’d better go with her,” she said.

“Your drinks are on me.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Selene held out a hand for me and I took it, happy to be pulled back into her orbit once more.

****

The train station was nearly empty.

Selene and I had hardly spoken, but for her to tell me how she’d found the Book and slipped out of the party without notice.

But we didn’t talk about anything else, about what this all might mean.

We were both on pins and needles, waiting for Lysistrata to arrive.

When she finally did, she was alone, pulling a wheeled suitcase, her nose in a romance novel.

Selene squeezed my hand tightly.

We hadn’t talked about what to say or do in this moment.

“I’ll follow your lead,” I said, keeping my voice soft.

Whatever happened next, I wanted it to all be her choice.

I never wanted her to look back and wonder what I really wanted, or what my motives were.

I only wanted her to remember holding my hand as we stepped into the future, hopefully together.

“Librarian Endymion,” Selene called out.

The ancient sorcière stopped, looking up from her book to squint at Selene.

“Yes?”

“I am Selene Krane,” my darling girl said, that sweet, earnest look on her face.

“And this is Aurelia Hart, who made a terrible discovery that I insisted we tell you about.”

Lysistrata Endymion frowned, looking at the book cradled in Selene’s arms.

“What is that, child?”

Selene offered it to her.

“Aurelia discovered that Geyrion Wyndsal bought this on the black market last season. She worried you might not believe her about its origins, but I told her that you’d worked with my mother—Hypatia Krane—at Acadia, long, long ago, and that you were absolutely above such petty judgments.”

She was talking too much, too fast, but it was working.

The librarian opened The Book of Hours and gasped.

She shut the book, hugging it to her chest now, just as Selene had done.

Her sharp eyes slid from Selene to me.

“You will be hailed a hero, Aurelia Hart,” she said in a creaking voice.

“This is, perhaps, the most valuable book the Order of Mysteries has ever possessed.”

I bowed my head to her, hardly believing this was working.

I pressed a hand to my heart and glanced sidelong at Selene.

“It was my honor, Librarian.”

“There is a reward, of course,” Lysistrata said.

“I will need you to come with me to Nuva Troi tonight. We must begin the paperwork right away, before the Wyndsals take action.” She stared shrewdly at Selene.

“Am I right to assume they do not know it is missing?”

Selene shrugged.

“They might never notice it’s gone. It was on a shelf, next to a copy of The Gentleman Rogue .”

Librarian Endymion shook her head.

“That makes no sense. Why would it have been shelved there? While The Gentleman Rogue is a masterpiece, it is not remotely in context to The Book of Hours .”

Selene raised her eyebrows.

“I am sure I couldn’t say, Librarian, but I suppose I was distracted by the collared flamingo shifters and the blood fountain.”

Librarian Endymion grimaced.

“Horrible people.”

Selene nodded, sagely agreeing.

“Lucky for us that Aurelia rescued the book.”

“Yes,” the Librarian said with a satisfied smile.

“How lucky we are.” She took a long, appraising look at the two of us.

“I am going to go buy Aurelia a ticket to Nuva Troi. Will you be joining us?”

Selene shook her head.

“No, I have things to wrap up here.”

I frowned as the Librarian made her way back across the terminal, clutching The Book of Hours .

“Why aren’t you coming?” I asked as soon as she was out of earshot.

Selene smiled, wrapping her arms around my neck.

“I told you, Aurelia. I want the full seduction. I want you to make me yours. Forever.”

I laughed, glad to know it wasn’t that she’d changed her mind about that part.

“Yes, so why isn’t forever starting now?”

My darling girl smiled, devious and wicked.

“Because Aurelia, you are going to go with the Librarian, take your reward, revel in your accolades and become the talk of the city. When I return in the spring, for the season, you will fall head over heels to court me … If you still want me, that is.”

It was a brilliant plan.

One that would have tongues wagging about us from the start.

But I didn’t want to wait out the long winter in the city without her.

Now that I’d found her, even a few months apart sounded terrible.

For the first time in my life, I knew where home was, and it was wherever Selene made hers.

Ridiculous as it might be to fall for someone so fast, I wasn’t going to question it.

Luck was luck, and she was the best of mine.

I opened my mouth to protest, but she shook her head.

“I won’t have it any other way, Aurelia. Take your time. Enjoy the life of a rich woman, a woman with the unearned respect that comes from class status. Settle yourself with that, and then fall in love with me.”

I let her words sink in for a moment, understanding something I’d never had the means to comprehend before that moment.

It would be an adjustment to not have to scramble and fight for respect.

To simply be given it.

“All right,” I agreed, finally.

“But will you write?”

“Of course,” she said, raising on her tiptoes to press her lips to mine.

“Filthy little missives about what I want to do when we are alone next.”

I groaned, dragging her body against mine as I kissed her.

Her mouth was sweet from sparkling wine.

She tasted of dreams and magic, of a thousand promises to be fulfilled.

When she finally drew away from me, her eyes sparkled with tears.

Librarian Endymion had returned, holding two first-class tickets for the train.

“I will see you in the springtime,” Selene said.

I dipped my head to whisper in her ear.

“When I will fall in love with you again, for the very first time.”

I felt her smile as she whispered back.

“Yes, that is the story we’ll tell our children someday.”

****

As the train pulled away from the station, Selene stood on the platform, waving.

That is the story we’ll tell our children someday.

She wanted children.

With me .

I fell back against my seat, grinning like a fool.

Librarian Endymion sat across from me, staring in wonder at The Book of Hours .

She hadn’t opened it, but simply stared at it as though it were made of precious gems.

The book itself was actually quite plain, which made me curious.

“I was afraid to handle it too much,” I lied with practiced ease.

“I know it is very important, but I’ve never known … What is The Book of Hours about?”

The librarian smiled.

“It is the first book of hours one of our kind ever wrote.”

“A sorcière?” I asked.

The librarian nodded.

“Yes, she was not the first of us, but she was the first we know of to document her life. That is all it is. Just the everyday ins and outs of her days with her family. The books she loved, the meals she cooked. Stories about her wife, who was the love of her life. Her five children. Her discovery of the threads that bind us all together.”

Something in my throat clenched tight.

“Everything that matters, then.”

“Yes, child,” the librarian said.

“That is exactly what it is about and exactly why it is so precious.”

I pulled a hanky from my tuxedo jacket, wiping tears from my eyes, as I watched the stars sparkle over the sea.

Nuva Troi, and the possibilities for all that mattered most, lay ahead.

I closed my eyes and prayed to Aphora to let me dream of Selene.