Page 47 of Unraveled (A Kingdom of Beasts and Ruins #1)

“The more I page through these grimoires, the more I think you’re right. The strix must have an ulterior motive to hold on to these.” I shut the book I’ve been trying to read for the last hour and put it back on the table. “Though I guess mastering the art of casting glamours could be useful...”

I glance at the cover of the book, reading the name embossed in gold on the first page. Morla Skye .

“What did you just say?” Ash turns to me, his face paling.

“That I think you’re right, the strix must be up to something?”

“No, the thing about the glamours.” He steps away from the window he’s been standing in front of, staring at the gloomy afternoon, for at least half an hour. Taking the grimoire, Ash studies the spine with a growing frown. “Skye...”

There’s a familiarity in his inflection that makes my stomach twist with something ugly. Morla Skye has to be someone he was close to.

“You know her?”

His nostrils flare as he tosses the book onto the table, and it bounces unceremoniously before falling to the ground with a thump.

I blink, watching the trail of magic the grimoire left behind. Ash’s jaw clenches tightly, and his face reddens as if he’s trying to speak, but can’t. His expression is pure, stone-cold rage.

Ice chases the heat of jealousy that previously took over my heart, and somehow, I know who this is.

The hybrid woman who loves—or hates—roses. The one who cursed Ash and his kingdom. It has to be to elicit such a reaction. Someone who was close enough to him to steal right out from under his nose. Someone who lived in the castle and wrote books for his personal library.

If I ask the right question, he may be able to answer. “Is Morla the one who cursed you?”

He hesitates, swallowing deeply before nodding. He tries to speak twice, but fails. Whatever safeguard the curse has, it prevents him from telling me details of who she is and possibly what she did.

“You already told me back in Hedrum she was one of your tributes. But did she become more? A friend—someone close to you?”

His face brightens, like I struck gold with my simple question.

“Unlike most of the souls we take during the Hunt, the word tribute fits Skye very well.” He takes a deep breath, looking at the ceiling.

“She walked right in and offered herself to my father. She claimed—truthfully, it turns out—to be a wielder of great power. My father refused to allow a hybrid to work for him and ordered the guards to kill her.”

“Gods . . .” He sounds horrible.

“I didn’t want the hybrids to die, Mia, and if I was going to take the throne, I wanted the guards to know I didn’t stand behind my father’s beliefs. So, I met her gaze and took her instead. Those we take live long lives, like Finley. And Skye was a partner and a friend for many years.”

So they were close, and I don’t need to be jealous of a relationship that clearly ended in flames.

But my heart is foolish. I stand from the table, reaching for the grimoire that remains on the floor.

As soon as I touch it, it zaps me with electricity.

Shaking my hand, I try to move past the cramping left behind by the book’s outburst.

“Did you love her?” My heart pounds as I meet his eyes.

“Not the way she wanted.” There’s a softness in his expression that tells me more than words. He cared for her deeply. He just wasn’t in love. So when he says, “That was the problem,” I know things got very complicated and very sad. I don’t need, or want, to hear the details.

But now I know the cause of the curse. A broken heart.

“When did you learn she worked with the strix?” I ask, but he shakes his head.

Not a question he can answer, or perhaps he doesn’t know. He has told me a few times her betrayal blindsided him.

“Skye used to hide in the garden while my father hosted dances. She loved to spy on the fae, study our behaviors when we were acting our wildest. Once, a couple of high fae found her snooping on their business, so they paralyzed her and hid her body amongst the statues. She was so pale, it took us an entire day to find her.” Ash sighs, dragging a hand over his face and kneeling by my side, picking the book up from the floor where I left it.

“Funny how she made sure my people turned into statues when the curse took them.”

So it seems Morla wove details of her life into the spell she created. The statues, the roses...

I press my lips together and try to sort through all my questions as I study the cover of the book she wrote.

“Did she teach you how to glamour yourself into something else?”

“Yes. She was fantastic at it.”

There it is, my old friend jealousy, poking her ugly head back in.

I shift my gaze away as I stand and try to hide the horror of the thoughts plaguing my mind.

Because I’m not truly great at anything.

I can’t control my magic without an amulet.

I couldn’t please my father, or my sister, even when I tried.

So instead of obsessing over an old friend Ash didn’t love, and what that may mean for me, I shift my thoughts to something else. Something I’m good at. And that is coming up with theories. Solving problems.

“What about the roses?”

“What about them?”

“Do you think they’re a way to spy on you? Make sure you aren’t close to breaking the curse? What if they changed color because I triggered some sort of fail-safe?”

“Yes, I think they’re something just like that. And when you touched the roses, they sent out a wave of almost-undetectable power that created a fissure in the wards around the castle grounds.”

My mouth feels like it’s full of sand. I remember it like it was yesterday. Finley left for Hedrum shortly after, and I escaped my room that night at twilight, using the same roses, after Morgana told me about the slumber.

I pause as I pull at an errant string on the sleeve of the gown Nera gave me. Because I never got the dresses Morgana promised.

“Ash, did you send a lunargyre to my room to fit me with new clothes?”

Ash strolls to the table and drops into a chair. Shame tints his features as he shakes his head. “I wanted to, but we lost our tailor a couple of years ago to the curse. Finley promised there were enough gowns in the closet for you to use.”

Could it have been Morla who came to me then? My heart rate speeds up, and I’m sweating all over.

“A lunargyre, or at least that’s what I thought she was, came to my room and told me you sent her to fit me for a new wardrobe. She’s who told me about the slumber...”

It’s Ash’s turn to lose all color from his face. “That’s how you knew.”

“I didn’t want Morgana to get in trouble, so when you asked me how I learned about the slumber, I didn’t tell you.”

His knuckles turn white as he fists his hand, golden power licking his fingers. “Did she try to hurt you?”

I shiver as I recall her undoing the knots in my hair with her long fingernails. After a moment of going over everything that happened, I shake my head.

“Damn her,” he says, and lets out a shaky breath. “Her betrayal has weakened her bond with me, but whatever remains makes it so neither Naheli nor I can feel her coming through the wards. That’s why we needed the crystal.”

And why Finley was in such a hurry to leave.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know . . .”

Ash’s expression softens. “Mia, I don’t blame you for trying to escape whatever way you could. You knew nothing about me or Morla, and I hadn’t given you a reason to be on my side. It’s not your fault.”

The weight in my chest loosens, and my affection for him blooms warmly in my heart. I glare at the grimoire on glamours, the one Morla wrote, and think back on the roses that allowed me out of my room all those times.

She’s remarkable at spell crafting—I give her that much.

But there must be a weak spot even to hers, because when crafting an enchantment, the spell master must weave into the strands a way to reverse it. My skin tingles as adrenaline rushes through me.

The hybrids will come under a blood moon to the unseelie halls . Plural.

One to cast the curse—one to break it.

“What if only a hybrid can break the curse? That may be why the roses turned and warned her I was there.”

“Mia...” His eyes pin me down right before he stands, and his tone turns reverent. “You’re brilliant.”

I may not be a master of spells or of glamours, but I’m going to break them out of this mess.

“There’s something else, and I need you to be truthful with me. Ash, does the curse spread through reflections?”

His whole body stiffens. “How did you?—?”

“There are no mirrors in the castle,” I blurt out. “Not here, or anywhere you frequent. At first I thought it odd, but then in Hedrum, I thought maybe it’s a detail woven into the curse to prevent you from breaking it. Perhaps the mirrors shatter when you’re nearby.”

“Mia”—There’s panic in his voice as he reaches for me, then brings me closer to him—“the mirrors aren’t the solution.”

I’m not sure I fully believe it.

I fight the need to fidget under his scrutiny. His expression settles into something intense and intimidating, and the apprehension shining through makes me sweat. Back in Hedrum, the grimoires said the words the curse of mirrors .

Right when the monster made of shadows leaped out of the reflection and at me.

“Have you found one?” he asks.

I shake my head, even as Marlena’s mirror flashes through my mind. I tucked it inside my traveling trunk back at the manor, but all those things remain there. There’s no point in panicking him more when I don’t have it either way.

He lets out a breath. “Please, don’t look for one. The curse spreads through reflections, and the reason everyone in my life is dying, dead, or worse, is because I was foolish enough to not realize it.”

“But what if it spreads that way, and it’s also how we can break it?”

“No.” His voice is so harsh I snap my lips shut. “I will not watch you die cursed because you want to help me. You are important to me, and I’d rather you are safe, even if it means I remain this way.”