Shalini wanted to see the armory—or more likely, to go somewhere alone with Aeron.
Torin led me down a long hall with gothic arches and dark statues of fae kings and queens. As we walked, a chill prickled my scalp. I had to uncover the truth, but I might really hate the answer once I did.
The further away we got from the throne hall, the more my chest unclenched.
“What if I really am a changeling?” I asked quietly. “What if I was too much of a nightmarish baby for my parents to keep? What if I screamed nonstop?”
Torin turned, giving me a perplexed look. “I think all babies scream and keep their parents awake, Ava. You weren’t born with anything wrong with you. I promise. The nickname is just me teasing you. You know that, right?”
I hadn’t expected him to have such a kind response. “What happened to your parents, Torin?” I knew they’d died young, especially for fae.
He sucked in a sharp breath and glanced at me. “Monsters brought them down. Slowly.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean, monsters? Like, a dragon?”
“Worse.” He slid me a sharp look, his pale eyes glinting with a warning. “Humans might call them demons. But I can’t really say more. Even speaking of them could draw their twisted attention.”
Curiosity danced up my nape, but clearly, he didn’t want to talk about his parents’ death, and I really shouldn’t have asked. “Of course. I shouldn’t be so nosy.”
“It’s fine.” But the air had seemed to thin, until at last, Torin broke the spiky silence. “I remember my mother. They say you’re not supposed to remember things from before age three, but I do remember her. I don’t remember my father. I remember crawling into my mother’s lap, and she’d sing to me. She had a necklace I played with—a little locket with a picture of me. I loved toying with it. When you’re so little, you don’t differentiate between you and your mom, and I remember crawling all over her. Trying to chew on her hair or sleep on her shoulder. I remember how desperately I always wanted to sleep in her bed…”
He trailed off, and I felt his sadness twisting my heart. “I know that feeling well—missing the one person who always made you feel safe.”
He glanced at me with a sad smile—the tiniest flash of vulnerability for the first time since I’d met him—before he schooled his features again. A mask of composure. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”
It struck me for the first time that apart from Aeron, Torin seemed deeply isolated. But it was his own doing, wasn’t it? He’d built a prison for himself to keep everyone away.
My throat tightened as I realized the truth. “You’re telling me this for the same reason you already chose me to win. I’m the one without any risk—the person you don’t have to worry about falling for. Because you don’t like me, and that makes me a safe person for your secrets. No messy feelings.”
He paused before a grand library entrance with towering stone columns. “And you don’t like me, either.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Right?”
A sharp blade slid through my thoughts. I already knew which answer he wanted. “Right.”
He inhaled deeply and pulled his gaze away. When he looked back at me, his eyes burned with intensity. “Good. And that is what makes you my perfect bride. Which reminds me—about tonight. Do you know how to dance like the fae? In our court, it’s sort of a ballroom style.”
“I literally have no idea. The two ways I know how to dance are your basic noncommittal hip sway and a tango.”
“A tango?”
“I signed Andrew and me up for classes together because I thought it would be fun for…” I closed my eyes, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks as I realized how pathetic I was, envisioning our wedding dance when he’d never proposed. “I just thought it would be fun. Two years of tango classes.”
“Good. I think I can work with a tango. Just follow my lead, Ava, and we’ll look nice and romantic for the cameras.”
“Of course.”
He led me between the towering columns into a magnificent library with two stories of books connected by spirals of stairs. The ceiling above the mahogany bookshelves was arched, with painted images of fae dancing in grassy fields, wildflowers threaded into their brightly colored locks. Looking up at them, I felt a sharp longing for a past I’d never known.
Down the center of the room, green shaded lamps stood on rows of desks. Leather chairs sat waiting for use. Simple wooden circles hung from the ceiling, lit with flickering candles that had to be the worst fire risk in the world.
Torin turned to me. “Wait here for a few minutes. I’ll return with some of the birth records from your year. You’re the same age as me, yes?”
I nodded. “Twenty-six.” Figuring out the age of a fae baby left on a hospital front entrance wasn’t an exact science, but I was fairly sure of the year and month.
When Torin left me on my own, I wandered between the bookshelves, enthralled. There were thousands upon thousands of volumes with swirling gold designs on the bindings, all written in a language I couldn’t read. Other volumes in shining leather covers were in modern human languages.
I walked through the library until I finally caught sight of a willowy, silver-haired fae sitting behind a mahogany desk. “May I help you?” she called out in a thin, reedy voice.
“Can people check out books here?”
“If you have a library card.” Her eyes were a remarkably bright shade of green, and they studied me with an expression that wasn’t entirely friendly.
“I don’t have one, I’m afraid.”
She drummed her fingernails. “Nobody may borrow books from the Royal Library without a library card.” She slapped a small piece of paper on top of the desk in front of me and thrust a fountain pen at me. “Sign here.”
I signed and dated the contract. Just as I finished, a bright light flashed from the paper, and it disappeared. “May I take out anything?” I asked.
“Limit of ten at a time,” said the librarian. “If you don’t return them in fourteen days, your brand gets activated.”
“My…brand?”
“Well, technically, it’s a royal binding,” said the librarian. “If you don’t return your books on time, a glowing letter L appears in the middle of your forehead. Burns the skin until the books are returned.”
I stared at her. “That could have been explained ahead of time.”
“As long as you return the books, there won’t be a problem.” She handed me a small golden card with my name inscribed on it. “What kind of book were you looking for?”
“What do you recommend about fae history?” Though I wasn’t really sure I wanted to borrow one anymore.
She turned in her chair, mumbling in a fae language, and a red book flew through the air and into her hand. She dropped it into her lap. The red book was followed by a brown one and another bound in faded blue cloth. She spun her chair back around and slid the three books onto the desk. “There’s A Short History of the Fae by Oberon, A Slightly Longer History of the Fae by Mistress Titania, and of course, the classic The Complete History of the Fae by R. Goodfellow.”
I glanced at the titles, but they were illegible to me. “You know what? I won’t be able to read those, so I’ll just—”
The librarian closed her eyes and began to incant a spell, her fingers moving with jerky insect-like movements.
Light burst before my eyes, and I felt as if a nail had been driven into my skull. I clasped my head, staggering at the pain.
“Stay still,” hissed the librarian, “unless you want to end up with mush between your ears. I’m helping you.”
Holding my breath, I forced myself not to move even as strange voices hummed in my ears. My vision swirled with images of the fae language. I gasped as an overwhelming amount of information wove itself into my thoughts: each of the forty-two letters in the alphabet, the importance of the silent P, and the five words for magic.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, the flood of information slowed to a trickle. Dizzy, I pressed my hands against the desk, trying not to pass out.
The librarian pushed a book across the desk at me. “Well, can you read it now?”
My gaze swept across the text, and the title came into focus. “A Short History of the Fae.”
Oh, my gods. I could read Fae?
“Ava?” Torin rounded the corner of the bookshelves, carrying a large wooden box. “These are all the birth records in Faerie from twenty-six years ago…” He fell silent and stared at me. “Madame Peasbottom,” he said in a deathly quiet voice, “what did you do to her?”
Her face paled, and she stammered, “Just the usual security protocol. We can’t have books being stolen.”
“I will take personal responsibility for any books that are damaged or lost. But there will be no branding of my guests.” Icy air raced over my skin.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” she said, stumbling over the words.
Torin’s attention was on me. He spoke quickly, another spell, and a moment later, the skin on my forehead flashed with heat, then cooled.
“There. I’ve removed the brand.” He took a deep breath. “I have all the births from the year you were born, but do you have any idea what your fae name was, Ava?”
I shook my head. “No idea. But I was probably born in May, if that helps.”
The librarian pulled the box toward her. “If I may, Your Highness. This is my area of expertise.” She added under her breath, “A girl born in May…”
She seemed eager to recover from the branding incident. After a minute of shuffling around, she’d pulled out two long sleeves filled with little silver cards and flipped through them at a stunning speed.
“Well, let’s see,” she muttered, then paused. “Here’s a few.” She handed a selection of cards to Torin. “But of course, that was the year of the massacre…” Her voice trailed off.
Torin turned to look at me, his expression suddenly ravaged. “Ava. What month, exactly, were you found?”
“August. Why?”
Torin and the librarian glanced at each other, something unspoken passing between them, a sharpness filling the silence.
The librarian cleared her throat. “The month of the massacre.”
Dread bloomed in the hollows of my mind. “What massacre?”
She cleared her throat again, then said, “We should not speak their name.”
“Is this about the monsters you mentioned, Torin?” His parents had died when he was three at the hands of these monsters—but he’d suggested it was a long, slow death. Did it begin with this massacre?
Torin’s expression had darkened. “Yes. Perhaps our parents were killed by the same beasts.”
“Many nobles died that night,” said the librarian. “But they would not have given a child up for adoption. And plenty of servants died, too. I could search the records of the victims for births of females a few months before, but the births of servant families are not very well recorded.”
Of course not. Not in this world.
My chest felt tight. This was probably what had happened to my parents, then, but I was growing frustrated with the lack of information.
Torin nodded, and she began flicking through another set of silver cards, shaking her head, muttering to herself. “Hmm. No. No girls born in May to slaughtered parents.” She looked up at the king and shrugged. “But…of course, it was such a chaotic time. Even if we did have records of the servants, some would be lost.”
A pit opened in my stomach, but I was sure now that my parents had been killed by these horrific beasts.
“I’m sorry, Ava,” said Torin. “We will keep searching.”
But already, my thoughts were swirling with nightmarish visions of monsters no one would name.
