Light spilled through windows that swept around us in a great curve.
Shalini peered over my shoulder and exhaled. “This place is amazing.”
I nodded, gazing out at the frozen kingdom from the enormous windows. After the cramped stairwell, this place was a relief. From here, I could see the ruined temple where Torin had confessed that he didn’t like me at all—a tiny, dark thing in the distance, its towers jutting from the forest like black blades. A sea of silver spread out before us, the moonlight gleaming off snowy trees, fields, and the wintry rooftops of the kingdom.
A darkness is spreading in our kingdom.
I turned to survey the room. Above us, the ceiling pitched upward like an inverted ice cream cone. A single bed stood in the room, plus a desk with a chair. In the daytime, the view from the desk would be magnificent, but you’d wake with the dawn.
A dusty book lay on the bed, and I picked it up. Claimed By the Mountain Fae, it read in English, and bore a silver crown on the cover. When I flipped to the copyright page, I found that it had been published just five years ago. “Shalini, someone in here was reading smut. Recently.”
She held out her hand. “Give me that. I need something steamier than the eighteenth-century gothic fiction in our room.”
I handed it over. “This place isn’t totally abandoned. The book is only five years old.”
“Okay. So we’re probably in the killer’s room. Maybe we should get the fuck out of here?”
“Hang on.”
I crossed to the desk, my gaze roaming over a leather blotter on the surface. An old antique lamp with a stained glass lampshade stood beside it, along with a small pewter pencil holder, which had a few old-looking pens sticking out of it. Dust coated everything.
“It doesn’t seem like anyone has been in here recently,” I said. “There’s a few years’ worth of dust over everything.”
I pulled open the desk drawer to find a single leather-bound book. The leather was old and slightly scuffed, without a name or label, or anything on its surface.
I opened it, and Shalini flashed her phone light onto the pages. I was expecting to see more of the fae writing, but as I flipped through it, it was just blank beige vellum. “That’s disappointing.”
“Lame.”
But as she pulled her phone light away, the blank pages started to shimmer with light. Here in the pale light of the moon, spidery writing appeared on the pages in bright silver.
“Look,” I said to Shalini, “do you see that?”
She turned back, and the light from her phone erased the writing as it illuminated it.
“It has to be moonlight,” I said. “It’s what makes the text show up.”
“Holy shit. Can you read it, Ava?”
Thanks to the librarian’s spell, I could decode it. “This looks like a date,” I said. “May 5th, and it’s dated three years ago.” I flipped to the next page. “May 7th.”
“Ooh,” said Shalini, “a diary?”
“I am sitting in the most wonderful tower that I think only I know about,” I read out loud. A thrill ran through me at the first line.
“So nosy, Ava! This is absolutely none of our business. Read on, please.”
I turned back to the page and began to read.
Even here in this quiet place, I can’t stop thinking about him, the cruel beauty of his pale eyes. He tells me he doesn’t think he can love, but not why. He tells me there are secrets only he and Orla know.
But I know it’s a lie. I can feel his love on me like a warm spring breeze, and when we marry, I will restore life to this kingdom.
I remember the first day we met, when he saved me from a wraith in the frozen moors. Of course, I knew who he was. The only man in the world with beauty that can break your heart in the span of a breath.
I’ll never forget when our eyes met—it was as if my heart broke in two at that moment. What had been whole was halved, and one half was his.
And even if he refuses to admit it to himself, I know he loves me.
–M
Shalini cut in then. “Who is it? Who’s the writer?”
I stared at the words, feeling as if sharp-clawed fingers were tightening around my heart.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It just says M. But it’s about Torin. He loves to say that he can’t love.”
“We shouldn’t be reading this,” she whispered. “Go on.”
Dear diary, it hardly seems possible, but it’s actually happened. I’ve moved into the castle—in my own room, one hung with tapestries and filled with books. It’s not as grand as home, I suppose, but I’m near him, and that is the only thing that makes me happy. I think Torin plans to marry me, but he keeps warning me about danger…
–M
My heart pounded against my ribs, and I felt the thorny vines of jealousy wrapping around my heart.
Was M for Moria? I suppose it was a common enough letter, but…
Who’d written this? And why wasn’t he marrying her now?
The silvery writing was hard to read and seemed to grow dimmer as I was looking at it, so I flipped the page and read out loud as quickly as I could.
8th day of the Harvest,
Dear diary, I spent a long day, just him and me. He seemed out of sorts, as if something was preoccupying him. I tried to speak with him about it, but he said it was nothing. He has started to say that we must not touch each other, and I do not understand why.
I turned the page. Here, the writing was more scribbled, as if the writer had written it more quickly than usual.
Day of the Fast,
Dear diary, today was awful. The most terrible thing happened. We went for a walk in the forest, just the two of us. It should have been wonderful, but he kept trying to tell me that something terrible might happen. That I was doomed, but without explaining why. Finally, a chance to be alone with him, but when I tried to hold his hand, he froze me with ice. It was the most painful thing I’d ever experienced, and I had to run to my dear sister to fix it.
She told me Torin would be the death of me.
She told me Torin WAS death.
In her premonition, he would bury my frozen body beneath the earth in Ostara’s temple, and he would never tell anyone that he killed me. He swallows the secret, ashes in his belly…
It scares me. My sister has never been wrong before. And yet, I don’t think I can stay away from the king…
“I’m having trouble reading it,” I said.
As I spoke the words aloud, the text disappeared completely, and I was left looking at a blank page.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Holy shit,” said Shalini. “Who do you think that was? Do you think Torin could be dangerous?”
“We’re fae. We’re all dangerous.”
“Maybe the assassin killed her, too.” Shalini touched my arm. “Ava, I know I told you to come here in the first place. And you told me the fae were terrifying, but I didn’t quite listen. I’m starting to think that…you know, maybe it’s not worth risking your life over this?”
“For fifty million?”
“What are you going to do with fifty million if you’re dead?” she snapped.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “You’ll just have to have faith in me not dying.”
Because it wasn’t just the money.
I didn’t want to leave this place.
