Page 59 of Heir

He made his way over to the bookcase, tapping on the books on the third from the top row, which was way taller than me. He stopped at a blue bound one and pulled it downward from the top.

Click.

We all scanned the study, searching for the source of the click. But Mr. Fiddleman seemed to already know and ducked down, then slid to his belly where the baseboard below the bookshelf had popped open an inch. He wiggled it free to reveal a keyhole.

“There’s another spell here,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to break it, but I’ll try to numb its effects as best I can.”

“Should . . . should we stand back this time?” Zandren asked, having already finished the rest of my sandwich. “Is there going to be more dust?”

“I have no idea,” Mr. Fiddleman said. He waved his hand in front of the keyhole, muttering more words in a language I didn’t understand. This time though, he closed his eyes and, with his other hand, gripped a talisman that he wore around his neck.

Nothing happened. No dust, no lightning or trembling of the ground beneath our feet.

I held my breath anyway though, as he carefully slid the key into the keyhole and turned it clockwise a quarter of the way.

A quick glance beside me showed Zandren standing there with a nervous look on his face. He also had his hands protectively covering himself.

He caught me looking. “It’s an important part of me. I’d hate for it to get blown off.”

I couldn’t hide my smirk, but focused back on Mr. Fiddleman. He turned the key another quarter of the way, and that caused a second click.

I’d been breathing again, so I held my breath one more time as he pulled the key free and with it, the panel that concealed the keyhole, to reveal a hidden cubby space with documents and folders stacked inside.

Carefully, he reached inside, but as soon as those papers and folders hit the air, they burst into bright blue flames.

Mr. Fiddleman dropped them to the floor before they burned his fingers.

Maxar stepped forward and a bright beam of yellow fire erupted from his palms and onto the blue flames, dousing them until all that remained was smoke.

And ash.

“No,” I breathed. “No.” My bottom lip trembled, and I sunk to my knees, picking up the still warm ash in my fingers. A gust of wind from the now-open window blew it off of my fingertips and onto the floor.

“I thought you numbed the spell,” Drak said, that accusatory tone back in his voice.

“I did,” Mr. Fiddleman said. “I stopped the poisonous gas from filling the room. But I couldn’t stop the self-destruct spell on the files.”

“So that’s it?” I asked. “Now we’ll never know what secrets Aunt Delia was keeping?”

“I think the secret she was keeping was you, Your Majesty,” Mr. Fiddleman said. “For whatever reason, your mother came to her for help. And Delia made a vow to protect you. Perhaps your mother requested that you remain hidden from your father. If she was not his mate and your father took a mate and had an heir, you would still be first in line for the throne, and that heir could challenge your legitimacy. Maybe your mother knew the weight of responsibility for the person that wore the crown and didn’t want that for you?” He stood up and brushed off his khaki slacks. “I’m just . . . guessing here.”

“No. They’re good guesses. They make sense. What was my mother though? Is there a way to find that out?”

He glanced around the room. “There are still a lot of spells in here. In this whole house. It would take days for me to break them all.”

“I’ll pay you whatever you want,” I said quickly. “I have money.”

He shook his head and held up a hand with long, boney fingers. “I could never accept payment for this. Even if you weren’t the Queen. Delia was . . . special.”

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

Unshed tears shone in his unique blue-gray eyes. “I . . . I should have said something. I should have worked up the courage. She’s been coming into my shop for sixty years, and I’ve loved her for probably fifty-nine of those. She never brought you in because she was shielding you from this world. But she spoke of you so often. I feel like I know you.” His smile was sad, but so full of love. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you. To help get Delia the justice she deserves.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Drak’s phone rang in his pocket, and he took it out to the porch. I glared at his broad back as he went, wishing he’d just go and not come back. I still wasn’t on board with this whole Fated Mates thing. But at least Zandren and Maxar were proving themselves to be tolerable, if not even a little likeable.

But Drak was just a rude, pompous, bossy ass who—despite his insanely good looks and that smolder I’m sure he’d been perfecting for a few centuries now—could just disappear and go get locked in his coffin for all I cared.

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