Page 71 of Lady of Shadows

“Most accounts? Are they not all the same?”

“No,” Callan said, leaning back in his chair. “One book I read said the Fae Courts were just caught in between a bigger conflict between Esmeray’s territory and Avonleya. It claimed that Deimas and Esmeray were seeking something across the sea, and Avonleya refused to let them even come to visit. That such a slight would ignite the Great War seems a little far-fetched though.”

“Yes, but did it ever say what they were looking for? Or what Deimas was?”

“What do you mean what Deimas was? He was mortal, wasn’t he?” Callan asked with a raise of his brow.

“But he had magic. How else did he and Esmeray lock away the Avonleyans? If Esmeray was as powerful as the Fae Queens, that explains that. But what of Deimas?” Scarlett pressed. She chewed on her bottom lip as she pondered this. Callan was quiet, and after a few moments, she realized he was staring at her. She cleared her throat and straightened in her chair.

“What else have you discovered?” Scarlett asked, leaning forward to look at his various notes and books.

“Myths and legends mostly. It’s all so different from the history we were taught. It paints the Fae as mortal protectors, not as a race seeking to enslave us.”

Scarlett pulled one of his pages of notes towards her, skimming his neat and precise handwriting.Handwriting that was so familiar to her. “And what are you inclined to believe?”

Callan shrugged again. “Honestly, I do not know what to believe any more. Some things seem so far fetched. There was one book that spoke of something called a World Walker who was apparently a being that could walk between the worlds somehow.”

“Interesting,” Scarlett murmured, flipping through his pages of notes. She stilled as she read the page title.Twin Flames and Soulmates. “What is this?” she asked, tapping the paper with her fingernail.

“More research,” Callan said, reaching to take the papers, but she grabbed them, twisting out of his reach. She stifled a cry at the pain in her abdomen from the movement as she read his notes.

“Why are you researching this?” she asked.

“I heard of the twin flame bond mentioned in passing and wanted to know more about it,” he said cautiously.

“This is old blood magic, Callan,” she said, her eyes moving rapidly over the pages. She saw her name jotted in the margins with a question mark beside it. “Why is my name written here?” She brought her eyes to his in time to see him wince.

“I am trying to figure out how you fit into their world, Scarlett,” he finally conceded with a sigh. “No one will give me straight answers about anything, so I decided to take it upon myself.”

“You think I am one of these? To whom?” she demanded, waving the page of notes at him.

“I do not know, but it would explain why you fit in so well among them.”

“I fit in among them because I amFae, Callan,” she said shortly.

“I know, but you interact with them as if you have known them for years. You are more comfortable around them than you were around me when we were sharing a bed for a year, and you have only shared quarters with him for a few weeks.” His eyes widened as the words left his lips.

Scarlett stared at him, blinking slowly. Without a word, she extended her hand with the notes back to him. “Why are you really researching all of this Callan?”

“Everything I said was true, but also to help you. Why can he help you and I cannot?”he demanded, his eyes hardening as he took the papers from her hand.

She studied him a long moment. All of him so familiar to her still to this day. “All right then,” she said, pulling a book towards her.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s my history. Maybe I should learn some of it too, don’t you think?” she asked, flipping the book open.

“You are going to sit here and read with me?” There was wariness in his tone.

“Unless you have some objection to it?”

It was his turn to study her.

“I do not have an objection. I can think of another who might?”

“He is not my keeper,” she said simply, and she began to read.

It was hours later when she crossed the bridges again, slipping silently into Sorin’s rooms. She silently closed the door behind her, padding across the sitting room. She was sore. She knew she had overdone it sitting at that table for so long with Callan, each of them offering interesting bits of history or research they came across. The space between them was still tense, but it was something she supposed.

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