Page 52 of Crown of the Fae King

The air whooshed and we froze. Someone stepped into the room and the air whooshed again with the closing of the door. Wickham grabbed my hand, but we didn’t go anywhere.

Is his popper broken?

He stepped into the aisle and I followed. A man in a lab coat stood just inside the room with a clipboard in his hands, poised to write on it, but he didn’t move. Frozen.

“Good thinking,” I said. “How long can you keep him that way.”

“Nay, lass. It’s not he who is frozen, but we who have stepped out of Time. We have all the time in the world if we never choose to step back in again.” He nodded behind me. “Let’s get those books.”

Creepy didn’t quite coverthe feeling of sitting up to a high table and trying to concentrate while the body of a random librarian hovered in limbo ten feet away. But since it didn’t bother Wickham, I pretended it didn’t bother me.

We counted the boxes to make sure we didn’t lose one, which was a risk since we couldn’t actually see them. We cleared the better part of the worktable in the center aisle and laid them out, seven in all.

I was careful to keep track of the first box, hoping it still contained those little pages that had moved by themselves. I felt around the edges, then tried to pry it open. Across the table, Wickham pulled something into his arms. His fingers strained briefly, followed by apwah.

A book clattered onto the table. Visible. Tangible. We both looked at the glass case in his hands, now wide open. I could see the plexiglass clearly, and Wickham’s shirt on the other side. When he turned it over, though, it disappeared again.

“Only the boxes are enchanted,” he said, then set that one aside.

The book itself was about eight by six. Not large at all. More like a diary than a history book. The cover had striations in the texture, like silk, or something else organic. The corners were well worn like it had been carried around in a backpack for half a century.

Wickham pulled it close and opened it. He moved his mouth as he read silently, slowly.

“Don’t tell me. It’s written in Irish?”

He nodded, his lips never stopping.

I pulled at my own box, turned it, and pulled the other side. Two more tries and I had it open. I was careful not to dump the little pages onto the table for fear of them fluttering away. But other than a ruffle of air, they lay perfectly still in the bottom of the box, the interior of which I could now see.

“Hello again,” I sang. “Sorry to disturb.”

The pages trembledall on their own!I hadn’t imagined it the first time! They shifted, separated just a bit. A little bug, drawn in the margin of the top page, blinked at me.

I hid my surprise, and my probable insanity, and glanced at Wickham. He went on reading, had noticed nothing.

“Um…how do you like the fresh air,” I whispered. Inwardly, I groaned at my choice of conversation, but what did you say to a sentient piece of paper?

On the page peeking out from the bottom, a face appeared in the center of an illustrated flower—and smiled.

22

Those Ruffling Edges

Iasked, “Are you fairies?”

I felt Wickham come around to stand at my shoulder. The flower’s eyes flew wide and the face disappeared. The bug hid its head under a wing.

“Don’t worry. He won’t harm you,” I said. “Does this mean you are not fairies?”

One by one, other little faces appeared in the illustrated margins. The bug lowered its wing. The flower’s features returned.

“My name is Lennon. I’m…I’m just going to lay you out on the table.”

As gently as I could, I slid the pages apart. I picked up the edge of the first, moved it to the table, and prayed it wouldn’t disintegrate. Hopefully the air in the semi-sealed room was intended to do as little damage as possible.

I felt rather than heard a vague humming through my gloves, as if the page really did enjoy being touched. Just in case that was true, I held down one edge and smoothed my hand over the rest, then was rewarded with even stronger vibrations. I moved the other three pages onto the white surface and ran my hand over them as well. All of them purred like tiny cats.

Yet another lie the fairy had told—that they didn’t like to be touched.

---