Page 37 of Faking with the Fae King

Every.

Spare.

Moment.

There goes my grand idea for keeping my distance!

Looks like I’m even more screwed than before.

Wanting to start immediately, he leads me to the palace library. It’s a dizzyingly cavernous room with bookcases that extend so high I get a crick in my neck trying to see the top.

A massive oak grows in the very middle of the room, its tall crown straining toward the glass dome located in the center of the ceiling.

“There’s a tree!”

“Of course there’s a tree.” Severin shoots me a perplexed look. “It’s a library.”

Must be a fae thing. I can’t wait to tell Skye about this. My librarian friend will flip.

He stops beside a long wooden table, its gleaming surface empty except for a single bronze bell. “Bring me everything on human witches.” He rings the bell, sending its sweet musical notes echoing through the space, soon joined by the rustle of paper as scrolls and books fly from the shelves to spiral down and pile onto the table.

Okay, pile is a teensy exaggeration. The library might be huge, but when all is said and done, there are only a handful of books.

He scowls at the gathered material as if it’s personally offended him. “I expected more.”

“It’s more than I had this morning.” I sit and pull the first book toward me. Symbols fill the pages, looking like no language I’ve ever seen. “I can’t read it.”

Severin strokes the back of my hand, sending a jolt of magic shivering through me, and the symbols rearrange on the pages, turning into English.

I dive in, excited to be the first human to read these books in hundreds of years, but the longer I read, the more my joy fades. These aren’t books that talk about how human magic works—they’re books full of stories of fae making human witches fall in love with them. That would be fine—romantic even—but the stories never stop there. No, the fae always disappear, using their magic to hide so they can watch their miserable lovers search for them, sometimes for years, laughing the whole time. That one-hundred percent sounds like something Meloria would do.

But what about Severin? Is he going to do that to me? I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he unrolls a new scroll, his brow furrowed in concentration.

No, Severin told me up front we’d only be married for a year and a day, that all of this would be fake. It’s on me to remember it and not fall in love.

But I keep catching myself stealing glances at him, at the way his green eyes sharpen with intensity when he reads, at the way the muscles in his forearms flex as he unrolls a scroll.Is it any wonder those poor foolish humans of the past fell hard?

After a couple of hours, Severin slams the book he’s reading closed with a weighty thump. “Have you tried a wand?”

“Yes. No. Kind of?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “It’s certainly one of those three, since they run the entire gamut of possibilities.”

“I tried one, and it didn’t work.” I give a sheepish shrug. “It also wasn’t an official wand.” No way in hell am I admitting it was a Harry Potter wand Kayla bought years ago before JKR got problematic.

“I’ll try to procure a real one for you, but that’s the only concrete advice I can find.” Severin scowls at the books. “Everything else is useless.”

“Yeah.” I push my book away, too.

One of Severin’s people calls for him from the door, and he excuses himself to go see what they want.

I pull out my phone, which I’d silenced during the trial. Both Autumn and Skye texted, Autumn aR U OK?and Skye just a bunch of hug emojis. Naomi must have told them about my fall.

The message that grabs my immediate attention is the one from Mom:Call me when you get the chance.

She picks up on the first ring.

“Hi, Mom! Did you find something?” Please say yes. I’ve already lost one trial. It’s more crucial than ever that I figure out my magic.

---