Page 34 of Stolen
Chapter7
Jules
The Library
“Oh, you’re not in Kansas anymore,” I murmur as I stop in front of an enormous statue at the end of one aisle.
It’s a man, orsomething. I mean, it looks familiar, but not.
The statue is just breathtaking, commanding of all my attention. So damn majestic, I feel tears pricking my eyes.
He has horns and wings and so many muscles, I feel kind of pervy, gaping at it the way I am.
“I wonder who you are,” I whisper, then continue on my journey.
The scent here is strange but pleasant—old parchment and polished stone, with something faintly floral, like the ghost of lavender.
The deeper I go, the less the air feels like it belongs to me.
It gets heavier. Denser.
And the little warning bells I was just starting to believe didn’t work anymore start ringing inside my head.
That’s when I see her.
A woman—tall and thin, graceful, with luminous bronze skin and crimson hair that spills down her back like wildfire.
She stands on a ladder, shelving books like she’s done it a thousand times, humming something soft and eerie under her breath.
Her eyes flick toward me.
Black. Fully, entirely black.
Like ash, like onyx.
I freeze.
She frowns. Worried, maybe? Or just surprised?
I’m not sure. But I’m tired of talking to myself, so I go for it.
“Hello,” she says, her voice like cool water poured over hot metal. Soothing, but startling.
“You must be the hoo-man Lord Alaric brought here.”
“Um, I guess,” I say, blinking at the elegant figure high on the ladder. “And you are?”
She slides down the last few rungs and lands without a sound, bowing slightly with one hand over her chest.
“My name isShade, mistress. One of the Eyrie’s stewards.”
Her name fits.
There’s something smoky about her. Not dark, not threatening. More like dusk in motion.
Her skin is luminous gray, eyes like polished ash, and her hair spills in a sheet of crimson fire down her back. She moves like she could vanish between shadows without a trace.
I stare. My heart’s thudding harder than it should be, and not because I’m afraid.
