Page 71 of Shattered & Returned

I swallowed, my throat dry, then forced out the truth. “I’ve seen myself die over and over as one of many redheaded women.”

“Shit!” she called, her eyes flying wide. “We should do a divination.”

“Maybe later.” I hugged myself against a sudden chill. “Are you coming to the library?”

“Obviously.” She fell into step beside me. “After you pulled me from that flood…”

“That was Dante.”

“He’s hot.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Face it, everyone’s an asshole except us,” she said.

We trekked along the border of the Fae Copse woods, fallen leaves crunching beneath our dress shoes. Other students milled about, watching me and whispering to each other, their voices carrying just enough for me to catch fragments:freak, weakling, shouldn’t be among us…

Sindy tensed beside me, uncomfortable with the negative attention, but I kept my gaze forward, until Umbra Grimoire rose from the manicured grounds like a vast dark gem against the pale sky, ten stories of ornate Victorian grandeur.

No wards barred our way, but the towering oak doors groaned as they opened, as though reluctant to let us in.

Pale light filtered from the gray ceilingas the vast interior stretched before us,heavy with the scent of old books, ink, wood, and leather.

Sindy had raved about the collection, insisting it held the most accurate histories of the gods. I turned slowly, taking in the blackwood shelves that climbed every floor, their dimly lit spines glinting like secrets waiting to be uncovered.

This was the right place.

The first floor housed volumes on arcane arts—spells, rituals, the usual fare for witches and mages. We climbed to the second floor, the plush carpet swallowing our footsteps. The sheer number of choices was dizzying, but I had a purpose: myths ofmurdered redheaded women and the true history of the three old gods.

Fortunately, Sindy had befriended a witch librarian, Mabel, who felt it unfair that Sindy had been excluded from their coven. She granted us an hour to read in the restricted section, her eyes darting nervously as she led us through a hidden door.

The hidden door swung open with a soft creak, revealing a narrow staircase lined with flickering sconces. The air here was thicker, tinged with the scent of old parchment and something faintly metallic. Mabel lit a charmed lantern, its light shuddering against the stone walls.

“You have one hour,”she whispered.“If the coven finds out, it’ll be my head on the block.” She bit off the words, shaking her head. “Be quick.”

Sindy squeezed my arm in reassurance before stepping forward, her boots silent on the worn steps. I followed, pulse quickening as we crossed into the restricted section.

The room was cramped compared to the grandeur below, but these books were different—bound in strange leathers, some etched with runes that seemed to shift under my gaze. A few even had chains wrapped around them, the metal dull but unbroken.

“Where do we start?” I murmured, scanning the shelves.

Sindy moved with purpose, pulling a heavy tome from the middle row.“The gods first. If the myths of the redheaded women’s deaths are real, their stories would be here.”

I nodded as I reached for a slender crimson volume tucked behind a row of grimoires. Gold letters burned across its spine:The Scarlet Thread: Blood and Betrayal in the Divine War.

My breath caught.This might be it.

As I opened it, dust sighed from the pages, and the ink deepened, as though stirred by my presence. I blinked as mostpages turned out to be blank, but the surviving text sketched the feud between the three old gods.

When the time came to divide the cosmos, Zeus claimed Olympus, the golden city of the gods, through clever trickery. Poseidon seized his ocean without protest. Together they forced the Underworld upon Hades, crowning him King of the Dead with poisoned courtesy.

Hades accepted his domain with silence that festered into wrath. Then came Persephone, sunlight piercing his eternal night. Daughter of Demeter, destined for eternal maidenhood. Hades saw her, wanted her, took her. Made her queen of his sunless kingdom.

When Demeter discovered it, her fury unleashed a plague upon the earth. The gods rallied behind her, demanding Persephone’s return. But the girl had eaten the Underworld’s pomegranate seed, its magic now coiled through her veins. Six months of darkness claimed her each year.

The familiar myth. The usual villain.

Yet the version Sindy had smuggled into her collection, sparse as it was, rang truer in my marrow. Somewhere in these brittle pages hid the real story.

---