Page 78 of Wings of Ashes
“How do you know my name?” Nix asked.
“You are the adopted daughter of the president of the council, the man who funds all of the collections in this library,” he gushed like he had a crush on Mr. Oadess. “Of course, I know who you are.”
Would Nix have the guts to ask her adoptive father, Mr. Oadess, to make the dean do away with the restriction on reading materials for female shifters? Would he listen to her?
She nibbled on her inner cheek and stared at the blushing worker.
Nix considered her options.
Call the man who adopted her and may have been knowingly poisoning her for years. Ask him to let her read about fighting skills.
Break into the library after hours and sneak the books out.
After all, Nix’s mate had taught her how to pick locks. Even though it had never ended up helping either of them.
“You twist and turn and press, until you hear the click,” Persius would inform her while they waited in their cages for their captor to return.
They always schemed and dreamed together—on ways to escape. Daydreamed about things their captor could “drop” by their cell and then they could use to get out of their cages.
“How did you learn how to pick locks?” she had asked her Pegasus shifter mate.
He smiled sadly at her, face caked in dirt and dried blood. “Those who wish to be gods have locked my kind in stables for centuries, trying to tame us as domestic flying beasts. We are both creatures that the sick and twisted, greedy and morally corrupt bastards of our world will try to own and use for their own selfish purposes.”
“Do you…know what I am?” Nix had asked Persius.
“I dare not say it aloud and make it true,” he had replied. If he did know—what her red hair and reddish wings had meant—he never told her in their captivity.
There is so much I need to know, need to learn, she thought to herself in the present.
“Do you have a date to the dance?” Nix asked the library worker.
He blushed harder and nervously adjusted his slanted bow tie. “Um…”
“If you show me where the restricted section of the library is, I will be your date to the dance.”
The worker cringed, looked down at his desk, and mumbled, “I’d rather not go to the dance at all than attend with the Ugly Duckling. I just…I have a reputation to uphold. I hope you understand that?”
Wow. Nix had degraded herself; she tried to use her rusty feminine wiles to get access to the books she wanted, and she was shot down.
“Forget it,” Nix told him. If she had to break in after hours, she wanted to lessen as much suspicion on herself as possible. “Forget I was ever here.”
“I can’t. Hardly anyone comes into the library anymore, and I log everyone in, so I will only have your name on today’s log—”
Nix leaned over the dark wood desk and grabbed the sheet of paper from the spiral notebook. She ripped the day’s log out and stuck it into her blazer pocket. “There.”
“I can just write your name on another piece of paper…”
Nix scowled at him, and he shook with momentary fear.
Turning on her heel, Nix speed-walked out of the library. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Professor Thierry walking in as she moved to leave.
