Page 50 of Unraveled
I fight the need to fidget under her scrutiny. Then she turns and walks away. Slowly at first, then she’s trotting toward the wall with the tapestry. When her pace turns into a gallop, myadrenaline spikes. The room shifts into darkness, and a night sky explodes over my surroundings.
It smells like moss and morning dew. When she’s about to collide with the wall, she blends with the shadows and disappears. I gape at the spot she’d been, my mouth hanging open. Of course she can do that. I’ve seen her appear from the shadows before.
She’s gone, and this is a simple reminder of a type of magic I don’t understand. When Naheli returns, she brings me a grimoire, its leather cover stained deep blue. Embossed in the center is an eight-point star with the gold foiling nearly worn off.
When I hold it in my hands, it clings to me, and the need to pore over the pages burns through me. There’s something familiar about it that’s unlike any other book that’s ever spoken to me. I never want to let it go.
Turning to Naheli, I hug the book to my chest, like she might take it away at any moment. “Could you take me outside so I can read it? Somewhere the lunargyre won’t hurt me?”
It seems unlikely, getting to walk the grounds. I’ve already accepted there’s little chance I’ll get to before I break the curse.
Naheli yelps by the door, tilting her head and showing me her sharp, white canines. I follow her out to the courtyard, where I sit on a stone bench near the back door to the kitchen.
The book of stars speaks to me about omens and old prophecies. But its pages keep secrets, even as they are warm under my touch and a welcomed reprieve from the chill of the winter afternoon.
When the castle gates open, I’ve been reading for so long I can no longer feel my rear, and I’m nearly drunk on the magic inside the grimoire. I close it and follow a covered wagon, pulled by massive winged beasts, as it crosses through the thick mist that divides the courtyard from the wilderness beyond.
The black fence peeks out behind the heavy fog like swirling fiddleheads reaching for the sky. The sun is hiding behind dark gray clouds that haven’t parted, though it stopped raining.
Finley huddles in the front seat, holding the reins loosely in his gloved hands. Despite the hood of his cloak shrouding his features, I can feel his eyes burning into me.
He steers the carriage across the castle grounds and over large tree roots that have broken through the paved stones circling the fountain in the center. He slows down twenty feet away, by the side door.
I shift on the stone bench I’ve been sitting on since Naheli and I came outside. It was still drizzling then, and the layers of my cotton dress are damp beneath me. But even though I’m cold, there’s no way in hell I’d go back inside right now.
Not unless a lunargyre attacks me. But so far, they’ve kept their distance, and I’m certain that has everything to do with Ash’s spirit.
I reach for the wolf resting beside me, scratching under her ear as we watch Finley walk to the back of the carriage, which is filled with baskets and fabrics, and unpack the goods he brought from somewhere far away.
I tuck the book under my arm and walk over to him with a tentative smile. Last time I saw him, he’d been trying to work on the castle wards and had to leave in a rush to buy something to strengthen them.
He raises a brow at me after he inspects the tome I tried to hide, then goes back to his task. “I assume the king allowed you to borrow one of his books?”
“Hello to you too, Finley. It has been a while. I’m happy you’re safe.”
He hums a noncommittal response, unloading a basket full of red and green apples, so shiny and fresh my mouth immediately waters. With a smile, he hands me one and beginsto load a smaller cart with bags of grains and nuts and rounds of cheese. “Well, did he? Or did you sneak past his wards again and steal it?”
“Will you believe me if I say he gave me permission to go over the grimoires?”
He stops, wiping his shiny face with his forearm before resting against the wagon. He looks at me openly, and for the first time since I met him, he seems to be amused more than anything else. “I doubt he let you have the book you’re holding.”
I tighten my grip on the aforementioned grimoire, tucking it farther into the layers of my cloak and away from Finley’s prying gaze. Just in case he gets any ideas about trying to take it away from me.
“Can you read it?”
“I can understand some of it...” It’s an oversimplification of what happens when I’m near magical objects.
I don’t want to explain how they whisper to me, and sometimes I understand their voices. Or that most of the time, I see the halos of their presence, the very thing Ash has been working with me on for the last three days. Though he’s spoken little to me since he told me I’m part fae, our training hasn’t stopped.
“It’s interesting you’re out here in the courtyard with the lunargyres, and Naheli by your side.” Finley scratches at the stubble on his chin. It’s much longer than when I last saw him. “She rarely likes people, much less humans.”
Ha. Joke’s on him since I’m not human—apparently.
I reach for the necklace that’s no longer there. I can’t defend myself from the beasts as easily as I could’ve had the damned thing not abandoned me. Naheli wags her tails at Finley when he extends her a piece of jerky he pulls out of his cloak.
“She seems to like you.”
“It took me years to earn her affections, and she’s still apprehensive about it.”
