Page 84 of Unraveled
The silver light of the moon draws a highlight over his silhouette as his wings reappear and the rest of his glamour breaks. He lifts me up onto the windowsill, and I wrap my shaking arms around his neck, feeling numb. Scared.
The grimoires are still quiet, and everything swims around me.
“Hold on to me.” He dips and hooks his arm under my knees just as five men charge into the room wielding swords wrapped in fire, and Ash leaps into the sky.
Chapter 28
The streets blurunder us with the speed we glide over the city, carrying grimoires through the air tethered by gold chains of Ash’s magic. I tighten my hold around his neck, dipping my face closer to find shelter from the frigid air numbing my skin, and as I breathe in the scent of his skin, I let myself relax in his embrace.
Hoping my amulet will listen and allow me to use a fraction of my magic to warm my skin, I probe at it, but it stays quiet.
It’s one of the few enchantments we could learn as librarians, useful to maintain the library’s temperature and keep it from getting too cold during the winter months. I feel the spell in the back of my throat, begging to be used to warm my icy limbs. The stone in the hairpin answers dimly, as if tired, but doesn’t release the pressure in my stomach.
It just remains like it’s been since we left the strixes’ house. A ball of smoldering coals I can’t quite light.
“You’re cold,” Ash says right as his hand tightens against my back and delicious warmth spreads through the layers of my dress.
“I-I’m fine.” The words fight past chattering teeth as I call on my amulet again, but meet silence.
Ash gaze cuts to me, hard, unyielding, yet I can’t seem to stop looking at the sweat dripping down his temple or the straining muscles of his neck.
“It’s just, my amulet isn’t answering. But please don’t use your energy on me. You have to use enough to carry all these grimoires.”
And me.
This is not the first time we’ve flown together over long distances, and I imagine someone like me is not light to carry.
“I’d rather avoid having to use more complex magic to keep you from fading away when you get ill from the cold, especially once we make it to the forest.”
I perk up at his words, and adrenaline replaces the numbness rushing through me. “What do you mean the forest? I thought we were going back to the manor?”
“We aren’t going back. I’m a beacon to any strix in this city. I don’t intend to lead them to Nera.”
Of course, we couldn’t go back to the manor after what we just did, but I never thought we would fly across the land, just the two of us. “How will Finley and Nera know we’ve left?”
“Visiting Hedrum was always a risk. It’s why I didn’t want to come, even when Nera begged to. Finley and I came prepared to escape if needed, though we hoped for the best.” Ash clenches his jaw as he turns his head to study the hundreds of books that circle us. “I never expected to find these there. I wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for you.”
My stomach flutters at his words. I feel light and giddy. But even though I’m blushing, I scrunch my nose as I stare at him, unblinking. “Why do you care so much about these books?”
I understand the need to recoup things that are clearly powerful, but why would he choose to take all these grimoires with us instead of disappearing into the night and the safety of the manor? In that room, I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasexcited to have found the whispering texts. Horrified to discover what the strix are, and how their emblem looks so similar to the librarians’.
I was only thinking about buying us time. But right now, I can’t believe Ash would leave Nera behind in a city filled with his enemies to carry all these books across the kingdom.
“I know you went to Penumbra searching for them, but surely you don’t believe we’ll find the way to break the curse in one of these.” I gesture to the flapping pages around us, some hovering just three feet away from my face. “It’ll be a cosmic coincidence if we do.”
“It has nothing to do with the curse, Mia. There’s magic that connects them to me lying dormant in each page.” He shifts his arm down my back to get a better hold of me around the layers of my dress. “The books are linked to me through my ancestors. Through many generations of kings and queens who’ve used blood spells to bind those pages to us in order to safeguard our secrets. To keep our history and power protected.”
“You and Nera are connected to each book?”
“Nera is not, unless I die. The binding spell is done when we take the crown and kept alive by the continuous gifting of power by each new ruler. The fae are long-lived, so the connection thrives. We lend a morsel of magic, and in return, the ancient power of my bloodline helps protect the castle.”
Whatever warmth I had regained drains as I stare at him. “Is that why they were stolen in the first place? To weaken you at a higher level?”
It has to be why they always felt alive. The night we met, Ash felt familiar. Of course, I had been studying his magic for months. That had to be the reason.
He nods and turns away from me. “I initially guessed they had been collecting them to steal powerful enchantments and knowledge. But I fear something much worse.”
“What?” I ask, as we fly over the outskirts of the city, closing in on the dark forest’s misty ground.
