Page 30 of Unraveled
“Where did you learn that spell?” He slowly stands, his body looming, casting a shadow across the table.
Finley stiffens by my side, and I tighten my hand around the butter knife. I know I can’t do any true harm with something this dull, but I’ll at least defend myself any way I can. “The amulet...”
“Stop!” Ash slams a hand down on the table, and all the dishes rattle. “An amulet can’t teach you a fae spell that’s been in my family for a century.”
I feel the bite of food I swallowed come back as I shrink in my seat. “I don’t know any fae spells.”
“I recognize it because I wrote it.” He lowers his face until his breath blooms across my cheeks.
The room spins around me, and I can’t breathe. Remembering how I asked my necklace to let me into the forbidden area of the library. How many of those books should have been illegible to me? I didn’t recognize the language, but I could still understand it.
“You call yourself a librarian because you are amongst books,” he says, settling back. “And you read one of our stolen grimoires, didn’t you?”
I raise my chin but don’t say a word.
“The real reason the veil exists, Monster, is not to protect your people. It’s hiding my stolen texts from me.”
“That’s a lie...” My voice cracks. Is he telling the truth?
No other grimoire I read outside that forbidden place had that same magic. None beckoned me like those did.
“Ash...” Finley begins, but quiets when Ash sends him a warning look.
I press my whole body into the chair. Trying to get away, even though there’s something wrapped around my guts tethering me to him.
Ash’s sharp teeth catch the light of the rainy day just as thunder rolls above us. And right now, he looks much less like the king of the fae and more like a monster.
He grips the armrest of my chair, and the wood groans under his strength. “So you see, Mia, you aren’t a librarian. What you are is a thief.”
Chapter 12
“Never looka fae in the eyes, Mia,” my father whispered. “They will see it as a challenge and will never let you go.”
“The fae are gone,” I said with a laugh, watching him as he pulled something out of his pocket. He was acting strange that morning and waited for Irene to leave for work before he spoke with me.
A long necklace hung from his thick fingers. The red stone caught the light coming from the kitchen window.
I was told ever since I was little that the magical amulet had been in my mother’s family for centuries. To be inherited by the firstborn. Me. Father had been wearing it for as long as I could remember, always keeping it hidden under his clothes.
He didn’t need to say a word; I knew what he was trying to do. But giving me that necklace could put him in danger. He’d been working on perfecting the veil for years, and that meant going into the forest where the beasts hunted. I rarely ventured out of the library, let alone left Penumbra.
“Take it, pumpkin. I never meant to hold on to it for this long. It doesn’t belong to me.” A smile pulled on his lips, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled with age. His hair was too whitefor someone as young as he, stress stealing his youth far too early.
“You need it more than me,” I said, but presented my palm. When the amulet hit my skin, a jolt of electricity surged through me. With a hiss, I attempted to pull back, but my father held me in place with his other hand. Something crawled across my fingertips, tickled my palm, and stretched up my arm. Magic warmed my heart.
A shot of euphoria seized my lungs as the amulet tugged at something inside me and whispered a greeting.
“Now that you’ve begun your training as a librarian, you must carry this with you at all times.” Once it was clear I wouldn’t drop the amulet or try to stand, he placed a hand over mine, encouraging me to close my fist around the stone.
“I’m not supposed to have something this powerful inside the library. It’s forbidden for humans to hide an amulet.” I parroted what the head librarian, Alana, had told us in the initiation.
“To hell with them. This is not theirs to collect. It has been in your mother’s family and, as the eldest daughter with magical affinity, it’s yours. Protect yourself from the magic sleeping in those grimoires, Mia. Don’t take it off or leave this house without it. And by the gods, don’t let anyone see it.”
Knock, knock.
“Dad, I forgot my keys!” Irene’s voice came from the street.
We turned to the door, and Dad looked panicked as he took the pendant from my hand and draped it around my neck.
