Page 203 of A Warrior's Fate

She’d been correct in her assumptions that it lay within the Eastern Hall. After traveling across the courtyard and trailing up a flight of steps, they found themselves in front of the large doors carved with Deimos’s insignia and the crest of Kai’s bloodline. Maeve had said that the area spanned the second and third floors, but only on this level was the main entrance, while a few concealed ones lay above, hidden within rooms.

Isla bowed her head to the handmaiden. “Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure.” Maeve returned the gesture. “If we don’t cross paths again, Happy Equinox to you and that special mate of yours.”

Isla grinned tightly.

Yes, a special one, he was.

She wished her the same merry holiday, and when the young woman disappeared, grabbed onto one of the wooden handles with two hands and pulled.

Her murmur of surprise seemed to get swallowed by the expanse of what lay before her.

She’d been impressed with The Bookshoppe’s size and inventory, given what it was, but this…at least six of those could fit in here. And that was just her assumption from where she stood.

When Isla stepped inside, letting the door close with a loud creak and heavy thud behind her, she was not in a library. She was in a small city.

Towers of books lay at her sides as she traveled down the length of the wall next to the entrance. Volumes upon volumes, collected over what she imagined centuries or millennia of time given how ancient Deimos was. She’d need to live at least several lifetimes before she could read through half of it. Could she even retain so much information?

Longing to get lost as she had after she returned to Io from the Hunt—curled up with a good story, getting lost in new worlds—tugged at her gut, her tired mind.

Beyond the opening stacks, she heard murmurs of conversation and the faintest smooth melody, full of horns and drums and taps of piano keys.

A figure and flash of red cut through her periphery. She halted and stepped back.

Davina stared at her from the other end of the aisle. “Isla!” She rushed forward, her arms outstretched.

Isla embraced her with a bright smile as the petite woman wrapped her in a tight hug.

A good change from last night—she was awake and didn’t smell like she’d bathed in wine.

“Ow, shit.” Davina recoiled and reached for her head, a grimace on her face.

Maybe she still bared some traces of the events prior.

Isla chuckled. “Hangover?”

Davina groaned. “I’m never touching alcohol again.”

The same words had passed Isla’s lips countless nights. Not once had they been true.

She followed Davina’s lead as she directed them to a common area where Jonah, Ameera, and Rhydian had spread themselves out between one of the long mahogany tables, a rung of a ladder against a shelf, and a spot on the mezzanine overlooking it all.

Ameera noticed them first.

“And she returns,” she mused, pushing herself up from her wooden perch. She closed the book she’d been flipping through, leaving her finger to mark her page. “And she’s changed clothes. Again.”

Isla wouldn’t tell her it was her fourth, not third, change in garb.

Rhydian rose from his place on the floor of the upper level and rested his arms on the railing. “Were you with Kai?”

“Only until noon,” Isla said, masking any annoyance at her mate. “I left him before his meeting.”

“Then where’ve you been?” Ameera asked.

“Zahra caught me on the way here and stole me for lunch.”

“Oh, the mother-in-law,” Ameera teased.

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