Shame tightened Nesta’s gut. But she said nothing as Clotho’s enchanted pen and paper wrote, You look well, Mor.
“Eh.” Mor lifted a shoulder. “Nesta’s been running me ragged with dancing lessons, but I’ve been fine.”
I found the books you requested. Clotho placed a crooked hand atop a pile of books on her desk.
Nesta took that as her cue to leave, and nodded to the females as they fell into a discussion about the material. Gwyn was waiting a level below, watching them—with Emerie in the stacks behind her.
“What are you doing here?” Nesta asked Emerie. She’d still been in the training ring when Nesta had hurried off to her dancing lesson. But that had been hours ago.
“I wanted to see where you two work,” Emerie said, eyes upon Clotho and Mor a level above. She sighed, nodding toward Mor. “I always forget how beautiful she is. “She never comes to Windhaven these days.” Nesta could have sworn pink stole over Emerie’s brown cheeks.
Indeed, in the library’s deep gloom, Mor shone like a ray of sunshine. Even the darkness at its bottom seemed to slither away.
“I was showing Emerie the wonders of Merrill’s office while she’s off at a meeting,” Gwyn said. “I’ve got to go work, but I thought you could bring her around while you shelve.” Gwyn threw her a wry glance. “And dance.”
Nesta rolled her eyes. She might have been caught practicing her waltzes in the stacks once or twice. Or ten times.
Nesta nodded to Emerie, drawing the female’s gaze away from Mor’s animated hand gestures. “Come on.”
But Gwyn said, “Actually, before you two go, I wanted to give you something. Since it’s probably the last time we’ll see each other until Winter Solstice is over.”
Nesta and Emerie swapped confused looks. The latter asked, “You got us presents?”
Gwyn only said, “I’ll meet you down at your cart.” With that, she dashed into the gloom.
Emerie and Nesta aimed for Level Five, where Nesta had left her cart. It had been replenished with books needing to be shelved. She explained what she did, but Emerie seemed to be half-listening. Her face had gone pale.
“What?” Nesta asked.
Emerie’s brows bunched. “I … I must not have drunk enough water during training.” They’d tried out two new Valkyrie techniques that Gwyn had found the night before, and both had been particularly brutal, ordering them to use shields as springboards for launching a fellow Valkyrie into the skies, and to do their abdominal curls bearing the weights of those shields.
No one had managed to cut the ribbon, though Emerie had nicked an edge two days ago.
“What’s wrong?” Nesta pressed.
Emerie’s eyes turned bleak. “It’s … I swear, I can hear my father yelling down here.” Her hands trembled as she lifted one to brush a strand of hair behind an ear. “I can hear him screaming at me, can hear the furniture breaking …”
Nesta’s blood went cold. She whipped her head to the downward slope to their right. No darkness lurked there, but they were low enough … “This place is ancient and strange,” she said, even as she processed what Emerie had admitted. She had never spoken of her father beyond the wing clipping. But Nesta had gathered enough: the man had been a beast like Tomas Mandray’s father.
“Let’s go up a level, where the darkness doesn’t whisper so loudly. I’m sure Gwyn will find us easily enough.” She linked her arm with Emerie’s, pressing her body close, letting some of her warmth leak into her friend.
Emerie nodded, though she remained wan.
Nesta wondered if Emerie heard her father’s bellowing every step of the way.
Gwyn did find them, the priestess panting and flushed as she handed out two rectangular parcels, each roughly the size of a large, thin book. “One for each of you.”
Nesta opened the brown paper and beheld a stack of pages filled with writing. At the top of the first page, it merely said, Chapter Twenty-One. She read the first few lines beneath it, then nearly dropped the pages. “This—this is about us.”
Gwyn beamed. “I convinced Merrill to add us into the penultimate chapter. She even let me write it—with her own annotations, of course. But it’s about the rebirth of the Valkyries. About what we’re doing.”
Nesta had no words. Emerie’s hands were once more shaking as she leafed through the pages. “You had this much to say about us?” Emerie said, choking on a laugh.