The presence of books was really the only similarity between the palace library and this one. Overstuffed shelves stood in straight rows. Books cluttered small tables, and a pile of them stood precariously by the door, topped with a half-full mug of what smelled like coffee. Candles with strangely unwavering flames gave the room a golden glow— wait, not candles. Shards of wood, curiously unburnt, same as the vine above.
Her bag fell to the floor with a muffled thunk. Red held her breath for half a second, but nothing stirred in the stacks. The sound she made might have been a laugh had there been more force and less fear behind it. A library, in the depths of the Wilderwood?
Cautiously, she stepped forward, trailing her hands over book spines. The scent of dust and old paper tickled her nose, but there was no trace of mildew, and all the books seemed cared for, even the ones that looked impossibly old. Someone was minding this library, then. Much better than they seemed to be minding the rest of the castle.
Most of the titles she recognized. The palace library carried a renowned collection, second only to the Great Library in Karsecka at the southernmost tip of the continent. Monuments of the Lost Age of Magic, A History of Ryltish Trade Routes, Treatises on Meducian Democracy.
Up and down the rows she wandered, letting the familiar sights and smells of a library seep the broken-glass feeling from her eyes. She was almost calm when she reached the end of the fifth row.
Then she saw him.
Red’s breath came in a quick, sharp gasp, ripping the quiet in two. She pushed her hand against her mouth, like she could force the sound back in.
The figure at the table didn’t seem to notice. His head bent over an open book, hand moving as a pen scratched over paper. The lines of his shoulders spoke of strength, but that of only a man rather than a monster; the fingers holding the pen were long and elegant, not clawed. Still, there was something otherworldly in the shape of him, something that hinted at humanity but didn’t quite arrive there.
“I don’t have horns, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He’d turned while she was staring at his hands. The Wolf narrowed his eyes. “You must be the Second Daughter.”
Chapter Five
H e didn’t stand, peering at her down a hawkish nose that had been broken and haphazardly mended, probably more than once. His hand, large and thatched with thin scars against white skin, dropped his pen and ran through his hair, black and overlong, waving messily against his collarbones. He’d half turned in his chair to look at her, carving out the line of his profile in lamplight— the cut of his jaw was severe, and there were tired lines around his eyes, but he didn’t look much older than her. Past his twentieth year, but not his thirtieth.
There was nothing in his form that carried monstrousness, but still that intangible sense of . . . of other, of a human frame that didn’t house a wholly human thing. His proportions were just out of the realm of normal— too tall, too solid, shadows around him darker than they should be. He could pass as a human on first glance, but it was a mistake you’d make only once. The Mark on her arm thrummed when his gaze met hers.
Red swallowed against a bone-dry throat. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out.
The Wolf raised an eyebrow. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath narrow, amber-colored eyes. “I’ll take your silence as a yes.” The scarred hand on his knee tremored slightly as he turned away from her, picked up his pen, and resumed his scribbling.
Red didn’t realize her mouth hung open until she snapped it shut, teeth clicking together. The tale of the Wolf bringing Gaya’s body to the edge of the forest detailed only how she looked, making no mention of his own appearance. Everyone knew the Wilderwood had made him different, something not quite human, though no one knew the specifics. But the Wolf’s story was one of mythic beasts, and as it was told through the centuries, he became one, too.
These scarred hands, this overlong hair, this face too hard-edged to be handsome— she’d thought she was prepared for anything, but she wasn’t prepared for this. The Wolf was a man before he was a monster, and the figure before her didn’t fit neatly into either category.
“You’re welcome to stay in the library,” the Wolf said, turning back around in his chair with welcome nowhere to be found in his tone, “but I’d prefer it if you didn’t lurk behind me while I’m working.”
The dream-like unreality of seeing the Wolf and the Wolf looking mostly like a man made her tongue loose, made her latch onto the only part of this that might still align with what she’d been told. “Will you let the Kings go now?”