“They will,” Miha said. “Though you can begin by calling them your people.”
I had the urge to fight her comment, but I knew she was right. I was trying to keep everyone at a distance, too afraid I might find something I liked.
Miha’s remark made me pay closer attention to my surroundings, and I found myself appreciating the palace activity rather than avoiding it. Servants carried heavy, silver trays stacked high with plates and metal chalices while others lit multitiered candelabras and hung garlands that smelled of rosemary and sage. It was preparation for the Burning Rites, I realized.
“My queen,” servant after servant said, offering a bow or a curtsy.
I acknowledged each, nodding or smiling as I passed, though I found myself more than eager to escape the scrutiny, and felt a rush of relief as we turned down an empty carpeted hallway. At the end was the library, which lay beyond two large ebony doors, each inlaid with colorful stained glass. Miha did not follow me beyond them as I stepped into a room full of black shelves lined with embossed books. I tilted my head back to observe a glass ceiling through which the red skylight filtered, illuminating floor after floor of overflowing shelves.
A large circular desk at the center of the library was vacant, and the first floor appeared to be void of people. I walked along the first few stacks, trying to decipher the language written on the spines of each book. Some were in Old Revekkian, which I did not know how to read but could identify by the older characters and accents over certain letters. I spent a while looking for familiar words among the titles and gathered that many of these books were myths and history.
A noise suddenly drew my attention upward. It sounded like a book had fallen to the floor, or several. I followed it up a crescent of stairs that wound to the second floor.
“Lothian?” I called.
Different noises followed my ascent to the second floor—groaning and moaning and a steady thud. As I came around a corner, I found the source. A man had Lothian pinned against the shelves and was moving inside him, their moans echoing throughout the library. For a moment, I was too stunned to move, watching as the man, who was only slightly taller and just as thin as Lothian, pounded into him. Then he took a tuft of Lothian’s dark hair into his hand, pulled back his head, and bit down on his neck.
I fled to the first floor, unsure of what to do. I didn’t want to leave, so I continued my exploration, endeavoring to ignore the sounds from above. I discovered a line of glass cases amid the stacks, each displaying a different artifact. One held two different knives, one white and one black, each engraved with the phases of the moon. Another held a gold chalice inlaid with fine filigree and small rubies. A third box contained a stave, which looked more like a weapon with a piece of pointed bone bound to its tip. The final case held a book so worn, the letters were barely readable, but as I shifted, a faint silver sheen spelled the title—The Book of Dis.
It was a spell book.
I wasn’t sure what it was about being so close to one that made my heart beat out of my chest, but I was suddenly frightened. I thought of the crimson mist and Ravena. Why would we so publicly display a book from which evil might spread?
“What do you think of my library?” Lothian asked.
I looked up, watching him approach. He was surprisingly composed after what I had witnessed in the stacks upstairs. His dark hair was smoothed back, and the high collar of his black and silver tunic hid the bite I knew he had sustained.
“It is very beautiful,” I said.
“I see you have found a few of our relics,” he said.
“These all belonged to witches?” I asked.
“They belonged to members of High Coven,” he said and nodded to the spell book. “We believe The Book of Dis belonged to Karmina, their leader. It’s blank.”
“Blank?”
He nodded. “We believe it is either a replica or a book of spells she intended to write.”
“Even blank, do you not think it is dangerous to display such items?”
Lothian hesitated, but he was saved from answering as another man approached—the vampire who had fed from him. He was dressed similarly, in black. His hair was curly and stuck to his forehead, and his thin, pale face made his cheekbones look hollow and his eyes dark.
“These relics give us access to our history,” the man said. “We display them so that we—and others—might learn from them.”
Still, I wondered if magic was the type of thing we wanted people to learn about.
As if he could read my mind, he added, “Secrets only make the world curious. Better to display than to hide.”