Page 81 of Of Curses and Courtship

“Perhaps it’s time for a change.”

“You may be right.” She yawns. “Good night, my sweet prince.”

I’m not disappointed about having Ophelia in my bed. She is here. She is safe.

“We didn’t get to speak about the book,” I mutter, shaking my head.

It’s not of great importance. She’ll learn her magic in time, and people learn in different ways. Tonight, she needs a soft bed and a good friend, and I don’t have the strength to turn her away.

CHAPTER TWENTY

OPHELIA

There’s no time to linger on the awkwardness of waking up with Emyr peering at me. He grants me just enough time to bathe, and we dress quickly before he ushers me out the door.

Apparently, where we’re going next is of the greatest importance to our plans, but I can’t understand why. How much can a book help us, considering how many we’ve already read?

The air in the bookshop is crisp—not a creepy chill up my spine, but an arcane aura of knowledge sweeping me up and pushing me through the room.

Despite being far from his home, Emyr moves with confidence, his head held high as he strides to the book clerk. “I believe I have been in correspondence with you.”

The clerk pushes her glasses up her nose and looks us over. “Prince Emyr of the Sun Palace?”

He nods stiffly.

“At long last. I’ve been holding onto this book for too long.” She rummages around, huffing and puffing until she appears to find what she’s looking for. The book she pullsout is thick and worn, with a gigantic arcane lock on the front. She gives us a key. “You are not to take this book from the shop. You’ve an hour—perhaps less. We must put it away if anyone else comes inside.”

“Why?” I ask. “Is it dangerous?”

Her dark gaze moves to me. “Knowledge is power, Moon Fae, which means it’s always a danger to share.”

“Apologies.” I duck my head, not wishing to offend her again.

“We will be quick.” Emyr slides his hand across the countertop—gifting gold to the clerk. “There is only one thing for us to learn from this book.” He holds the large item to his chest.

“Then hurry along,” the shopkeeper says. “The sooner you’re gone, the better.”

I shake off the feeling of being watched as we retire to a corner of the dusty bookshop. She seems worried about someone else coming inside, but the place looks as though it hasn’t seen another being in weeks, or perhaps in many moons. Cobwebs hang in the corner of the ceiling, there is no natural light, and the bookshelves are in disarray, with pages revealed rather than spines and plenty of gaps.

It isn’t my place to speak ill of how someone does their job. I know now to keep quiet, and I do, settling into a hard, dusty chair.

“What is truly so special about this book?” I whisper.

“It’s from the Saturn Kingdom.” Emyr looks serious. “They specialize in curses. This book teaches not only how to break them, but…”

My stomach rolls. “How to cast one?”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Tibalt mutters. “I don’t involve myself with curses.”

“I know,” Emyr says, “but it’s not as if we can cast a curse. We’re only here to learn how to break one.”

Tibalt and I leave the reading to Emyr. He spends half an hour hunched over, his lithe fingers moving along the pages, until at last?—

“I found it.” Emyr pushes the book to the center of the table. “Here. This is all there is to know, all there is in this great realm.”

I lean closer, my eyes wandering… but none of it sinks in. It is an ancient text, I realize, written in fae, unlike the books in the palace library.

My brows furrow. “I can’t read this.”