Page 94 of When Roses Burn

“I can, and one day, I will.”

“I hope so.”

She stepped away from the tree and strolled over to one of the shelves. With the same reverence with which she touched the tree, her fingers trailed across the spines, and a small, delighted sound escaped her.

“They’re all divided into sections,” I told her. “Fantasies are on the second floor.”

She smiled over her shoulder at me before climbing the spiral staircase. By the time she made it to the second floor, she’d forgotten about the tree as she examined the books and pulled some of them from the shelves.

She read the plates at the top of the shelves, noted the genre, and either pulled more books or moved on. Her arms were full by the time she made it to the third floor, where the tree’s branches hung over the balcony to create small hiding spots beneath its boughs. She passed in and out of view as she moved amid the limbs.

There were also little outlets on the third and fourth floors, or reading nooks, as my mother called them. I’d sometimes find her in one of the alcoves, curled up on a settee or a chair while reading.

At other times, she’d take me to the library with her. We’d spend hours hiding in one of the alcoves, reading whatever adventure we found for ourselves that day. When I was little, I’d sit, nestled securely in her lap and enveloped in her peppermint scent. To this day, that aroma was one of love and comfort for me.

Those instances only happened a couple of times a month, when she could slip away from her queenly duties, but I cherished them, even when I was older and running away to the forest or No Man’s Land.

While I was a disappointment to my father, I was my mother’s child… a dreamer who loved to read and preferred my own company or hers. I sometimes questioned why my father didn’t appreciate those qualities in me when he cherished them in my mother, but while he would never change a thing about her, he would have changed everything about me.

My mother was never disappointed in me and cherished our times together as much as I did. And to me, that was enough.

It was a devastating blow when I returned to Wildwood and discovered she was one of the cursed. While I hadn’t known how the rest of my family would react to my return from capture, or if they knew what happened to me, she would have welcomed me with open arms.

Instead, I never got the chance to see her again. I didn’t know if I ever would.

A clatter from above drew my attention as a book tumbled from Briar’s arms and hit the floor. She bent to pick up the one she’d dropped and set it on her growing stack. When she set the books on a table and pulled a ladder over to her, it rattled on its wheels before she started climbing.

When a branch brushed her head, she rested a hand against it and idly stroked the bark while perusing the books. She leaned too far out to examine more of the shelves, but she was too focused on the books to notice how precarious her position was.

Shaking my head, I ascended the stairs to her. When I arrived, her pile of books remained on the table, but the ladder was empty, and she was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Knox

I continued to the fourth floor, where I discovered her with another stack of books. She shifted the books into one arm before pushing aside some ivy cascading over the shelves. I didn’t have to see behind the ivy to know the shelves weren’t continuous there. Instead, the ivy hid a secret alcove.

I followed her to the doorway and brushed back the ivy to discover her examining the books within. Only one wall in this area held shelves, while a table set between two plush, brown chairs occupied the other two walls. A lamp hung from the wall above the table; Briar must have turned it on, as its glow illuminated the small alcove.

It had been years since I visited this space; it was one of my favorites, but my mother preferred the one on the third floor with its plush blue settee and overstuffed ottoman. I’d spent many hours tucked away here, reading adventure stories and hiding from my father’s disapproving eye.

Briar flipped through the pages of a book before returning it to the shelf. She rose on her toes to reach for a book on a higher shelf. Her fingers brushed the spine, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Gripping the shelf, she pulled herself higher as I strode toward her.

Jumping on her toes, she managed to knock the book free a little; it teetered on the shelf. When it started to tumble toward her, I snatched it out of the air before it hit her.

Briar turned toward me, her shoulder brushing my chest as she did. I should back away, but I didn’t move as she stood before me with her chest inches away.

To keep my focus off her, I examined the book, A History of Demigods. “Are you interested in the demigods?” I inquired.

“Of course, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s why I read this book many years ago. It’s how I know some of their language.”

“Was it good?”

“It’s interesting and mostly about the gods they believed themselves descended from.”

“You don’t think they were descendants of gods?”