Page 4 of The Unseen Hour

I needed to go back to the beginning and try to piece what I had together.

CHAPTER 3

Ifound my way to the Estates section in no time at all. After a glance around to make sure no one else was lurking in the stacks, I bent down and peered at the next-to-bottom shelf. Gently, I pulled out a set of four books; then I reached into the gap behind them.

Relief and a sense of triumph coursed through me when my hand closed around the well-worn journal I’d hidden in the space behind the other books. Each time I visited, it was the same—untouched except by me.

I had no idea why anyone else would bother with this section of the library, but I couldn’t be too careful.

Had I been less worried about potential prying eyes and probing questions, I’d have checked out the book. And if I were just a bit less scrupulous, I’d have stolen it ages ago. I’d have to, soon enough. My family was set to leave our estate at Fox Haven and return to the capital of Karith in a couple of months.

I had chosen not to take the journal before the last Unseen Hour for a silly, sentimental reason. I’d found it in the stacks, and this area felt like my spot. Once I removed the journal, that went away. But I would have to take it before we left for the capital.

We went there every spring, and for the past several years that trip had meant enduring ‘the season’—multiple months of hot weather, endless promenades, needlessly intricate balls, and other such events, all designed to throw the young people of Emrys together.

Romance wasn’t the goal, but a proposal was. The queen of Emrys herself hosted at least two events for the nobility each season, one at the onset and one at the season’s end, to celebrate all newly married and engaged couples.

I hated courting season, and it was a point of pride for me that I had so far escaped it without a betrothal since my entrance into society. This year in particular, it would serve as nothing but an unwelcome distraction from my research.

The diary would have to come along with me to Karith; there was no way around it.

“As if I could leave you behind, R. Holmes,” I whispered to the small book with the blue cover.

I put a hand to my cheek, certain I was blushing.

After my father’s disappearance a few Unseen Hours ago, I had taken refuge amidst the books. Admittedly, the first time I’d come, it had been because I couldn’t bear the morose mood at the estate a moment longer. Finneas had accompanied me into Fox Haven, and I had followed instinct to enter the library. Books had always been an escape, and that time proved no exception, although not in the way I’d anticipated.

I had headed toward the emptiest section I could find, since tears had already started running down my cheeks. One simply did not sob in public, at least not if one didn’t want to become the focus of gossip.

Emrys had plenty of that, and partaking in it while avoiding becoming the one spoken about with derision was a popular pastime for the country’s population.

The Estates stacks beckoned on the day of that fateful visit, empty of a single soul aside from myself. I’d chosen an aisle at random, turned to make it appear I was examining the books, and started to cry.

After that, it had become something of a ritual. I held myself together for my family, and at public events, and I let myself grieve in the forgotten stacks of the library, Estates section, row ‘H’.

Those who say time lessens grief are wrong. Time creates space. It gives you more moments around the grief, to cushion you a bit. But the grief is always there, and anything can trigger it. For years, section ‘H’ had been my refuge when I needed somewhere to be alone.

Only the past fall, before the ninety-eighth hour, I had been in town and seen a man that looked just like Father. Only a trick of the light, coupled with his distance down the road. No one else had those pink eyes. But grief does funny things to the senses. Less than a second of mistaken identity, and I sank into fresh grief.

I’d run into the library, desperate for my familiar stack. Most blessedly, thank both gods, that day a kindlier librarian had manned the desk.

October. My birthday. A day when everything changed for me, and probably why I’d been missing my father enough to see him in a stranger’s face.

Once I hit the stacks, I sank to my knees and began to cry. An act both absolutely unbecoming if someone had found me, and an impressive feat of maneuvering. Corsets and dresses aren’t made for sitting on the floor.

Even so, I managed. While trying to use the shelves to hoist myself back up to a standing position, I grabbed hold of some books.

A few tumbled out, including the blue diary I held in my hands at present.

The Estates section housed exactly what the name suggested: publicly available information pertaining to various estates. It wasn’t often visited, because you could just as easily obtain the information, if you were a man, through business transactions, meetings, and your own familial records. In my case, though, the library was my only means. But the diary was not some boring set of ledgers on some nobleman’s finances.

Last October, I’d put the other books neatly back on the shelf, but the blue-bound journal caught my attention. I leafed through it on a whim.

Per the first page, it had belonged to an R. Holmes. It must have ended up in the library along with other estate papers upon his death.

And it was the death that intrigued me.

Everyone in my region of Emrys had heard of the Holmes family. They had been the most powerful dukes of Emrys, going back as far as anyone could remember. They were still one of the most prominent families in the realm, although a shadow had fallen over them nearly a hundred years prior.