Page 9 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

Pippa laughed. “It’s not, actually.”

“It is now. If you don’t have cake, I’ll tell Aesop you didn’t like his frosting. Do you want a melancholic minotaur on your conscience?”

“You are terrible.”

“I am efficient.”

Pippa accepted the cake because she liked cake and she liked minotaurs. And she loved her friends. “You will tell Aesop this is the best frosting I have ever tasted,” she said.

“Of course I will. I’m not a monster.”

Briar rolled her eyes. “Are you sure you won’t come to Holdfast tonight?” she asked Pippa. “I know it’s the other end of the island and not as festive, but you would be more than welcome.”

“Or you could come to Nettlesome Hall,” added Sorcha. “Apparently the Lycan have some kind of solstice tradition involving whiskey and running barefoot in the snow.”

Both Briar and Sorcha had married, and this was their first solstice celebration with their new husbands. Pippa did not want to intrude. They were making new memories, and as she had been an orphaned spinster with no family connections for most of her life, she was quite accustomed to it. No need to get maudlin over it. She happened to like her life.

And raspberry cake.

“I really can’t,” she said. “I took another shift overnight so those with families could stay at home.”

“You have a family,” Sorcha insisted. “Briar, tell her.”

“It’s us,” Briar agreed. “Don’t make me doctor your tea.”

“I love the Library at night.”

“You love it all the hours of the day or night. Which is why I am impressed you managed to get a sunburn on your nose,” Sorcha said. “The weather’s been wet and dreary for days. I swear I saw fish swimming down the gutters before they froze entirely.”

Pippa did not tell them that she had burned with fever all the night long, fighting her own magic. It was happening too frequently. Even her moth familiar was wan today, perched on her hair like a glowing hairpin.

And she might wake up drenched in sweat, with burns on her wrists, but at least she was not Argyle. He hurried between the stacks toward them. He was pale and lean and remarkably strong, most likely from shelving heavy books, but Pippa privately thought it was from working so closely with Mrs. Pettigrew. If one did not have a hardy constitution, one would need to develop it posthaste. He always looked as though he had just finished weeping or was just about to start. His witch familiar was a ferret, currently draped around his neck and snoring. “Miss Cavendish.”

“Good evening, Argyle. Happy solstice.”

“Mrs. Pettigrew would like you to clean the apothecary work tables. Tonight.”

Unsurprisingly, it was a task that was generally delegated to first-year apprentices needing to prove their mettle. Pine resins and tinctures and the glue used to repair book covers did not lift easily, no matter how much salt or elbow grease one used. Or magic.

The lower levels, too damp for old books, even when protected by magic, served as apothecaries of a kind. Cabinets and shelves and boxes and bottles filled with every imaginable ingredient a Librarian might need. There were feathers of owl, eagle, cardinal, and white dove, cut down into quills. There were pencils whittled from oak and ash and rowan tree. Inks distilled from teas, barks, berries.

Pippa felt safest down in the cold and damp, where her fire could not catch a stray bit of paper. Where embers choked and the hearths smoked, struggling to keep the flames burning.

She did not mind the tasks that sent her there, even though she had already proven her mettle time and time again. It was not enough, not for Mrs. Pettigrew, whose favorite apron Pippa had accidentally set on fire.

Once.

While she was wearing it.

On Pippa’s first day, naturally.

Some disasters were entirely too predictable, even without the aid of a soothsayer.

Pippa stifled a sigh. “Of course, Argyle. I’ll see to it.”

He smiled sympathetically. Well, he tried. He did not smile easily. The very attempt seemed to make him uncomfortable. “Straightaway, I’m afraid.”

Sorcha made a sound of protest. Briar elbowed her.