Page 11 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
But then, what he said, it made my heart race for an entirely different reason.
“Before we return, would you like to see the library?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The library.
I knew what the word was, knew what itmeant,but it was still awe the moment we stepped through the main doors.
I’d never haduse for a library before, but one swift movement reaching for the book closest to me, and my suspicions made me simultaneously feel like I could let out a shriek of excitement…all while also trying to hold back the need to cry.
I couldread it.
All of it.
Not just the crest on a fae’s long-forgotten pin. No. I could read all ofthis.An entire building full of knowledge, of answers, was suddenly at my very fingertips.
This wasexactlythe place I needed to be, I just hadn’t known it.
But, from the way Zev’s eyes sparkled when I was finally able to tear my eyes away from the book on the benefits of different dung beetle’s dungs for the cultivation of crops,heknew it.
For anyone else, the library would have been an obvious place to start in my position. But I’d never once thought about alibrary as a useful place, not when, up until I’d first encountered the written fae tongue, I realized I wasn’t nearly as illiterate as I thought.
Even now, I could read one human word.
It might be my own name, and no more, but it was something. It might not count for much, but it counted to me.
I was unable to keep the smile of excitement from spreading across my face as Zev beamed down at me to. He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, again, before leaning in slightly.
“You’re not a burden, Aurra,” he said, his words making that lump thicken at the back of my throat. “Serving you is an honor.”
He walked me further in, attempting to point out each different section of books and how they were organized, and though it was simple enough, I was already halfway lost by the time I felt his hand pulling away from mine.
“I’m going to go to the market. I will be back soon for you. Will you be alright until then?” he asks.
I had half a mind to ask him to stay, but then I thought better of it. Zev’s presence was reassuring. I was willing to admit to that. But right now, I didn’t need assurance, at least, not from him.
I needed to build an assurance of my own, and right now, that meantwithoutletting Zev or the master he severed find out what I was up to.
“Yes, of course,” I said, my response not sounding nearly as convincing as I’d hoped—but thankfully, Zev left without question. By the time he’d left the building, I was already tearing into the books around me like a starved man left alone at a banquet. I had a lifetime of knowledge to soak in, and I wanted it all. It was almost impossible to stop myself, to force myself to seek out the books that might actually be useful to me.Everythingwas interesting, everything from the history of Luxia to that first dungbeetle book I first picked up.
I could spend an eternity here feeding that gnawing hunger that had awakened in me, and it would never be satisfied…but I didn’t have an eternity.
Zev’s brief explanation for how the library was organized was long forgotten, but it wasn’t long before I’d figured it out myself. Or, I hadn’tthoughtit was long, but by the time I’d finally pried myself away from the dozens of random volumes I’d plucked along the way and found the shelves I was actually looking for, he’d found me again.
It was all he could do to pry me out of that library.
But there was nothing he could do to stop me from coming back.
The next few days I spent reading while Zev and finch kept watch over Shiel. They’d tried to take turns keeping me company, but Vestele had finally found her purpose. She’d discovered me in the library trying to look like I wasn’t hiding from her, when I was pretty obviously hiding from her. She was upset, at first, until I finally figured out a good use for her—fetching books.
Within a day she’d begun recommending different texts to me, helping me read as much information as possible. Together, we devour everything we can on the history of the fae here, on the glamour and the deal that these courts had made with it, on the courts themselves—everything from weather to politics.
There was no harm in sharing this with Vestele. It wasn’t as if there were books to read on deciphering oracles, or even on how to master that magic of the courts—or, at least, if there were, I’d yet to discover the part of the library that housed that kind of treasure.
Though, to me, every book was a treasure of its own. Vestele was surprisingly patient with me, acting as a kind of gentle teacher as I learned the sort of things fae children learned longbefore they were my age. After two days of almost living in the library, Finch finally came to find me.
I’d grown so used to simply existing in this faerie court that I didn’t even notice the sound of his footsteps approaching until he was already standing over me, his eyes crinkling up at the corner as he read the title of the book of children’s stories I’d been reading.
