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OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Hallie dove into the library with renewed vigor. But so far, all she’d come up with was dead ends.
Except for the stones in the forest.
A couple days before her deadline, Nathan left her alone in the library. That morning he seemed distant, sad even, and after letting her into the library, he disappeared, leaving her alone again. And Vesque was nowhere to be seen, also leaving the human to her own devices.
The sky was overcast, so the demesne had been gray and dim when she and Wyn awoke. There was the earthy, damp scent of rain on the air, promising the sun would stay away a while longer.
Wyn stepped into the library, burdened by a tray heavy with tea, sandwiches, and fruit. Hallie just barely saw Nathan’s form disappearing again.
Wyn set the tray on the table. “Any progress?”
Despite their tension, somehow Wyn still hadn’t abandoned her, and Hallie’s heart ached. She was such a terrible friend while Wyn was always there for her, no matter how badly she treated her. No matter how much she screwed up.
Hallie sighed, stepping away from the shelf she had been staring at absently, and began pouring tea for them. “Is it really lunch already?”
Wyn nodded. “I’ll take that as a no, then. We’re running out of time to get you out of here.”
Butterflies—or maybe pixies—fluttered in Hallie’s stomach. She was starting to believe she’d never figure out his identity. She glanced at the real pixies floating around the room. Perhaps this would become her new home.
Would the Fae continue this hospitality if she were a permanent resident?
Hallie and Wyn sat across from each other munching watercress and egg sandwiches and sipping lavender honey tea. Neither one felt much like chatting, and there was no new information to discuss.
A pixie settled on Hallie’s shoulder, the same one from the night she found the stones in the forest, and Hallie offered her a small, sad smile. Hallie pinched off a corner of her sandwich and handed it to the pixie, who smiled brightly and flitted away with it clutched between her tiny hands.
But instead of settling somewhere to eat her lunch, the pixie went to a shelf Hallie had not yet explored, hovering next to a set of three figurines. She fluttered back and forth, her bright yellow light illuminating the shelf and making the shadows dance as she flew.
Hallie watched and took another bite of her sandwich. What was she up to?
The pixie flitted back to her, tapped her cheek, and fluttered back to the shelf again.
“What’s with her?” Hallie asked.
Wyn’s doe-brown eyes were wide, filled with the sparkling sunshine of the pixie. “I think she wants to show you something.”
Hallie’s heart lurched. “Wouldn’t that be helping me?”
The pixie held a tiny finger up to her rosebud lips and smiled.
“I don’t think she cares,” Wyn said. “Besides, the pixies...they’re not really part of the Spring Court. No one can really control a pixie.”
Hallie and Wyn crossed the mossy floor, lunches dangling forgotten from their fingers. Once they reached the shelf, the pixie flitted to the top and settled into the ivy. She took a bite of the sandwich, tilting her head sideways since the pinch of bread and egg was nearly as tall as her head.
Hallie glanced at Wyn, then they each started at one end of the shelf, examining everything it held. Wyn pulled out each book one by one, ruffling the pages, checking the titles. Hallie picked up each knick-knack, starting with the tiny crystals and shells. Behind those, the three figures stood together, a man and woman along with a child, all Fae.
Hallie leaned closer. The child’s features seemed familiar. The tilt of the ears, the line of the jaw.
It was him. Nathan.
The larger male was behind him, like an older version of Nathan. His father? And the woman next to his father—his mother?—had a tiny ring on her finger that matched the one Hallie wore, the one Nathan had carried on a chain around his neck, along with the ring that matched his father’s.
Hallie reached for the figure, but as soon as her fingers touched it, it disappeared, replaced with a chunk of gray granite.
She gasped and jumped back. “What just happened?”
Wyn shoved a book back on the shelf and looked at the granite. “Oh, a glamour! Someone put a spell on the rock to display those people.”
“So where did it go?”
“You disrupted it by touching it. It will be back after the moon comes out.”
Hallie reached for the granite, picking it up and examining it. It seemed like just a typical hunk of rock.
Something behind the shelf clicked, and then the entire bookcase was swinging back on invisible hinges.
And then they stood in the doorway to a hidden room. Another room with a single table holding one stack of books.
Had Nathan hidden these from her? The jerk!
Hallie stormed into the room, grabbing at the stack.
“A History of the Spring Court. The War of Seasons,” Hallie read. She caught her breath at the last one. “Resurrection and Rebirth.”
Wyn, who had stopped just behind her, froze, and Hallie barely even heard her breath.
“Wyn, what is this?” Hallie breathed. Her heart was pounding like she’d just run ten miles, and she could feel anger flooding her. “How much has he been hiding from me?”
Wyn rolled her eyes. “Hal, he’s probably hiding this from everyone. Not just you.”
Hallie shrugged. “Still. What is it?”
“Maybe a secret study?”
“But his whole library is secret.”
Wyn propped a hand on her hip. “I don’t know, Hal. But you should take the opportunity to look around before we get kicked out!”
Of course Wyn was right. If it really was secret, there was no way Nathan would just leave them here. As soon as he realized they’d found this room, he’d probably kick them out and put some sort of glamour or spell blocking the entrance.
Hallie sat down at the table and slid the first book toward her. If she was going to get kicked out, she had to start with the resurrection book.
She opened to the first page, and with each word she read, her heart began pounding harder and her excitement grew.
Resurrection was real. And only the members of the Spring Court’s royal family could perform it. Had Nathan had this power all along?
She thought back to his comments about how Hallie needed to understand the cost of magic. Was it about this?
Wyn, who had grabbed the book on the War of Seasons, suddenly sat back and let out a breath. “Wow.”
Hallie looked up. “What?”
“Today’s the anniversary of the end of the War of Courts. How could I have forgotten that?” Wyn rubbed a hand over her face. “I shouldn’t stay away so long.”
Hallie’s heart lurched, but she chose to ignore that comment. “So? Why is everyone acting so glum, then?”
“You don’t understand. The war ended because the Spring Court’s queen was killed. And they surrendered to every single other Court.”
“Oh,” Hallie said. “Wow.”
And that explained why everyone seemed so melancholy today. No matter how long ago it had happened, they must have really loved their queen.
Did she have any children? Sisters? Brothers? Was she married?
On an impulse, even though she had no context for anyone in the Spring Court, Hallie grabbed the genealogy book. She looked through the index and paged to the War of Courts.
And right there, the queen’s obituary, nearly two hundred years ago.
She left a husband, the king, and a young son, the prince Arion, barely out of diapers.
Where was the prince now? How had he fared without a mother? Hallie couldn’t imagine not having her mom to call whenever she wanted, to visit for a hug or a good meal.
And at the same time, though she could never claim to understand the loss of a mother, she thought of Kat and knew a small frisson of that grief.
Wyn’s words came back to her again, bouncing around her thoughts and reminding her how she’d neglected the people still here, the people who loved her. She had allowed the loss of Kat to destroy her relationships.
Hallie closed the book and looked up at Wyn. How much had Wyn suffered? First from Kat’s death, then from Hallie’s distancing?
Hallie could fix it all, she knew she could. Like it never happened.
She needed to find a royal. And perhaps she already knew one.
***
NATHAN NEVER RETURNED to the library.
After Wyn and Hallie had finished looking through the books, gleaning as much information as possible from their pages, they closed up the secret room as if they’d never been inside and headed for dinner.
But Hallie could barely sit still for that long. Her mind was running frantic circles, filled with all the new information. Maybe she could find Arion, connect to him somehow, convince him to help her resurrect Kat. They shared grief; maybe he would be sympathetic.
Unfortunately, there was little evidence in the book about Arion, other than his parentage.
But there was one place Hallie might find a few clues. One place with a name she knew and history she could learn.
She returned to the demesne with Wyn after dinner, but since it was already so late, Wyn went directly to bed.
Perfect.
Hallie climbed into bed at the same time, listening to the rain pattering on the leaves overhead as she feigned sleep. She waited until her friend’s breathing grew slow and steady, then crept out of her own bed. She threw on clothes and a jacket to ward off the chill and damp, then slunk from the room.
Hallie kept her steps to the soft moss lining the path through the trees, hoping it would silence her approach enough for even Fae ears. She hastened past the demesnes, out to the meadow path she had followed with the pixies.
They didn’t accompany her tonight, and she felt more alone than ever. The drops of rain fell on her cold skin, but she could barely feel them through the numbness.
She was just approaching the top of the rise when she caught another sound, muffled by the rain.
Crying.
She diverted off the lavender path and darted for the birch tree line, following it to the ancient forest and its stones. She could still hear soft sobbing, but she was close now, so close that she feared taking the final steps around the tree trunks. Instead, she braced herself against the wet, rough bark, barely feeling the bite through her numb fingers, and leaned around its girth.
Someone knelt in the soft loam before a slab of granite no taller than her knee. Around the stone, bright blue flowers, their blooms drooping like sad bells, glowed in the overcast mist, casting their pale light around the glen. They poked their heads through the moss growing over the marker, and the small pond glimmered behind it, its surface rippling with the falling rain. The sobbing came from the figure before the stone, and Hallie sucked in a breath.
Not just sobbing. Talking.
“I never wanted this,” came his voice, conversational as if someone sat just on the other side of the stone, his voice thick with tears.
It was Nathan. The Fae who held her bargain. Who wanted to take her knowledge of what they could do. Who wanted to keep her from restoring Kat to them.
The Fae who might just hold the secret to bringing Kat back.
But as her eyes fell on his hunched shoulders, his knees in the mud where he knelt, something else stabbed her heart. Sympathy. Empathy.
This was a memorial. And not like the large memorial with the statue. No, this had to be a grave marker.
And then the pelting rain and the damp and cold faded, and her memory took her back to a similar place, the center of a cemetery.
It was raining then, too.
***
TWO YEARS AGO
Hallie adjusted her sunglasses, discreetly swiping tears from her eyes.
That was one thing about funerals. Even when it was raining, no one questioned the people who wore sunglasses. It was like a badge of mourning. Proof of pain. A shield from prying eyes and questions.
The service had been small, short. Less than Kat deserved.
She should have said more. This never should have happened in the first place.
She wrung a tissue in her hands, shredding it to pieces as the pastor said the final words at the graveside. She barely heard him. Her mind replayed their last moments together, those final minutes before the other car had slammed into them.
She had been so angry. And so had Kat.
A hand alighted on Hallie’s shoulder, soft as a butterfly. She looked up to see Wyn, her antlers arrayed in black and white ribbons of mourning, her chunky sunglasses perched on her deer-like nose. She looped her arm through Hallie’s, but Hallie stood numb, unable to respond, unable to reciprocate the comfort.
If it hadn’t been for Hallie, none of this would have happened.
And she couldn’t even tell Wyn. Wyn would be furious. How many times had she told her how dangerous the Fae were, even though she was one of them? Yet Kat had kept Hallie’s desire secret right up until the end.
Until it killed her.
***
PRESENT
“What are you doing here?”
