Page 174 of Harbinger

That’s what I’m afraid of.

Music and laughter spill toward us as we step out of my room and find Taliesin lounging at the base of the stairs. He’s dressed in a suit cut from deep purple wool, shot through with subtle silver thread that catches the light when he moves. He glances up as we start down, letting out a low whistle.

Vessica gives him the finger.

He only smirks and crooks his arm for her when she reaches the bottom. He offers his other arm to Shea, but she shakes her head, flushing deeply and muttering something about “the library.”

“We’ll find you in a moment,” I tell him, hooking my fingers around Shea’s elbow. As soon as we’re safely away, I shoot her a knowing look. “You have a thing for him.”

Shea sighs, but she doesn’t deny it. “He’s my superior.”

Enough said. I’m not about to press her after just being roasted for my own romantic entanglement.

But when we reach the library, Shea presses her palm against the door to stop me from opening it. “You know it’s okay, right?”

My first instinct is to disagree, even though I’m not sure what we’re talking about. “What’s okay?”

“To want Bishop back,” she says in a quiet voice. Not because anyone could possibly hear us.

She’s softening the blow.

Before I can tell her she’s wrong, she squeezes my arm once and nudges me forward. “Let’s make sure my brother hasn’t destroyed the library.”

“I think we’d have already heard about it if he did,” I say. Reassuring her is far easier than reassuring myself.

But when we walk inside, we both freeze. My brain stalls as it tries, and fails, to reconcile the scene in front of me.

Hadrian and Breccan sit shoulder to shoulder as the librarian explains something that sounds too complicated for me to understand, let alone a little boy. But Breccan is hanging on his every word like he’s some type of god.

And they’re both eating cookies.

In the library.

I stare for a second. “Well, all seven hells must have frozen over.”

Shea presses a hand to her mouth to muffle a laugh, but that just makes me laugh. Hadrian looks up sharply, crumbs on the corners of his mouth. He swallows, but only so he can frown. “We are in the middle of a lesson,” he informs us. “Someone wanted to learn the ancient tongue.”

“The party started,” I say. It’s harder to hear the commotion through the library’s thick walls.

But Hadrian waves us off without looking away from the book. “We’ll join later. When he’s finished the lesson.”

Breccan beams like he’s just been knighted.

“I told you,” I murmur to Shea as we slip into the hall. “Those two are a match made by the Stars.”

Relief relaxes her shoulders. “I owe you.”

I consider telling her that she can repay me by dropping the Bishop talk, but part of me doesn’t want her to. Part of me needs to be pushed.

Because that look on his face when I opened the door …

This is more complicated than keeping my distance. How am I supposed to do that when we live in the same house?

I’m no closer to an answer when we enter the party. The great room has been cleared of its usual furniture, the space transformed into something like a ballroom. The floor is open, musicians set up along one wall, the long banquet tables pushed back to make space for movement. Pine boughs and dark ribbons are woven across the hearth, candles flickering in the dark branches.

Fur-trimmed cloaks are slung over chair backs, their owners mingling in a blur of dark velvet and wool threaded with silver and starlight blue, even the occasional burst of gold, all catching the firelight from the hearth.

For the first time since Bishop brought me here, the house doesn’t feel haunted. It’s bursting with life.