Page 100 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

Chapter Twenty-Seven

On the thirteenth and last day of the Revels, Pippa woke with a start.

Cornelius Yarrow had been more helpful than she had previously thought. There might be nothing in the Red Grimoire, but he had said something that she had not paid close enough attention to at the time.

That book likes to hide.

Never mind curses and Fae politics and spells to steal wishes. The Red Grimoire was the last of its kind because the others had been destroyed by order of the Fae courts.

But Pippa knew Librarians.

Lachlan was braced against the windowsill, staring into the ever-encroaching mists. “Lachlan?” she said, hastily braiding her hair as she searched for her shoes.

He turned his head toward her. “Yes, love?”

“Is there a central Fae library? Like the witch Library in Hallow?”

“Aye.”

She tugged his hand, and the mists tried to wrap around her. He growled and they subsided, but only barely. He looked exhausted, drained. He was disappearing right in front of her. She tugged on his hand again, anchoring him. “Take me there. Now.”

As it turned out, there were several Fae libraries. The most extensive were the Winter Library and the Summer Library. Never mind the Revels, the masquerades, even the grotto.

This was true magic.

Pippa had never seen anything like it. She had never even heard of such a thing. She did not understand how it had not been mentioned in any of her training, the lectures she had attended, the books she had read. How had they kept this place secret?

“Mortals are not allowed inside,” Lachlan said.

Disappointment flooded through her. She would have happily committed several crimes to get inside. Some of them rather violent. And what might she sacrifice to be allowed inside? A foot? An organ she was not particularly attached to? Three years of dreams?

She was already sorting through the spells she had been taught to break bindings and hexes on books, to release chains, to open portals, shatter locks. There was one that might work. If she was careful.

Very careful.

“Luckily, you are not a mere mortal,” Lachlan added, watching her, amused.

She frowned, still running through her options. “I’m not?”

“You’re a Fae queen, remember?”

“Oh, right. That.”

“Yes, that.” He chuckled. “So disinterested. Did you know a nymph once stabbed her sister right in front of me and then offered me her head for the right to court me?”

“I have never found decapitation to be particularly romantic.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sounds messy.”

A pause, a choked laugh.

“I do love you, wisp.”

It was Pippa’s turn to pause. It took her a long moment to realize what he had said.

He waited, all of that intensity trained on her, those eerie eyes, that soft tilt to his mouth that was only ever offered to her. Pippa’s fire flickered through her, joyful. Her moth lifted into the air, shining brightly.

Lachlan Thorn, professor and king, loved her.

Her.