Page 6 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

He had vanished before offering any explanation whatsoever, both for his nakedness and the fact that she had caught him mid-theft.

Professor Thorn’s return might have everyone at the University whispering over their mulled wine in the time it took for her to relocate a wayward owl, but it hardly made a difference to Pippa. Her solstice would not change because of one Professor Thorn.

No one knew where he had gone. It was nothing to the Librarians. To Pippa. His safety was none of their business. And everyone knew Fae lords could look after themselves. They vanished all of the time, stepping sideways into Elphame.

But the book he had taken with him was theirs.

Every book in the vast Library of Hallow belonged to them. It was blood and bone, lungs and ligaments. Breath. Everything.

Books did go missing from time to time. Spells faded or woke with a vengeance. Or else they were misplaced by visitors, tossed into the sea by an angry student. Stolen by a professor more than once, though never by a Fae king.

No one believed that Professor Thorn had stolen from the Library, and no one would dare accuse him without considerable proof, certainly more considerable than the word of a Librarian with no family connections to speak of. Never mind his Fae lineage; Lachlan was a tenured professor, which held even more weight in Hallow. The only weight, really. There was a conservatory built in his grandmother’s name, a renowned professor of Medieval Literature. And a marble statue of his great-grandfather, a celebrated poet, in the blackthorn hedges.

Pippa had a drafty room in the apprentice buildings, a bewitched bracelet of questionable repute, and recurring fevers (which were getting worse) from fighting her own magic.

And a book gone missing right under her nose.

Naturally, Mrs. Pettigrew blamed Pippa when it had gone missing. But in this case, Pippa accepted the blame. Well, if not the blame, then at least the association. It had happened right under her nose. And she had had to relive it over and over as the Council of Librarians and the dean of the university questioned her for days over every little detail.

The Red Grimoire was a collection of Fae spells and had been in the Library’s possession for some decades. And she might not have known where to find Professor Thorn, but she ought to have been able to find a bloody book. She had once found a palm-sized grimoire no one knew even existed inside a goblin’s mouth. It had been about to tear it into pieces for a nest. Pippa had offered it silver-shot wrapping paper and that was that. No one was bitten, no book was harmed.

And now the professor was back.

Without the missing book.

Pippa would have known if it was back, too. She would have felt it. She had worked spells enough as a Librarian to manage that, even after a night of fevers. A book was no less alive than a cat or a mermaid. Or an owl.

And potentially a great deal more dangerous.

She had written the title on the bottoms of her feet with bewitched ink, but it had only led her in circles.

People gave the professor the kind of wide berth usually reserved for an escaped hellhound. Add to that the natural wariness most of witchdom felt for the Fae and she was surprised there was not an entire chapel dedicated to him, a collection of rare scrolls in his name, all in time to welcome him back.

Even though he had been in the wrong.

Mrs. Pettigrew had already forbidden her from mentioning the damaged floorboards or the grimoire to him. It was the business of a Head Librarian. Apparently, Pippa was no match for Professor Thorn. He was ruthless, clever, and far more powerful than her. Fae lords could control the weather, animals, portals between worlds. Pippa could barely control her own magic.

But finding a book was her duty. Her entire raison d’être.

And it was frankly embarrassing that she had not found it yet. It ought to have taken her less than half an hour.

But…nothing.

Luckily, she enjoyed a challenge.

And her pride, she had to admit, would not admit defeat when it came to Professor Thorn.

Nor would her curiosity.

Which was surely the only reason she was risking being late for her duties, just to see if he really had returned with the coming solstice sun. She needed to see with her own eyes that he was back, needed to ask him where the grimoire had gone to.

She had found very little information on the Red Grimoire in her research. Every time she tried, she was called away on some errand or another. She was starting to suspect some sort of misdirection spell but could not think why. Grimoires were very common in the Library.

Lachlan was less common. She had researched him as well. A Fae king who preferred books and the lecture hall to the Faery Halls. He was from the Owl Court, which made her even more suspicious of her new bird friends. But that made no sense either. Someone like her was not likely to catch his eye.

She might be simmering with vexation and several other emotions she did not care to parse over him, but she knew no one would be able to tell. They would see downcast eyes, a polite smile. She was as placid as a pond in summer. A cup of warm tea, a scone without the tartness of raspberry jam. She had crafted the image meticulously. It protected her. No one had to know how the fire burned under her skin. How she sometimes longed to let it free.

She had the Library, and it was enough. It was everything.