Page 2

That narrow-faced librarian with a slick of pale hair who’d dismissed her, weeks ago, even more quickly than the others had when she’d approached them. He’d seemed more reserved than rude, or so she’d thought at the time, like he spent all his hours with books instead of people, and she could hardly fault him for that when she so often did the same. Still.

“Excuse me. I was hoping you could help me.” She’d kept her voice low, respectful of the library’s hushed atmosphere, and he’d blinked at her, like he hadn’t seen her coming until she’d spoken.

“Perhaps…” His eyes had skittered to the side, as if there might have been another librarian nearby that he could have foisted her upon.

She’d rushed on before he could slip away. “You see, I’d like”—her gaze had lifted to the ceiling, to secret rooms she’d never seen—“a moment in the archives, and—”

“There are procedures in place. Any requests for archival material should come in writing,” he’d said, already looking past her down the long hallway. The rook on his shoulder had watched her much more closely.

“I’ve written,” she’d told him, unused to confrontation but needing so much for him to listen.

“Have you.” More an acknowledgment than a question. “There now, Waxworth,” he’d said when the rook rustled his wings.

“Several times.” For months she’d petitioned for admittance into the archives, politely, desperately, to no avail. Yet she’d been certain her persistence would pay off in the end.

“Well.” He had almost sounded apologetic. “Then I’m sure it will be processed…”

“If you would—”

“… in due time.” He’d excused himself after that, striding briskly away.

Only now did she realize he’d never had any intention of helping her.

Fia fumed, imagining him sitting in some stuffy broom closet of an office, a mountain of books and unanswered letters stacked to the ceiling on his desk, and him crouched among them, cramped and cranky, writing her this note with such finality. Not caring what it meant to her.

She shoved the letter into the pocket of her skirt, staring blankly down Carrow Lane as lamplight spilled across the cobblestone roads onto all the little shop fronts: Sugarplum Sweets, Inkblots Stationerium, and the nameless café on the corner that served the most delicious cocoa this time of year, heaped with fat pumpkin marshmallows. But even if she drank a whole mug of the creamy hot chocolate now, she knew it wouldn’t warm her.

Fia scowled at the jagged crack in the window made by the rook. It split through the curlicued script for Sable Spells with all its swirling flourishes, designed and painted beautifully on the glass by her mother—who would never hold a paintbrush again.

Looking at the familiar letters left a terrible ache in Fia’s center, reminding her all over again of her mother’s missing spellbook with all those handwritten, heart-bled enchantments. She’d shared this loss in her letters requesting admittance to the archives, but Jasper Tremaine hadn’t been swayed.

Fia’s last hope had been dashed.

Blinking back tears before they could fall, her eye caught on a black feather that must have drifted down when the rook made its unruly delivery, and she bent, swiping the quill from the leaf-strewn stoop. Frustration quivered through her at the idea that the bird had access to a place she did not. The idea that she’d never walk through the archive’s gargoyle-guarded doors.

At least—she twirled the feather between her pale fingers, an idea forming—not by invitation.

Overnight, Fia tossed and turned, repeatedly feeling for the feather she’d tucked under her pillow and wondering if it might be her key into the archives—if, that is, she could first find a way past the librarians. It was all she thought about the next morning too; there was little else to do, as the spellshop remained dishearteningly quiet.

Her mother would have been so enormously disappointed in Fia for letting things fall apart. In appearance the shop looked no different, with its high-beamed ceiling and the worn fireplace and the myriad bottles and jars in their proper places, unchanged all these months since her mother’s sudden death. It smelled no different either, of books and warm fires and something sweet, the woodwork suffused with the scent of vanilla from all the candles they’d burned over the years.

The notable difference was the quiet.

Spellwriting was one thing; running the whole shop was something else entirely. Fia didn’t know how to stand in for Sable. To be someone people would trust. And how could she expect them to when she kept to herself so much? It didn’t help that she’d closed the shop for over a month, too sick with grief to open the doors and converse with anyone, let alone craft spells. Fia had thought, quite foolishly, that customers would return when she was ready. Not that she really felt ready even now.

As quick as she’d been to duck out of sight when she’d thought a customer had come after hours, Fia wished for one today. Even if it was the sings-to-herself Skye Blackwood, who stopped in frequently, usually without making a purchase or saying more than hello, or old Dermot Stone, who always said plenty, grumbling as he handed over his coins for payment.

Luck was with her—or it was laughing at her—because later that afternoon they both came by. Though they were the only ones.

Dermot Stone, an arborist who’d once lived in the wooded province of Silten, never seemed quite content with his place here in Trivoris, missing what he’d left behind. “There’s not enough green. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of trees?” he was known to complain, and if anyone pointed out the pretty oaks lining the streets of Wakesend or the maples in Lorelei Park or the Highdear apple orchard in Bramble, he’d only lift his lip disdainfully. Fia had never been to the Silten Woods, but apparently those majestic pines, centuries old, their highest branches lost in the clouds, were beyond compare.

And Dermot would argue the point with anyone who might say otherwise.

As contrary as he sometimes was, Fia’s mother had seemed almost fond of Dermot.

“He’s honest,” Sable had said of him more than once, sure in her assessment. “And I’d rather have the blunt truth from someone than false words. Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Fia had replied, because more than anything, she’d wanted her mother to share her secrets.