I spun around in a daze, my pulse spiking, hand darting to the edge of my skirt where a dagger should be but wasn’t.
“Easy,” came the voice, calm and warm. “It’s just me, Princess.”
Dorian stepped into view, the glint of his many rings catching the low torchlight. His tunic shimmered faintly beneath his long coat, its embroidered cuffs undone, his hair pulled back as always.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, lifting both hands as if to show he meant no harm. “But you looked like a ghost chasing its own shadow. I was afraid you’d walk straight into a wall.”
I tried to give a polite smile, but it felt wrong on my face.
“I needed air,” I breathed.
“You chose the one hallway without it,” he replied with a soft snort. “The archive wing. No one comes down here unless they’re hiding something or hoping to be forgotten.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, unsettled. “Are you following me?”
“No,” he said easily. “But I’ve learned to pay attention when someone looks like they’re about to splinter.”
He paused, glancing both ways down the hall before lowering his voice.
“And you, Princess, are terrible at pretending.”
I swallowed, a dry, deliberate act that seemed only to tighten the raw, aching muscles of my throat. The memory of Kaelen’s hand still lingered, phantom-heavy on my leg. His voice had followed me like a rot.
Dorian stepped closer. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you’re in danger.”
My breath hitched. “Why are you telling me this?”
He reached into his coat, fingers slipping between layers of silk and gold chain, and pulled out a folded piece of parchment.
“No seal. No proof,” he said. “But something that shouldn’t exist anymore. I found it filed among export records in the new tower. Misplaced or poorly hidden. It didn’t belong there.”
I took the page with trembling fingers.
Dorian met my gaze. “If you really want answers, there’s a room near the end of this hall. Smells like candle flame and secrets. The older archivists used to call it the Deep Shelf.”
“What’s in it?”
“Things no one wanted remembered,” he said. “Letters. Logs. Drafts that never made it into the official record. Things meant to be burned.”
I stared down at the paper in my hands, unable to open it. My fingers were shaking too hard.
“Why are you helping me?” I whispered.
Dorian tilted his head. “Because not everyone who smiles at Kaelen means it. And because you deserve to see the shape of the knife before it’s at your throat.”
He offered a bow, more profound than expected, and then turned without waiting for a response.
I stood there until his footsteps vanished.
Then I walked.
The hallway led to a thick wooden door, slightly swollen from age. The rusted hinge resisted before giving way with asoft groan. Inside, the air turned to a mixture of moth dust and mildew. The room wasn’t large, but its shelves were deep, packed to the back with scrolls and ledgers, many of which had remained untouched for decades.
It smelled of damp paper and things long buried.
I moved slowly, guided only by a single flickering candle wedged into a wall sconce. Shadows stretched across the floor like spilled ink. I followed a narrow path between shelves until I found a low cabinet behind a warped screen. Something about it felt out of place. Its wood looked newer than the others. Someone had broken the lock recently.
A knot tightened in my gut.
