Annie giggled, covering her mouth with her gloved fingers. “You’re funny. I bet you know a lot of stories. Uncle Gavin tells me stories all the time.”
“He does? Like what?”
Annie rubbed her fingers over her chin. “There’s one about a magical lamp in an underground garden. That’s one of my favorites. Do you know it?”
My hands stilled as the lock clicked open. The memory surfaced again: me holding Gavin’s compass, charting the stars to our next destination.
“I do know it. I told your uncle that story. Let me ask, what would you wish for?”
Annie didn’t hesitate. “Endless wishes, of course.”
I laughed as I pushed open the double doors. “That’s what I said, too. But your uncle didn’t like my answer.”
Morning sunlight streamed in through the large, ornately framed windows. I stepped forward, then stopped. My breath stuttered as the laugh died in my throat. What had once been a near-empty ballroom was now a well-furnished library.
A giant carpet, thick and luxurious, spilled across the floor, sitting beneath velvet brocade chairs. The cushions were plush and inviting, with matching ottomans to hold your feet.
The hand-carved bookshelves, stained a deep mahogany color, ran floor-to-ceiling, many of them were still empty, but a few were filled with books. I drifted toward one of the shelves, each step weightless as if I were walking in a strange dream. My fingers skimmed the spines, the leather-bound covers cool to my touch.
Adventure novels.
Tales of pirates, explorers, and adventurers. Magical quests. My throat ached, and the air trapped in my chest had started to burn.
Along the wall and facing a window overlooking the cliffs stood a writing desk. Stacked on top were empty notebooks.Pots of ink and a box full of quills sat next to a crystal jar filled to the brim with sea glass.
All of it waiting.
Gavin’s voice tumbled into my mind.
Marin Nichols—author. I like the sound of that.
This library was exactly the way I’d described it three years ago on a rope bridge crossing a deep cavern on the hunt for Incantus.
My numb fingers curled against my chest, pressing hard as if they could keep the flood of emotions trapped inside. But it wasn’t possible. They spilled through me like a wave filling a tidepool. My vision blurred. I reached blindly for the desk, bracing myself against it.
Annie twirled in a circle of sunlight. “Uncle Gavin calls this room his Library—of the Sea.”
“What?” My voice was hoarse. A soft scrape asking a question I already knew the answer to.
Of the sea.
The origins of my name.
Gavin had built my library. He'd built it knowing I’d never see it. Not as a weapon. Not out of guilt.
The guilty don’t give refuge to someone’s dreams. They try to forget they ever existed.
Gavin could have dragged me here, thrown it in my face as proof. But he didn’t.
I swallowed hard. The room was quiet, but it spoke to me. Loud enough to crest the wall I’d reinforced inside my chest and echo over it.
This wasn’t a game.
Cass was right. I haven’t been paying attention.
“We should go before we get caught,” I said, needing spaceand time to process what this room meant. Why this quest suddenly felt like more than just saving something. More than righting a past mistake. Like I might be able to claim my future.
Annie nodded and reached for my hand, slipping her gloved fingers through mine.
