The two young girls slammed into Beatrice’s legs, and she leaned down to hug them to her, careful not to squash the bookwyrm stashed in her pocket. “Good morning, Addy, Morgan. What are we having for breakfast?”
“Toast!” Addy grinned, her mouth rimmed with bread crumbs.
“Jam!” Morgan waved her sticky fingers.
“I see that.” Beatrice extricated herself, checked that her dress hadn’t gotten stained, and nudged the girls back toward their chairs as she took her own seat beside Meg. She reached for the last of the pink toast and bright purple jam.
“Good morning.” Meg smiled at Beatrice as she swiped a line of drool and mushed vegetable off Becca’s chin. “Just our normal chaos.”
“I don’t mind.” Beatrice forced a smile. And she didn’t. Not really.
But she was eighteen now, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that, while her sister and brother-in-law didn’t mind having her there or the extra pair of hands, she was still in the way. The final sibling who hadn’t yet moved out to give Basil and Meg the privacy they should have to focus on their growing family.
A little over eight years ago, Basil had married Meg and taken in Beatrice and her other siblings, saving them from indentured servitude and changing all of their lives forever. Brigid had married a human forester, Munch, several years ago while both Sebastian and Viola had found their matches on the Island of Melyria. Sebastian had gotten married months ago, and Beatrice fully expected Viola to announce her own marriage soon, now that the Courts of Revels and Knowledge had declared a truce.
That left only Beatrice still awkwardly staying with Basil and Meg. It had been a little better for those months when Meg, the girls, and Beatrice had stayed on Melyria to keep them safe during the height of the fighting.
But now that they’d all returned, Beatrice chafed at being underfoot, although she tried to hide it. It was time that she, too, found her permanent place here in the Fae Realm.
If she became an assistant librarian, she would qualify for a House of her own. She would have her own status in the Court apart from Basil and finally navigate this realm on her own merits. No one would be able to uproot her from her home ever again.
After hurrying through eating her own breakfast, Beatrice helped Basil and Meg wrangle the girls, getting them cleaned up after breakfast and ready for spending time with Buddy.
Once the girls were happily ensconced in the main room of the House with the talking pony, Basil opened the Anywhere Door, and they trooped directly from the House into the grand, white-marbled hall that connected the Great Library and King Theseus’s castle.
Anywhere Doors lined the hall, each one set between pillars shaped like massive trees. These Doors connected to other Anywhere Doors all throughout the Fae Realm, providing access to the Great Library for everyone from the monarch of a court to the lowliest goblin.
At least, they had until the war.
Other librarians poured into the hall from the Anywhere Doors, coming from their homes and the various outpost libraries to be there for the king’s announcement.
“Basil! Meg! Beatrice!” Viola waved from a spot in the line waiting to pass the swordmaidens guarding the double doors into the Library.
Ignoring the slightly annoyed looks she received from the others in line, Beatrice joined her sister, followed by Basil and Meg. She exchanged a hug with Viola, then a side hug with her brother Sebastian. “How are Favian and Olivia?”
“Olivia is well. Glad to finally be past the nausea stage.” Sebastian beamed with that proud father-to-be smile that Beatrice was learning to recognize rather well.
“And Favian, well—” Viola, too, beamed as she held out her wrist, showing off the gold line now seemingly a part of her skin. The sign of a fae marriage binding.
Beatrice squealed and hugged her sister again. “I’m so happy for the two of you!”
Meg hugged Viola once Beatrice finished, repeating the congratulations. “You’ll have to come for supper tonight before you return to Melyria so we can celebrate.”
“I’d like that. I need to see the nieces before we leave anyway.” Viola grinned, and she and Meg started a conversation on the girls’ latest antics.
The line moved forward quickly and soon Beatrice and her family passed the guarding swordmaidens and entered the Great Library.
The Library’s Tree dominated the center atrium, its broad branches and huge leaves reaching for the domed skylight in the ceiling. Shelves of books wound in meandering paths away from the Tree, complete with more twigs, moss, and even the occasional flower growing from the wooden shelves or sides. Bookwyrms, in a variety of glittering jewel colors, slithered between the shelves, hunting down any pests that might get into the Library.
Beatrice reached into her pocket as surreptitiously as she could, picked up the red bookwyrm, and set it on a shelf as she passed, whispering, “There you go, Rosso.”
The bookwyrm flicked its tongue before it disappeared into the shadows of the shelves, accompanied by the faint scratching of its scales on wood.
Librarians in their gray, green, or black coats gathered alongside fae nobles of the court and even a few swordmaidens beneath the spreading branches of the Great Tree. It was the largest crowd Beatrice had seen in the Great Library since King Theseus had announced the war with the Court of Revels.
As they neared, Beatrice’s other sister Brigid waved them over to a spot on the outskirts of the huge gathering. The bright red dress she wore draped over her form, doing nothing to hide the large bump of her growing child. His gaze wary as he searched the crowd, her husband Munch leaned against abookshelf in the shadows beside her, his bow on his back and the quiver on his hip well-stocked with arrows.
He had reason to be wary, after all. Brigid was the infamous Wild Fae Primrose, although only a handful of people knew the truth. One of that handful, Brigid’s nemesis Lord Chauvlyn, had just been returned to the Court of Revels that morning, thanks to the prisoner exchange, and who knew what he’d try next. Given how heavily pregnant Brigid was, she wasn’t at her most spry at the moment.
