Page 77 of My Faire Lady

I lean closer, my hair a curtain around my face as she marks two interconnected circles, speared through the middle with a sharp line.

“Twin flame?” I whisper.

She nods. “It symbolizes unconditional love. People who are mirrors of each other, in the most perfect, selfless sense.” Her teeth drag over her bottom lip as she concentrates. “Twin flames are two halves of the same soul, and when the rune is traced onto another, it binds the two for life.”

Her magic lingers beneath my skin, sweeping out with each of my exhales. And as I inhale, I pinpoint that nameless scent that follows her around wherever she goes, the one that smells like wind and air and trees just before winter hits.

It’s magic.

She’s magic.

“Did you just mark me with that rune? A twin flame?”

She shakes her head. “Not exactly. It doesn’t work if my magic is inside you—a safeguard of sorts, so witches can’t manipulate someone into agreeing to something so permanent.”

“But would you ever?” I whisper. “Mark someone with a twin flame?”

The words are hesitant and careful, and I hold my breath as her finger continues its path.

She looks up at me through her lashes.

The firelight dances across the side of her face, her hair nearly as vibrant as the blood coating her finger to the knuckle. “I’m not sure binding someone to yourself is really love.”

I suck in a cheek. “Then what is?”

The blood begins to dry on the scroll, but her finger traces the shape over and over again. “Love shouldn’t be owned or bound by arbitrary chains. It’s given freely, with the trust that whoever you give it to will nurture it—water the soil so flowers will bloom. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in twin flames and unconditional love.” She shrugs. “But I’ve seen how magic can wane. I don’t want love like that.”

I open my mouth, but before the words come out, a blinding light flares from the scroll.

It fades, and Scarlet’s lips part as she scans the page. A furrow pulls her brows together.

“Did it work?” I breathe.

She nods, and her throat bobs on a swallow. “It worked, but it’s not what we thought.”

I stand and circle to the back of her chair, peering over her shoulder. But all I find are the symbols. “I can’t see the translation. What does it say?”

Sighing, she sets the scroll on the table. “It says ‘Go back to where everything began. It has been a lie since the very beginning.’”

“What does it mean?”

She buries her head in her hands. “I have no idea.”

27

“What do you think it’s talking about?” Boden says.

I slide the skeleton key into the library door. “She said I have to go back to the beginning, like it’s a physical place. But the beginning of what? And what’s this lie she’s talking about?”

Blowing out a breath, I follow the worn path toward my living quarters. It’s been an entire day since Lottie and I transcribed the scroll—another day of coming up empty.

“Not to mention, it could have nothing to do with saving the magic,” I add.

Boden keeps pace and shakes his head. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

I chew on my lip, and sleep clings to the edges of my vision, but every step I take closer to Lottie unravels the tight knot it my chest. I haven’t seen her since this morning, when she went to the shoppe to finish up the gown, and I holed up in the library. I’ve turned through every possibility, everything from my dad not being my biological father, to there being an entire coven of Murrell witches in the world I’m unaware of.

It’s always a dead end.