Page 59 of Revenant

“In the bathroom earlier I overheard some girls talking,” she says. “They said Lacey’s been missing since the bonfire. Her friend Naomi didn’t seem concerned, but that night…it doesn’t sit right with me.”

My jaw tightens before I can stop it.

“I remember a girl screaming,” she adds quietly. “Pryce said it was just some stupid prank, but I don’t feel like that’s the entire story. Or even the story at all.”

I exhale slowly through my nose. “So…what’s the question?”

Her steps falter beside me. “Did something happen to her at the bonfire?”

I consider my words carefully before answering. Eryx would be livid if I told her too much, but we’ve all seen her reaction to being lied to.

“The screams you heard?” I continue, keeping my voice level. “That was indeed Lacey. Bastian fed on her in the woods.”

Alicent is silent for a moment, absorbing the reality of it.

“Is she—?”

“No. Well, not that we’re aware of. We’ve been trying to locate her. Unfortunately for us, we’ve suspected her coven has some less than ideal connections. She escaped before we could contain the situation.”

She nods her head slowly, but I can sense the subtle shift in her mood. I know Pryce had told her something else—I can nearly hear the realization as her heartbeat changes. I know he thought he was protecting her, but he’s a damn fool, nonetheless.

Thankfully, she drops it, accepting my answer for the truth.

Her gasp echoes around the room when we enter, and I can’t take my eyes off her. Alicent stares, taking in the massive space that’s been collecting dust for centuries. Books line the walls, floor-to-ceiling, full of archives and history that would be too much to explain to humans. “Sorry I didn’t have time to clean up the place.” I laugh. Cobwebs hang from the ceiling, dust and whatever else clinging to the stuffy air.

Her hand leaves mine and I instantly miss the connection. She walks over to one wall, running her fingers over spines of ancient script. “What is this place?”

“The real Veilcrest library. We simply call it The Archives.”

It’s surreal to see her here, in the place where the guys and I used to spend most—if not all—our time. That’s how it was in the beginning. Documentation, research, pulling everything and anything we could find after our deaths.

“This actually isn’t what I wanted to show you,” I confess. She turns toward me, brows pulling together, a question pursed on her lips. “Let me clarify, it was only part of it.” I walk over to the stone table resting in the center of the room, noticing immediately that the book I was so eager to show her hasn’t moved an inch since we abandoned this room centuries ago.

Since the last time we were down here, when hope still clung to our every waking thought. The leather bound grimoire is covered in a thick layer of dust as I pick it up, leaving a perfectly sized rectangle outlining where the book had been resting all this time.

I blow across the cover, sending a cloud of dust into the air before wiping the surface with my sleeve. The only thing that matters is the name pressed into the leather.

Calder.

I hand the book to her without speaking, unsure how she’ll react and bracing myself for whatever comes next.

She stares at the name for a long time without opening the book. Her eyes glisten, lips pressing together, and every line of her body tenses as she fights to keep herself composed. I raise an eyebrow, caught off guard by the sudden change.

“Hey,” I say quietly. “It’s alright. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I rest my hands on her arms so she’ll look at me. The lighting in the room is terrible, and the shadows make it hard to read her face. I make a mental note to fix that at a later date.

“This is…what exactly?” It amazes me how she can keep her voice so level, like everything is fine when clearly it isn’t.

I wipe a stray tear from her cheek. “It’s a grimoire. Your ancestors’.” She looks at me like she doesn’t understand. “It holds the work of the Calder line. Magic, spells, whatever they choose to preserve.”

She looks down again, tracing the grooves of her last name with her thumb. “So this is connected to my family?” She steps back, trying to hide the emotion that’s already escaped. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m reacting like this.”

“Your parents really never told you about any of it?”

She shakes her head, scrunching her nose to the side—it’s almost automatic, it’s clear she’s not aware that she’s doing it. “My life was normal. I guess, until it wasn’t…My parents were supposed to be gone for a weekend on a work trip. I stayed with my aunt. They never came back.” Her voice catches, but she keeps going. “We were told they died in a car accident. My dad apparently lost control of the car and hit a tree.”

“You don’t sound like you believe that.”

“I don’t know what I believe.” She folds her arms, holding herself together. “There was an autopsy. My aunt Tessa said he was under the influence, but he wasn’t like that. Neither of them were. Everyone, including my aunt, insisted it was straightforward. For years my therapist said I was in denial. Eventually…I stopped arguing.”