Page 8 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

Chapter Three

Lachlan Thorn was none of her business.

She had duties to attend to.

The Library was vast, spanning several buildings connected by bridges with porters at every entrance. It soared high, all towers and turrets dripping ivy: the beating heart of the University. It was renowned in the witching world. Dangerous, curious, cozy, and elegant.

And there was always something to be done, card catalogues to re-alphabetize, protective wards and spells and spirit statues to feed. They had begun as simple marble, but over the centuries, spirits had moved in and proceeded to demand saucers of tea or cream or whiskey. Sometimes rose petals, or miniature bottles of ink, a poem read aloud. Rumor had it that if you brought Shakespeare lemon drops, he would help you with your sonnets. If you had lost a book, you brought strong, sweetened coffee to Matilda Merriwether, one of the Library’s first patronesses. For inspiration, you visited the Muses with a secret to share.

Pippa stopped to restack books that appeared to have been tossed aside with abject misery by a student. Several students, more likely. Possibly a horde. These books might not be rare or restricted, but they were still books. They deserved care, even on solstice eve. That one had a peeling spine, the leather forming cracks like tributaries. Pippa did not mind a page worn soft from fingertips or folded to mark some important passage. She liked a well-loved book. But to crack a spine?

Criminal.

One of the books was on the wrong floor altogether, tossed among the returns. “You are far from home,” Pippa murmured.

“Absolute savages,” her friend and fellow Librarian Tegwen declared.

She passed Pippa another book for her rolling cart. Ivy leaves were carved into the polished wood and there was a tea stain in the shape of a swan with a sword in its beak. Librarians attempted to decipher the omens on a daily basis. The holly leaf above the wobbly left wheel was new.

“Examinations have just concluded,” Pippa reminded her. Examinations explained away a vast array of troubling behaviors.

Tegwen groaned. “Between the students and the professors, I’m not sure who is worse. Do you know what I found this morning? A cheese scone. On a shelf! Between two books!”

If she sounded as though a gruesome murder would have been more palatable, it was only because that was absolutely true. In fact, if Tegwen had her way, no one at all would actually be permitted inside the Library. She was less suited to being a Librarian and more suited to some kind of fire-breathing, book-hoarding dragon, but alas, such professions were scarce. Even on an island of witches.

Pippa did not mention professors bleeding on the shelves or devouring mists or fire, even though it was on her mind. Again. Still. Always. Tegwen would have shrieked, and a banshee’s shriek was more than capable of bursting eardrums. From several streets over. As it was, her eyes narrowed dangerously. One of the witchlights flickered. She whipped her head around to a nearby patron. “Don’t you dare touch that encyclopedia of ferns!” she snapped with the kind of ferocity more suited to finding a warlock’s active curse roaming the stacks.

The man blanched, backing hastily away from the shelf. Everyone knew that Tegwen did not forget an offense, nor a face. “Beg your pardon, Lady Tegwen.”

Pippa grinned. “You do know people are allowed to actually remove books from the Library. It’s rather the point.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” Tegwen sniffed. “Anyway, that book is not the one he needs, and had I allowed him to take it, he would have spilled honey on it. And then I would have murdered him,” she continued, a little louder than was strictly necessary. “So, you see, I have just saved his life. The ingratitude is astounding.”

Pippa tucked her tongue into her cheek. “I am sure he is very remorseful. As am I.”

Tegwen sniffed. “As you should be.”

Tegwen’s magical gift of prophecy was extremely specific. While Pippa could feel when a book was in the wrong place, and could see the magical thread that connected a reader to what they needed, Tegwen was wholly focused on whether the book in question would be in safe hands. Even if what she considered “safe hands” was a bit dictatorial in nature. If by dictatorial one meant entirely unreasonable. But again: a banshee. With ducal family ties. Being reasonable was not a trait encouraged by nature or nurture.

The expectations put upon her were rather different than the ones put on Pippa, who came from a middling witch family, none of whom she could remember, aside from the great-uncle who had taken her in at age eleven and then promptly died. But not before passing on his love of salted licorice sweets, which no one else could abide.

Tegwen walked away, still muttering.

An hour later, Pippa was cornered by her friends Sorcha and Briar. Along with talking to birds, her friend Sorcha ran a bakery and supplied the University staff with scones and pastries. Briar was a green witch who could grow the fussiest orchid out of seawater.

Sorcha grinned, plunking a cake on the table in front of her, despite the strict “no cake in the Library” rule. “Happy birthday! It’s raspberry, your favorite.”

“Lemon is her favorite,” Briar corrected her with a wink at Pippa. She leaned on her cane, carved with thorny roses.

“Hush, you. I ran out of lemons.”

“It’s perfect,” Pippa said. “Thank you.”

She had not mentioned her birthday to anyone. She never did. She had a hazy recollection of her father baking her a cake shaped like a fat hen when she was four. She had loved it so much that she had refused to eat a single bite. They had eaten clementines instead.

“It looks delicious,” she said.

Sorcha handed her a fork and a plate. “It’s time for your tea.”