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Preserved air moves across us, carrying vellum, leather, dust, and neptherium. Shelves climb to the vaulted ceiling. Two galleries divide the upper levels. Sealed cabinets line the rear wall, while maps and scroll cases fill carved compartments.

Fiona crosses the threshold.

Wonder enters the connection.

It reaches me as sunlight on water, bright and immediate. The image vanishes, but its warmth remains.

“You felt that,” she says.

“Yes.”

“I did not mean to send it.”

“Strong responses cross without permission.”

“Then we learn how to prevent that.”

“We will.”

She approaches the central reading table. “How old is this collection?”

“The earliest records predate the stronghold’s upper towers. Every Lord and Lady of Morwen’thir added to it.”

“Legal judgments?”

“Yes.”

“Medical texts?”

“Some.”

“Accounts of necromancers and cursed weapons?”

“In the restricted cabinets.”

I place the house ring against the first cabinet lock. Its ward opens.

Fiona watches. “You are granting me access?”

“To the library. The sealed family cabinets still require my ring. Active spellwork remains restricted unless I am present. Anything removed from a shelf must be recorded in the ledger.”

“No escort?”

“No.”

“No clerk reporting what I read?”

“No.”

“Why?”

The royal edict brought her here as a political solution. I expected obedience shaped by fear. Instead, she preserved my soldiers, altered the household through evidence, and eased an ancient curse my power could not touch.

“You have proved that knowledge becomes useful in your hands,” I say. “You are no longer merely an asset secured by contract.”

Cautious trust moves between us.

I open a narrow cabinet containing indexes to the restricted collection. Fiona selects the volume marked with the symbols for hostile enchantment and carries it to the reading table.