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Lena bites on her bottom lip, her mouth curling up in a smile. “Ruby’s one of my best friends. She told me you’d been over for dinner and that Davis was—” She leans forward, her eyes searching the nearly empty library before she drops her voice, “a prick. Again. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s always taciturn and crotchety but not usually to this level.” Lena smiles apologetically as if she’s in any way responsible for Davis’s actions. I wave her off.
“Naw, it’s fine. We’ve got some history. It makes him grumpy to think about.” Lena blinks away from the computer screen, her brows furrowed in confusion.
“Didn’t you just move here a few days ago?”
“Yeah, but Davis and I met once before.”
“Really, when?” Surprise makes her voice high, and she clears her throat and turns back to the computer.
“Like ten years ago.”
Lena makes a humming noise but doesn’t ask anything else about Davis, but I notice her eyes darting to look at me. She’s not that covert. She moves behind her counter, pulling up a plastic card and scanning it into her computer before pushing an electronic signature pad in front of me.
“Just sign here and you’ll be all set. You can even borrow The Pirate’s Sword now that I’ve patched it all up.”
I choke on a laugh because I hadn’t seen the name of the book when she held it up earlier. “Oh Mrs. Devereux, you vixen.”
Instead of handing over my card, Lena rounds the corner of the desk and gives it to me. “Come on. Let’s go to my office. That’s where I keep most of the books on magic. They’re more of a private collection and not for the general public to check out.”
I look at the card before shoving it in my back pocket. Is it weird or charming that I didn’t even need to give her my address or any proof of who I am? Small towns, I guess.
Everything in the library is dark wood and elegance, and there’s even a sophisticated crystal chandelier that hangs down over a seating area. A fireplace takes up part of one wall and it makes me wonder if this used to be someone’s house, or if it’s always been a library. Either way, it’s the fanciest library I’ve ever seen.
Lena’s office is tucked in back, and holy shit, I think the woman is a hoarder. I cough and look around the small room. There are windows that look out onto a manicured lawn, with an ivy-covered pagoda and a pretty path of paved stones. It’s all very picturesque and quaint.
“Sorry about the mess.” Lena chuckles, “I have a bit of a problem with procuring new books. I haven’t had time to sort through these yet and put them away.” She sweeps her hand around the room where books are stacked in piles on the floor, the desk, the extra chair in front of the desk. The walls are already lined with packed bookshelves in the same dark wood that trims the rest of the building. It would be pretty if it wasn’t making me slightly claustrophobic.
Lena picks up a teetering pile of books from the chair and shifts them over to a precarious stack on a small round table. I take a seat when she moves around to the other side and sits on the chair behind the desk. For a second, I feel like a student coming to see her teacher, but Lena leans her elbows on a free inch of her desk and looks at me excitedly.
“I have to tell you, Davis isn’t usually free with his words and he rarely speaks about magic. Not going to lie, I’m intrigued. What did he share with you?”
“Actually, he was way too vague and kept dropping lots of comments, like I should know what the hell he was talking about. Then he totally glossed over all the details. Which is why I’m here. Besides getting my library card, obviously.”
Lena’s lips purse before breaking into a smile, “obviously.”
I sit back in my chair, crossing my legs. Despite Lena’s polished and buttoned up clothing, she’s friendly. I don’t know if I would call her warm, because it’s almost as if she has a protective barrier around her, but she’s kind. That’s more than I can say about a lot of people. What I’m most surprised about is how comfortable I am around her. Like she’s an old friend I haven’t seen in years and we’re picking up a conversation we started a long time ago. In reality, this is only the second time we’ve met.
She pushes her glasses up on her nose, “So, what types of things did Davis mention and then not fill in the details.”
“He told me about some old folklore about the island. That once upon a time there was an imbalance and somehow fairies came over into our world.”
Lena smiles and nods. “Yes, there are a lot of old myths about the Fae that float around the island. Especially when we hold festivals to celebrate things like Samhain, Imbolc, and Beltane. We enjoy any excuse to throw a party here.”
“Sounds like it.” I chuckle. “He also mentioned that a few of our parents were in a… what did he call it… not a coven but an—”
“An Axis” Lena stiffens at the mention of parents, but two meetings do not a bff make. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk about her family.
Lena shifts away from the desk almost as if she’s putting some physical distance between my comment and her. “I’m surprised he talked about his mom at all. Did he mention anything about the old myths? Or just give you a super generic version of the story?”
“What do you think?”
The light comes back into Lena’s eyes and she gets up, going over to a shelf and running her hands over the titles until she stops and pulls out a thick book in worn dark brown leather. It almost looks black, as though the oils from hundreds of fingertips have rubbed and touched it so much that the leather has been polished by the act.
Lena sets it on her desk, sitting back down on the edge of her chair and flipping through the pages with a careful finger. After a few minutes of searching, she turns it around and points to the page. It’s an illustration of the world. There is a symbol drawn over the map that looks like a compass and in each direction is a couple embracing, bodies entwined.
“The more in-depth version of the story is that centuries ago there was a thinning of the veil between our two worlds. The four courts of fairy, summer, autumn, winter, and spring were at war, and it tore a hole in the veil. Fairies flocked into our world and the Queen sent her sentinels to round them up and protect the mortals on earth. The sentinels formed an Axis whose purpose was to settle the imbalance between our worlds and close the veil back up. Many of the long-standing families of Wild Haven like to claim that they are descended from the original Axis, but it’s just something some people brag about when they actually don’t know. Of course, there are the founding families. Those who have lived on the island since the land was first settled. Like the Wilds.” Lena raises a brow at me, and I blink back at her.
My family was one of those that founded the town? Huh. “So do you believe any of this is true?” I feel foolish asking the question because we’re talking about fairies and a veil between different worlds.
