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But opening up that line of conversation was too much right now, and I was mentally drained.
“Sure, I’ll go,” Flint finally said, staring toward the palace. “What happened, anyway? Besides Elias being Elias.”
“He was in our presence, first of all.” I gripped Arden tighter, even though Elias was far from us. “He asked about her shifter form and said something about wondering where she had been.”
“Does he know about us?” Arden gestured between me, herself, and Lex.
Lex sighed. “Who knows what he’s thinking? He was in my office and caught your scent. It’s possible that he saw that tabloid before Flint had the story removed.”
“Do you think he’ll say anything?” Arden’s eyes widened.
“Knowing him, he probably has. But it’s just a rumor.” Lex rested a hand on her upper back. “But we should tell people, eventually.”
“We should.” Arden leaned against me, a tinge of anxiety coming through our bond.
I wasn’t worried about what everyone was going to think of us. If they didn’t like us all being together, they could fuck off. But I was afraid of how many of these assholes I’d have to take out if they hurt Arden because of our relationship.
Chapter50
Arden
Iwalked into the library, savoring the silence and scent of old books. Especially the silence.
The entire palace had been buzzing ever since the ball last night. I was safe from chatter, guests, and palace staff in Jagger’s bedroom—our bedroom—but I was tired of being in there all day. The library was quiet, got me out of the same room where I’d slept, and I had the Aridunn family journal to dig into. The historian had gotten all the books from the private collector who had the journal, and they had just arrived. He didn’t know if they were relevant, but it was worth a shot.
Flint pulled out a seat for me at the long table where we’d done most of our research, then sat down himself. He hadn’t said much besides good morning to me, which was unusual. But he wasn’t upset with me, as far as I could tell.
“Everything okay?” I asked, pulling over a few books from the various stacks, and looked through them.
The books were old, but the historian or collector had strengthened the bindings and covers.
“Yeah.” He dragged some books over as well.
It obviously wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to press him.
“Is Luthor Meade coming in?” I asked.
Luthor was the book collector who the historian had gotten the Aridunn family journal from. Flint didn’t recognize the name, so I assumed Luthor was just a civilian fae, not an aristocrat.
“Soon, yes.” He checked the time. “In about an hour.”
We fell into the same routine as always—going through book after book, the only sound between us the turning of pages and sighs every once in a while. I got fed up faster than usual with the random selection we had and went back to the family journal.
Having it in front of me made my heart flutter up into my throat. I still had no idea whether this book was fact or fiction, but seeing my mother’s name in the family tree made me feel connected to it in a way I’d never experienced before. Like I had a glimpse into the past I’d wanted for so long. I ran my hands down the leather cover. I wanted to believe it was my actual family history, but what if it wasn’t? I didn’t want to get too attached to anything inside, even though I already was.
“I’m not having luck finding things directly, so I’m going to gather information about that time period where the Aridunns were allegedly cast out as Royals,” Flint said, startling me from my daze.
“Okay. I’m going back through the journal.” I opened it again. “I’ll see if there’s anything to cross-reference.”
I opened the book to the table of contents. As tempted as I was to read through this whole thick journal, I went to the sections before the big time-gap. All the entries were so…normal. They discussed weddings, funerals, births. Nothing about what they wrote about suggested that their bloodline was in trouble. At all.
But they also wrote about political happenings, like uprisings in the countryside and crime in the cities. Wouldn’t they have talked about internal struggles, too? Kicking out an ancient Royal bloodline didn’t happen on a whim.
Entries must have been missing. Either that, or this was entirely made up. It was a decent fake—they’d referenced some events I remembered from school—but one with noticeable gaps.
But why? This book was enormous. Who had the time or energy to write an alternate timeline version of thousands of years’ worth of events?
“Your Highness?” the historian said from the far end of the table, his voice soft enough not to startle me. “The book collector has arrived.”
