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An empty space that should be thriving with witches, students, and scholars.
Except, it’s just me.
Or it was until a few moments ago. There’s a woman between the dark arts section and the herbal remedies who’s staring at me.
She’s tall—but not intimidating. Her soft silver hair that cascades down to her waist gives her an elegant look only accentuated by the smile she offers me.
I nod in response when she approaches. Her light blue eyes glitter with intrigue as her gaze dips to my mountain of books.
“I see you’ve been enjoying my library,” she says as she trails her fingers over one of the stacks. “Can you really read so many languages? You have at least eight different ones that I can see.” Her brow rises when she sees the book I just retrieved. “Make that nine. Is that the Tsuut’ina spell book? I’ve yet to find a spirit to translate it for me.”
A “spirit”? What an odd choice of words.
I point to my mouth and shake my head, indicating to her that I’m mute.
Well, Icanspeak. She just wouldn’t live long enough to hear anything I have to say.
She chuckles. “Oh, the death speech? Don’t worry about that. It can’t hurt me here.”
Frowning, I remember that I still don’t know wherehereis, exactly.
A sharp pain radiates across my chest, ripping a sound from my throat as I double over onto the table. The spell book I had been holding tumbles to the ground, breaking its spine in the process.
“No, stop!” the woman shouts, and at first I think she’s upset that I damaged a rare book.
But she’s looking at my chest right where it burns. Not at the collection of pages on the floor.
Peeling my hand away, it comes back wet with blood. But it’s notmyblood. I don’t have a cut to explain it, so I dumbly stare at the substance while the room begins to tremble.
The woman growls. “Those damn mates of yours. They’re going to kill the both of us at this rate. Don’t they know that the women are talking?”
I glance up at her, blinking, andseeher for the first time. Magic bleeds from her as if she doesn’t know how to contain it. She leans onto the desk and the wood transforms under her touch. What had once been dark oak now glimmers with silver, then gold.
My eyes widen.
I’ve only read about manifestation spirits. They are more myth than reality—even in our world of supernaturals. “You’re a mani-spirit,” I breathe, stunned.
She rolls her gorgeous eyes. “I hate that term. It sounds like I’m about to get a mani-pedi. I prefer to go by my name. Which is Jewel, by the way.”
I smile, instantly liking her.
Even though I shouldn’t like her. I should run in terror because this spirit is probably why I’m trapped in a spelled library.
In the death plane.
The atmosphere makes sense, as does the sensation that I’m not quite grounded in reality. The patriarchs tried to perform this exact same holding tactic on me when I had been placed in a magically induced coma.
Only, the books I’d read hadn’t had anything written on them. Jewel conjured an entire library for me to explore. Although, it sounds like she had conjured it long before I came along.
Because she’s been here for a while?
Another stab of pain makes me hiss and I realize that my mates are pulling me back to my body.
Jasper. Zyran.
Kornelius.
My mouth goes dry when I remember what Kornelius had almost done to me.
