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CHAPTER 14
Iwoke up with my facepressed against the surface of a wooden table, a sticky coating of drool glued to my skin.
So I hadn’t fallen asleep under a table like Beks. Just sort of on top of one.
Groaning, I pushed myself up and out of the wooden chair I had been sleeping in, stretching my limbs. As I did so, a blanket fell to the floor behind me.
I picked it up, glancing quickly down at myself. I was still wearing the gown from the night before. Its beautiful shimmering layers were now limp and tired-looking from where they had been squashed beneath me all night.
Looking around, I wondered who had put the blanket over me. When I had entered the library during the night with Beks, no one else had been around.
The palace library was a massive space. Four long arched halls converged in a center square area, where long rows of tables and chairs were set out for librarians and scholars. Not that I had encountered any yet.
Each of the four halls had soaring ceilings and were lined with towering shelves of a fine dark wood. Winding spiral staircases led up to small reading nooks and mezzanines, offering hidden corners for contemplation and study. Impossibly tall ladders on casters glided along the library's polished marble floors, granting access to the highest reaches of the vast collection. My feet itched to climb them.
The air was imbued with the scent of aged parchment, faded vellum, and fresh ink. I had fallen asleep to the familiar lull of those fragrances, almost able to make myself believe I was back in the castle library in Camelot.
But the library in the Rose Court was perhaps a quarter the size of this one and nowhere near as fine.
Heavy footsteps thudded solidly from behind me and I whirled around, afraid for the worst.
“Oh, it’s you. Good morning, Hawl.”
“It’s me.” Hawl did not seem particularly thrilled to see me.
“Crescent said you spent a lot of time in the library,” I said hurriedly. “Were you the one who put the blanket on me?”
Hawl brought their majestic dark furry head up and down briefly.
“Well, thank you. Does that mean you’ve been here a while? I didn’t see you when I came in.”
“I went to prepare food,” Hawl said in their low, rumbling voice. “For you and the prince. Then I returned. I often sleep here.”
“Oh.” I felt a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been back to the prince’s suite since before the ceremony. But thank you for the consideration.”
“I noticed.” Hawl studied me. “Why are you here?”
“I had nowhere else to go,” I said, hoping they wouldn’t ask more questions. “I had hoped the library would be empty at that time of the night and fortunately it was.”
Hawl made a gruff sound. “You were correct in that assumption. It often is. Save for myself and the librarians. They don’t like me.”
“Why don’t they like you?”
“They have their own prejudices, like every race. I have no intention of giving way to them, however. The prince says this facility is open to all and thus, I stay.”
From the sound of it, Hawl had rather stubbornly camped out. But who was I to judge?
“Well, that’s good to hear,” I said. “I don’t see any librarians around.”
