Page 101 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

She touched his serious brow, the clench of his jaw. “I love you too,” she whispered.

Some of the tension in his shoulders lessened.

“As much as I love books,” she added.

His grin was crooked and brief and brighter than lightning. Peach trees pressed around them, thick with fruit. Apples next, strawberries like red flowers at her feet. Elphame was responding to Lachlan, trying to claim her, keep her. Didn’t it realize he had already claimed her? And it had nothing to do with enchanted peaches or solstice wishes.

Lachlan tipped her chin up to kiss her slowly and deeply, until her thighs went soft. Until she nearly forgot where they were. Nearly.

“Lachlan Thorn, if you get us kicked out of this library, I will never forgive you.”

He grumbled but released her. Reluctantly.

He led her inside the Winter Library and she halted, stunned and unable to speak for several minutes. Whereas the Hallow Library was a haven of dark wood and stained glass and white marble, this library was white-painted shelves and spiraling silver staircases and ceilings washed in every shade of blue. There were books made from leather and parchment and vellum, from beetle wings and ice that did not melt and snowflakes stitched together. The air shimmered and the silence was the comforting quiet of a winter’s nap. There were few patrons, and tucked behind a desk, an older Librarian with tusks, nodded a greeting and went back to his work.

Pippa finally stopped gaping. Lachlan was clearly amused by her reaction, if not remotely surprised. “If the Summer Library has the book you need, it can be passed through this mirror,” he said, pointing to a large mirror with a silver frame etched with winter trees.

“I am jealous,” Pippa said. “Very jealous.”

“What is it exactly you are looking for?” he asked.

“I will know it when I find it.”

“Librarian magic?”

“Assuming it works here, yes.” She turned on her heel, drinking in the towering shelves. “I cannot believe that all references to that spell have been erased. And Mr. Yarrow said that the Red Grimoire likes to hide. It got me to thinking.”

“Yes?”

“Librarians do not destroy books,” she said. “We hide them.”

“Even from kings and queens?”

She snorted. “Yes. Your titles mean nothing to us.”

“It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

“Still, this could take weeks.” Even with a card catalogue at her disposal, assuming Fae used such things. If she had time to befriend the Librarians, that would also have been a great help. She could, at the very least, befriend the library. A library needed care and acknowledgment, no matter which side of a fairy ring it stood on.

Pippa wandered between the bookcases, until she found a carving of a winged Fae woman reading a book. On the flagstones at her feet were bowls of foxgloves, apples, and candles burning. She knelt in front of it and pulled the scissors from her pouch.

“What are you doing with those?” Lachlan asked, frowning.

“I have to introduce myself.”

“Remember that you are a queen now.”

“That won’t make a difference. I am a Librarian. That is what matters.”

Pippa lifted the scissors and began to cut through her braid. It took a long moment before her thick hair finally gave way. She coiled the braid like a silver snake at the feet of the library’s patroness. Magic tingled through her witch knot.

Now that she was recognized as a Librarian worthy of attention, Pippa wrote on a scrap of paper, The Red Grimoire, and held it to one of the candle’s flames. She wrote it over her witch knot as well.

She felt a flutter under her ribcage, where her fire usually burned first. A prickle of awareness, a soft reply.

The moths came next.

White death’s-head moths, pink moths, yellow moths. They were as small as fruit flies, as large as sparrows, and they hovered together like a fluttering cloud, waiting for Pippa to follow.