I climbed down and put away the other book, near the bottom, before sliding the ladder over and pausing. I didn’t feel like another adventure. Instead, I might try…
I lifted my hands and moved them through the air, turning a little as I did so, feeling light and carefree. Damn it, I loved this place. It spoke to my soul. The pages whispered to me, begging me to pluck them from the shelves and settle in to devour them.
“How about a good mystery?” I murmured, finding those stacks and pulling the ladder to the center. “No. A cozy mystery. Maybe a little humor might do the trick.”
Who are you talking to? my animal asked. It better not be that invisible crowd again.
I’m talking to myself. Butt out.
If you crack up, what happens to me?
You’ll feel right at home, I thought dryly.
I’m bored.
Well, tonight we go into the snake pit. I’ll need you on deck.
I know. I can’t wait. Let’s go find that woman with the dildo and see what she’s up to. Or Leala. She’s obviously wild. I want to see. Although curiosity is only okay if it won’t get us killed.
The demons wouldn’t kill us.
I slid my hands across the volumes, taking one out and skimming the pages. I stopped, reading a line. Too somber. I put the book back.
“I’m going to need to keep track of the ones I’ve read. I’ll never be able to remember all these titles,” I murmured.
The demons don’t care about us, my animal said. They care about Nyfain. And despite his current, rather peculiar issues, he cares about you. They would absolutely kill you to piss him off.
I hadn’t thought about it that way.
I pulled down another book, and then another. Not finding anything that way, I started reading synopses. After all, that frog book was fantastically boring. I was reading it, just to know more about frogs, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I was mostly using it to put myself to sleep.
Hadriel’s voice floated through the space, coming from around the corner. “Knock once if you’re in trouble, twice if you’re dead.”
“Hilarious,” I called out, descending the ladder with a book in hand. In the end, I’d just grabbed one.
Hadriel wasn’t smiling like I’d expected, his expression instead flat and his lips drawn.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Nothing. Find something?”
I handed it off and headed to the second story. “I want to see what information I can find concerning plants. It can’t hurt to expand my plant knowledge. Something might help me flesh out the crowded nulling elixir.”
“Over there is where I got a gardening book.” He pointed down the way. “But for everlass, they might keep it somewhere else. I don’t know. I’m not an expert on this library.”
“Don’t even suggest I ask Nyfain.”
“I wasn’t going to. I hate suggesting things that are then ignored. How much failure does a person need in his life? I don’t need any more complexes.”
When I didn’t find it with the gardening section, I searched my brain, came up empty, and realized I might have to draw a map of the library laying out the different sections. It was simply too large to keep track of everything otherwise. What an amazing problem to have.
I didn’t allow Hadriel’s glance at the darkening windows to rush me. I took my time, looking at the spines and trying to date the books based on their appearance. I randomly pulled down volumes and leafed through them, just to feel the breeze from the pages. A sublime grin settled on my lips, and I continued mooning around the balcony of the large room like a lovesick dummy. This library was literally to die for. It was absolutely amazing. More than anything, I wished I could meet the queen who had clearly put such love into this corner of her world.
Anger burned in my gut at the thought of the king mistreating her. Of him squashing her will and her dreams. I obviously couldn’t be sure about that, but it stood to reason. Then, finally, she threw in the towel. Now her son was trying to do the same thing. He fought each night, not hoping to one day lead, but waiting to die.
I wiped away a tear that slipped down my face. The story of the kingdom hit me right in the gut. Nyfain’s pain squeezed my heart. He hadn’t done anything to deserve all this. None of us had. It wasn’t fair that we had to endure it, no end in sight.
No, that wasn’t true. There was an end in sight. Because I was going to do what I’d set out to do long ago—cure this kingdom of that demonic sickness. When I did, the demon king would surely show up. And then we’d see what I was made of. I wouldn’t escape to free myself as Nyfain hoped, though. I’d figure out a way to save this place for good. I wasn’t the type to run. I was the type to fight. And I’d do so for all.