Again, Nesta could have sworn she felt that pause of interest, then a sudden vacancy.
And then a thump sounded on her cart as a gray leather-bound book with silver lettering landed atop her pile. Nesta’s lips curved upward. “Thank you.” A soft, warm breeze brushed past her legs, like a cat wending between them in warm greeting and farewell.
When the next priestess passed, Nesta approached her. “Excuse me.”
The female halted so swiftly her pale robes swayed with her, the blue stone on her hood gleaming in the soft faelight. “Yes?” Her voice was soft, breathy. Curly black hair peeked out from her robe, and rich brown skin gleamed on her lovely, delicate hands. Like Clotho, she wore her hood over her face.
“Merrill’s office—where is it?” Nesta gestured to the cart behind her. “I have a few books for her but don’t know where she works.”
The priestess pointed. “Three levels up—Level Two—at the end of the hall on your right.”
“Thank you.”
The priestess hurried along, as if even that moment of social interaction had been too much.
But Nesta gazed toward the level three stories above.
Her aching body did not make for easy stealth work, but Nesta mercifully didn’t encounter anyone on her way up. She knocked on the shut wood door.
“Enter.”
Nesta opened the door to a rectangular cell of a room, occupied by a desk on the far side and two bookshelves lining both long walls. A small pallet lay to the left of the desk, a blanket and pillow neatly aligned. As if the hooded priestess with her back to Nesta sometimes couldn’t be bothered to return to the dormitory to sleep.
No sign of Gwyn. Nesta wondered if she’d already been dismissed for her so-called failure.
But Nesta took a few steps into the room, surveying the shelf to her right before she said, “I brought the books you requested.”
The female hunched over her work, the scratching of her pen filling the room. “Fine.” She didn’t so much as turn. Nesta scanned the other shelf.
There—volume eight of The Great War. Nesta had taken a silent step toward it when the priestess’s head snapped up. “I didn’t ask for any more books. And where’s Gwyneth? She should have returned half an hour ago.”
Nesta asked as blandly and stupidly as she could, “Who’s Gwyneth?”
Merrill turned at that, and Nesta was greeted with a surprisingly young face—and a stunningly beautiful one. All the High Fae were beautiful, but Merrill made even Mor look drab.
Hair white as fresh snow contrasted against the light brown of her skin, and eyes the color of a twilight sky blinked once, twice. As if focusing on the here and now and not whatever work she’d been doing. She noted Nesta’s leathers, the lack of any robes or stone atop her braided hair, and demanded, “Who are you?”
“Nesta.” She hefted the books in her arms. “I was told to bring these to you.”
Volume eight of The Great War lay mere inches away. If she just stuck out a hand to her left, she could snatch it off the shelf. Swap it out with volume seven from the stack in her arms.
Merrill’s remarkable eyes narrowed. She looked as young as Nesta, yet an ornery sort of energy buzzed around her. “Who gave you those orders?”
Nesta blinked, the portrait of stupidity. “A priestess.”
Merrill’s full mouth tightened. “Which priestess?”
Gwyn was right in her assessment of this female. Being assigned to work with her seemed more like a punishment than an honor. “I don’t know. You all wear those hoods.”
“These are the sacred clothes of our order, girl. Not those hoods.” Merrill returned to her papers.
Nesta asked, because it would piss off the female, “So you didn’t ask for these books, Roslin?”
Merrill threw down her pen and bared her teeth. “You think I’m Roslin?”
“I was told to bring these books to Roslin, and someone said your—her office was here.”
“Roslin is on Level Four. I am on Level Two.” She said it as if it implied some sort of hierarchy.
Nesta shrugged again. And might have enjoyed the hell out of it.
Merrill seethed, but returned to her work. “Roslin,” she muttered. “Insufferable, inane Roslin. Endless prattling.”
Nesta reached a stealthy hand toward the shelf to her left.
Merrill whipped her head around, and Nesta snapped her arm down to her side. “Never disturb me again.” Merrill pointed to the door. “Get out and shut the door behind you. If you see that silly Gwyneth, tell her she’s expected here immediately.”
“Apologies,” Nesta said, unable to keep the glimmer of annoyance out of her eyes, but Merrill was already twisting back to her desk.
It had to be now.
One eye on the priestess, Nesta moved.
She coughed to cover the whisper of books moving. And by the time Merrill whipped her head around again, Nesta made sure she wasn’t so much as looking toward the shelf. Where volume seven of The Great War stood in place of volume eight, which now sat atop the other books in Nesta’s arms.
Nesta’s heart pounded in her entire body.
Merrill hissed, “What are you lingering for? Get out.”
“Apologies,” Nesta repeated, bowing at the waist, and left. Shut the door behind her.
And only when she stood in the silent hall did she allow herself to smile.
She found Gwyn the same way she’d found Merrill: by asking a priestess, this one more quiet and withdrawn than the other. So trembling and nervous that even Nesta had used her most gentle voice. And been unable to shake the heaviness in her heart as she’d walked to the first-level reading area. Across the hushed, cavernous space, it was easy to hear Gwyn’s soft singing as she flitted from table to table, looking at the piles of discarded books. Trying desperately to find the missing tome.
The words of Gwyn’s merry song were in a language Nesta didn’t know, but for a heartbeat, Nesta allowed herself to listen—to savor the pure, sweet voice that rose and fell with sinuous ease.
Gwyn’s hair seemed to glow brighter with her song, skin radiating a beckoning light. Drawing any listener in.
But Merrill’s warning clanged through the beauty of Gwyn’s voice, and Nesta cleared her throat. Gwyn whirled toward her, glow fading even as her freckled face lit with surprise. “Hello again,” she said.
Nesta only extended volume eight of The Great War. Gwyn gasped.
Nesta threw her a wicked smile. “This was shelved improperly. I swapped it with the right book.”
Gwyn didn’t seem to need more than that, thankfully, and clutched the book to her chest like a treasure. “Thank you. You’ve just saved me from a terrible tongue-lashing.”
Nesta arched a brow at the book. “What’s Merrill researching, anyway?”
Gwyn frowned. “Lots of things. Merrill’s brilliant. Horrible, but brilliant. When she first came here, she was obsessed with theories regarding the existence of different realms—different worlds. Living on top of each other without even knowing it. Whether there is merely one existence, our existence, or if it might be possible for worlds to overlap, occupying the same space but separated by time and a whole bunch of other things I can’t even begin to explain to you because I barely understand them myself.”