It did not take me long to reach the library, on the lower level of the Palace. “Good morning, Miss Baine,” a youthful voice greeted me, and I started at the sight of an unfamiliar female mage sitting behind the front desk of the library. Dressed in grey robes, the emblem of an open book inside a circle stitched above the left breast, she had dark, glossy brown hair and a polite, welcoming expression.

“Umm, good morning.” I glanced around the library, a huge room with towering bookshelves and soaring ceilings. Unlike the last time I’d been here, most of the gleaming wooden desks with their green glass lamps were occupied by mages—apprentices studying new spells, and Guild employees doing research. More grey-robed librarians moved about between the shelves, placing books that had been returned, or retrieving them for someone else. It was slightly disconcerting, but I was nonetheless happy to see that a sense of normalcy had returned.

“Do you know where I can find Miss Urama?” I asked, referring to Janta by last name. The last two times I’d come here to see her, she’d been manning the front desk as the only librarian present, while her subordinates were out fighting the Resistance. “I need her help with an important matter.”

“I believe she’s in the back, cataloguing a new shipment of books,” the librarian told me. “I can see if she’s available, if you’d like.”

“Please.”

I clasped my hands behind my back and tried to wait patiently. I could feel the gazes of several mages on me, but when I turned to return their stares, they hastily dropped their eyes back to their books. I’d always been an object of rumor and speculation amongst the mages, and even more so since my engagement to the most powerful man in Canalo. Bets were being placed to see how long it would take for the engagement to be called off, and much as I wanted to be angry about that, I couldn’t blame them. A marriage between a powerful mage and a shifter was unprecedented, and my half-mage heritage was the only thing that allowed the mage community to swallow it in the first place. On top of it all, Iannis and I were also master and apprentice. I doubted we’d be able to get away with that part either if Iannis wasn’t the Chief Mage.

By Magorah, what a mess this was. If I didn’t love Iannis, I’d be tempted to ditch the entire affair and move somewhere else where nobody knew me.