They split apart, Bri taking the floor below Lina. She moved to the end of the hallway, checking the furthest room first, but it was only a storage cupboard filled with buckets, rags, and brooms. The next room along had half shelves containing thick, leather-bound books. She pulled out the first tome, coughing into her elbow as dust filtered into the air. Many years had clearly passed since the last time this room was visited.

She inspected the book in her hands—a collection of nursery rhymes written in the witches’ language of Mhenbic. She flipped through pages filled mostly by drawings and a few words. It felt strange to think about witches reading to their witchlings at night, in happy times when they weren’t on the run or fearing for their safety.

Bri wondered if the red witches read books to Rua as a child or if Heather read them to Remy. What must it have been like for them? The two High Mountain fae were both raised by witches . . . though in very different ways. Bri knew she was lucky to have both of her parents still alive when so few could say the same. It made her feel guilty that she didn’t appreciate them more. She thought to her shared moment with Lina in the atrium of her room. Lina knew what it was to mourn that relationship with her mother long before she passed. If anyone understood what it was like, it was her.

She set the tome back and picked up another storybook—a golden dragon on the cover—that reminded her of one she had as a child. She and Tal had begged their nurse to read Dragon’s Sacrifice to them over and over. The title in Mhenbic snagged her attention. Air Ev. Is that what it meant? “Dragon’s sacrifice”? She pressed her lips together. Maybe Lina had grown up loving the story just as much. That she would choose those witch’s words as her alias only further endeared her to Bri, and Bri loved thinking that she discovered Lina’s secret nod to the childhood story.

Ev. “Dragon.” Gods, that’s what Lina felt like—a dragon—beautiful and mighty and utterly devastating. She’d trapped Bri in her golden claws the moment she’d pulled back her hood in those markets.

Bri glanced at the titles down the spines. The room seemed filled with children’s books. With a sigh, she abandoned the book on the top shelf and exited the room. There’d be no spell books in there. She checked the next room but only found a sitting area full of rickety old desks and chairs.

Lina’s footsteps sounded on the creaking floorboards above her and, without thought, she deserted her search of witches’ books to go find the Princess.

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven