Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,78
trap for the necromancer bound to the Book of Breath, there was a crack where she might get out.
Sebastian gathered the plans into his arms and bolted for the head librarian’s office.
Bonnie made them both tea, then listened patiently while Ves related to her everything he’d told Mr. Quinn and Sebastian earlier. At this point, keeping secrets hardly seemed to matter, after all. She listened attentively, rocking Clara’s cradle with her foot and sipping tea. Tommy busied himself on the floor, rolling a toy horse and carriage back and forth, back and forth.
“I just wanted a normal life,” Ves finished. He looked around the homey room, with its cheerful wallpaper, scattered toys, and other evidence of the family who filled it. “If not for me, then for my brother. I failed at that. I failed him, the library, Sebastian, even Fagerlie if you want to look at it that way.”
“Normal?” Bonnie cocked her head at him. “What does that even mean, Vesper?”
“You know.” He gestured vaguely around. “Normal.”
She snorted. “I hope you aren’t using me as an example. I assure you, plenty of people consider my arrangements anything but. Shall I go into the list of names I’ve been called over the years?”
“No need. But you don’t understand.” Just as Sebastian hadn’t understood. “I can at least pass for human and walk the streets. But Noct doesn’t even have that. I’ve been his only company since we ran away, at least until Fagerlie found us.”
“How did he find you?” she asked curiously.
“He spotted Noct looking out a window during the day, while I was at work. Fortunately, instead of screaming or calling the police, he recognized Noct was one of the Dark Young and came upstairs to talk.” Ves sighed. “When I came home that day, at first I was terrified we’d been found out. But when Fagerlie offered to help…I couldn’t pass it up. Being condemned to hiding in our rooms, in the midst of society but utterly cut off from it…it was killing Noct slowly. He always had such a bright spirit, despite everything. But the isolation was wearing away what even our mother hadn’t been able to destroy. Every day he seemed to slip further from me.”
Bonnie put aside her cup. “Then bring him here.”
Ves blinked at her. “What?”
“Everything you’ve done has been to save your brother,” she said briskly. “Sebastian was a stranger to you at first—of course you didn’t pour out a confession to him, not with so much at stake. But once you realized how dangerous Fagerlie is, you told him everything. I suppose you might have done it before sleeping with him, though.”
Ves’s face burned. “I—we—”
“Oh, don’t bother, Vesper. I’m a grown woman. I know you didn’t spend all night together playing tiddlywinks.”
Unsure how to answer, he decided to ignore that part of the conversation. “He’s no longer my friend, so I can hardly bring my brother to live under the same roof as him.”
“It’s my house,” Bonnie said. Then her face softened. “Ves…none of us are perfect. But if our positions had been reversed, and Sebastian was consigned to the life your brother has been living, then I would have done anything to help him. I won’t even pretend to imagine what it’s been like to be you, always hiding your true nature, afraid to get close to anyone lest they find out. Believing yourself to be monstrous.”
Emotion clogged his throat. Nothing in his experience had led him to imagine that there were people like Bonnie in the world. People who were simply good, who were able to forgive, who would hold out their hand to Noct and himself.
“Thank you,” he said, emotion causing his voice to tremble. “But I don’t know how to save Noct. When I don’t give Fagerlie the map, he might kill him.”
Bonnie nodded thoughtful. “Then it sounds like you’ll have to give him a map.”
“A map?”
She shrugged. “No one says it has to be correct. It isn’t as though he’ll know it’s wrong until he gets there.”
Ves’s heart rose for the first time that day. “May I borrow some paper?”
“You’re right. It’s a spirit trap,” Irene said, after studying the architectural plans for a number of minutes. “The entire library is a giant spirit trap, built to contain something in the very center. I can’t believe I never noticed it before.”
They stood in the head librarian’s office. After Sebastian had informed Mr. Quinn of what he’d found, the head librarian had immediately summoned Irene.