adventures to preside over what must be thousands of books. Leather-bound tomes crowded the shelves in the circular room.
“This was Alona’s favorite place in the entire palace.” Finn ran a finger along a line of embossed spines. “She and Lochlan spent many hours together sprawled across the benches along the back wall.”
He led her through the shelves to where a reading nook sat against a window overlooking a garden. Bench wasn’t the right word. It was more like an extra-wide couch carved right into the wall, shielding it from view of the rest of the library. Pillows lined the surface. It was built up over a row of three-shelf bookcases.
Brea bent to examine the books. “Harry Potter,” she whispered. “Game of Thrones.” And on it went. Lord of the Rings. His Dark Materials. The entire collections by Robin Hobb and David Eddings.
Finn sat on the bench. “Every time Lochlan went to the human realm, he returned with stacks of books. For weeks, he’d spend every spare moment with Alona devouring the words.” He picked up a book sitting on the arm of the bench and held it out to Brea. “This was what she was reading right before she left.”
“A Court of Thorns and Roses.” Brea took the book. “Myles read this, and I had to hear endlessly about it.”
“Alona thought it was quite funny the humans were writing about fae as if they knew anything about us except old lore we allowed into story books many generations ago.”
She offered the book back, but he shook his head and she set it on one of the shelves.
Finn lay back, his eyes focusing on the beautiful ceiling overhead. “Here in the desert, we don’t get a lot of rain, but when it does come, it stays for days, sometimes weeks. In the past, if my training was cancelled, I’d join Alona. We laid here and talked of fantasy futures, so different from the ones we could have.”
“You can have any future you choose.” It was a stock line humans said to each other, but rarely was it true.
“Come now, Brea, do not start lying to me now. Look around. We are in a palace. Do not for one moment think any of us have a choice in our path.”
This wasn’t the boisterous happy man she’d traveled with from the Vatlands. “Has something happened, Finn?”
He sighed. “Just being here… Everything reminds me of Alona.”
Brea climbed up next to him and lay back. “She’s not just the princess to you, is she?” She looked sideways at him and watched a tear curve over his cheek.
“Have you ever loved someone so much it killed you when they were gone?”
She wanted to say no, to ignore that kind of pain. She knew now she’d never loved Griff. It had been a trick she played on herself in her desperation to not be alone in a foreign world. But Myles? He was her person, her other half. It wasn’t a romantic kind of love, but it was just as strong. When she spoke, her voice was no more than a whisper.
“You feel as if you’re no longer alive, like your heart refuses to beat until you see them again.”
Finn’s hand found hers, threading their fingers together. “We wish the pain away, but in the same breath we hold onto it as a reminder of what they were to us.”
“Are.”
“What?” He rolled his head to look at her.
“What they are to us. Alona was taken, but she might yet be alive.” Just like Myles.
“She has to be. If she comes back to us, I’m going to lose her again, but at least she’ll be safe.”
“Why do you have to lose her?” Brea would never understand a world in which people could love each other and not be together.
“Because, Brea, Alona has no magic.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
His voice shook as he explained. “Fae born without magic cannot remain among the noble or royal classes beyond coming of age. Upon her eighteenth birthday, she must join the servant class, leaving her family behind.”
Brea sat up. “But that’s not fair! It’s cruel.” She suddenly felt for this girl she’d never met, the one mourned by both the queen and this soldier beside her.
“It is our way.” He sat, turning to face her. “Magic is everything to the fae.”
Her respect for the fae dwindled to nothing. “It isn’t right. Magic isn’t more important than family.” She’d never turn her back on Myles no matter what happened to her, and