“Only hints. But I know she wanted magic. My magic. She didn’t seem . . . entirely whole.” She looked up at Finnegan, struggling to find the words. “She stole magic from me. From a cut in my cheek. I think she thinks I’m key to getting her power back. But I don’t know how. How can I have magic, when no one else does?”
“Maybe because you slept,” Finnegan said. “Maybe you carried it with you.”
“Yes,” Aurora said again. “Maybe.” That would explain Celestine’s obsession with her. But if that was the case, why would Celestine not take the magic she wanted now? Why would she play with subtle threats?
“She’s trying to unsettle you,” Finnegan said. “You’re not going to do anything that you don’t want to.” He let go of her shoulder. “But you could take advantage of this,” he said. “She’ll know more about your magic than anyone. If you pretended to accept her offer, tricked information out of her—”
“No,” Aurora said. She wouldn’t even consider it. “Celestine is dangerous. I don’t know what she would do.”
“Maybe you should ask.”
“No,” she said again. “I can’t trust her.”
“But if you learn more about her, you might find out more about your magic. The curse. The dragons. She would know.”
“Then I’ll research,” she said. “Everything that we can find on the last hundred years, everything on Celestine before I was cursed. All of it. I can get answers without asking her.” But it would be difficult to do so from across the sea. She would have to unpick secrets and rumors from over a century ago, while hundreds of miles away from where events had occurred. There might not be anything to find.
She dragged a hand through her hair. “I’ll get dressed,” she said. “Then I’m going back to the library. Might as well start there.”
“Do you want company, going back to your rooms?”
“I can find my way.”
“I thought you might be wary of being alone, considering what just happened. I can send a servant or a guard, if you like.”
“Oh.” It was a thoughtful thing to say. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.” Celestine wanted her to be afraid. Aurora could not show any weakness now.
She returned to the deserted library as soon as she was dressed and climbed to the section on magic. There had to be some information there that could help.
Several books did mention Celestine, but there was little information of use. The first reported appearance of Celestine was about twenty years before Aurora was born, and the last time anyone saw her was at the banquet when she pricked baby Aurora’s finger with a needle and cursed her to a near-eternal sleep. In between, she was known to live in her tower in the forest and make bargains with those who asked. Some books claimed she was vindictive, cursing the kingdom for her own pleasure, while others claimed she stayed out of affairs unless she was approached.
One author said she had been unfairly blamed for the kingdom’s difficulties and the disappearance of magic, and Aurora almost threw the book to the ground. Whatever Celestine may or may not have done or been blamed for, she had cursed Aurora when she was only a few days old. She had destroyed Aurora’s entire life. She wasn’t a victim of anything.
“Aurora?”
Finnegan stood in the middle of the library, neck craned to peer at the balconies. “Are you in here?”
“Yes,” she said, standing up. “I’m here.”
There was a thud as Finnegan dropped a huge pile of paper onto the library’s center table. The balcony shook. “What’s all that?” Aurora said, as she descended the stairs.
“All the diplomatic records on Alyssinia I could find for the past hundred years, and a couple of decades before.” He heaved a second pile onto the table. “They won’t be as useful as Alyssinia’s own records, I’m sure, but there might be something in there. Better to go straight to the source.”
“That’s fantastic,” Aurora said. “How did you get these?” She picked up the top page. It was a collection of notes and abbreviations, written in an almost illegible hand. The sheet below seemed to be a list of gifts exchanged after a diplomatic mission.
“I walked into the archive and took them,” Finnegan said. “Advantage of being the prince.”
She sat, pulling more pages toward her. There would be lots of useless information to sift through, lots of pointless minutae, but there had to be useful insight hidden in there too.