Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,10

this wedding as some sort of excuse to make him bring it to the Fixed Plane.

I felt terrible for Byron. What a dirty trick. The fact that Hulda’s mother called him a “charming half-beast” suggested that Hulda may have already met her future husband and liked what she saw.

“Don’t be frightened,” Hulda’s mother said. “Everything rests upon you, and we women are not weaker than our men, are we? You must be up to the task or you will live a life of shame. Your uncle will be there to rescue you.”

Yikes. No sympathy there. Hulda had to murder her husband and suck it up. I definitely felt for the girl.

Of course, right now I was Hulda. I certainly wasn’t about to give Byron the poison. I wondered how much of this I would have to play out.

I was led out of the bedroom and to a castle courtyard where an entire retinue was waiting to proceed to the church, with knights on horseback, ladies in fur-trimmed gowns, and banners with the family coat of arms. This all seemed to blur by like a dream as I was brought to a litter, a claustrophobic box that swayed as it was carried by four burly servants. The church was not far, at least. I wondered where in the world I was. What sort of name was Lady Hulda? Saxon? My dad would have been spouting off about it immediately, and he would have recognized the castle’s architecture and the clothing and the knights’ armor, but I had never cared about any of this.

I felt a little woozy and the world seemed to recede as the litter swayed, and suddenly I was about to walk down the church aisle, with flowers scattered everywhere and incense and perfume combating for the attention of my nose.

At the end of the aisle was the demigod I had seen in the Arcana.

Byron?

I tried to find my Byron in him as I walked down the aisle but this man was more than Byron. He was nearly seven feet tall, not including the single black horn that curved out of his forehead. He had one black demon wing and one shimmering feathered wing. His face had a beauty that was almost fae, with high cheekbones, eerily perfect pale skin, and golden eyes with a slightly feline slant. His hair was black and a little longer than Byron’s, just past shoulder length, with a little curl at the ends. Although combed, it was hair that never really cooperated. He wore a red coat-tunic thing with a deep V-cut in front and back to make room for his wings, and a black shirt beneath it with a collar that wrapped around the back of his neck and buttoned at his throat, but was also open around his wings. A demon tail curled up a little out from under the skirting of the coat. His black leather boots came up to his knees, so only a little of his black hose was visible.

He seemed to almost glow, his presence taking up the entire altar, and no one could take their eyes off him.

This wasn’t the Byron I knew.

This was the demigod in the Arcana, but definitely…way hotter in person. Well, when was the last time you looked at Medieval paintings and thought, He’s hot. In the little paintings, the mismatched wings and single horn looked weird, but in person, I was into it. I’d never seen anything like the real Byron before.

No, this man wasn’t an incubus. He really was something beyond that. His side of the church was attended by demons, Ethereals, and fae, none of them human, and none of them hiding how strange they appeared.

When he looked at me, his eyes seemed reassuring, as if he knew I might be intimidated by him, and he wanted me to relax.

What I didn’t see was any sign that he was Byron, and that he knew me as Helena.

It’s just a dream, I guess…but I’m trapped here.

I realized I had been waiting to see Byron. My Byron. I thought he would tell me what was going on. Now I knew that wouldn’t happen.

The ceremony blurred. I kept looking at the different magical beings assembled for Byron, all sitting together. Seven foot tall demons dressed in black with fearsome curving horns. Fae wearing cloaks of feathers and elaborate tiaras of silver leaves and acorns. Ethereal spirits in shimmering white with hair long enough to brush the ground. Nothing like this was ever