Frey (The Frey Saga, #1)(9)

I woke in my own bed, lit by the dim light of a single flame suspended above my table. A flash of embarrassment hit as it dawned on me Chevelle must have placed me there; he must have seen my home, my room. And then I smiled, because he had left me a flame. I stretched my entire body, rejuvenated from the rest. I was unsure how long I'd slept but it looked like the sun was rising again and I wanted to be out of the house before I ran into Fannie.

It was probably too early to hope to see Chevelle. I'd spent the last two days with him but he hadn’t revealed anything of himself and that had only made me more curious. I retrieved the documents I'd hidden after my second trip to the library to find out whether they'd add anything to the terrible report from the council’s recorder. There wasn’t much new there, more names, but I did notice a watermark on one of the pages. I held it up to the light to better see. It was a council marking and something else.

I dug out the first pages from under my mattress and examined them closer. The pages directly from the recorder’s report all included the same council mark plus a string of characters. I tried to decode them, it seemed one of the symbols might have simply been page numbers. And the others, could they be locators? They did remind me of the codes used in the library, though more elaborate. No one really used the codes, you didn’t need them with magic, but they were added to many of the pages when the fairies had started tracking clan histories.

Then it hit me I might have had what I needed to find the northern clans in the council library. I suddenly found myself getting up and heading toward the village, regardless of the consequence.





I was back and forth the entire way to town.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t keep myself from doing it.

What if I got caught?

Surely I could claim ignorance, I was pretty sure the entire clan thought I was an imbecile.

Maybe I would just see how close I could get…

And then I was there, standing in front of the council building and walking in. I began to attempt stealth. It was a poor endeavor but no one ever seemed to pay much attention to me anyway. I casually leaned around a doorway to see into the next room I needed. There was a small group of villagers talking in low voices, I was trying to figure a way past without being noticed when I overheard something that caught my attention.

“Evelyn has been a model citizen… doesn’t seem right…”

They were talking about Evelyn? My stomach pulled as the worry from that day returned. I strained to hear but could only pick out parts of the conversation.

“Well on her way to becoming a council member… if anyone should leave…”

“Yes, but who can trust him…”

“Why can’t we simply banish… who knows if the spells will even hold… dark magic can’t be trusted…”

I was furiously trying to hear them, fully irritated they were talking so low, and the harder I listened, the more I perceived a dull, buzzing hum. And then, at once, the group began to scratch at themselves feverishly; a forearm, a stomach, and a face. Each wore an uncomfortable, even frightened, expression as they hurried out of the room in a tight formation into an inner council chamber.

I was considering how strange they'd acted as I made my way through the now vacant room, but quickly switched to concern when I spotted the library door, unsure if there would be a protection spell on the entry. I walked right through without any obvious repercussions and assumed that, with so many council members around, they must not have thought it necessary.

The council library was overwhelming. It housed copies of all the books in the village library as well as hundreds more that were too delicate or important for public use. And if you believed Fannie’s theories, they held secret documents here as well, things they didn’t want commonly known.

It was empty apart from me but I found a shelf to hide behind, just in case, as I laid out the documents on the floor and worked to decipher the letters and numbers. I noticed each of the pages included the letters C and A. I examined the shelves in front of me. The sections seemed to be arranged by groups and each shelf divided by categories within that group, so I walked the library searching for a section marked for either of those characters. I was about to give up, they didn’t seem to be on any wall, when I noticed some encased shelves in the center of the room. I checked the small section, found it was C, and had no problem locating shelf A.

I was thinking how easy it had been as I slid my fingers across the books on that shelf. I felt a tingle as I crossed a thin section of pages bound together. I slid them out just as I became aware of some sort of commotion... that sounded like it was getting closer. No, not a tingle indicating what I was looking for, it was a protection spell. I ran.

As I shot through the rooms, all I could think of was not getting caught. I shoved the pages under my shirt before I made it through the last door. The village was crowded with dancing elves, oblivious to my horror. The protection spell must have only alerted council. I ran from town and pushed through the brush at the edge of the village, taking the shortest direction out of the boundaries. I kept running until I became winded and then hastily searched for some kind of shelter. I burrowed deep in a briar patch and struggled to catch my breath. I wrenched the wad of papers from under my shirt, buried them in the soil beside me, and then waited silently for my punishment.