The Magic Library

(A Court of Thorns and Roses) 6

I jerked awake in the middle of the night, panting. My dreams had been filled with the clicking of the Suriel's bone-fingers, the grinning naga, and a pale, faceless woman dragging her bloodred nails across my throat, splitting me open bit by bit. She kept asking for my name, but every time I tried to speak, my blood bubbled out of the shallow wounds on my neck, choking me.

I ran my hands through my sweat-damp hair. As my panting eased, a different sound filled the air, creeping in from the front hall through the crack beneath the door. Shouts, and someone's screams.

I was out of my bed in a heartbeat. The shouts weren't aggressive, but rather commanding — organizing. But the screaming... I couldn't stand it. And I had to know.

I reached the top of the grand staircase in time to see the front doors of the manor bang open and Tamlin rush in, a screaming faerie slung over his shoulder. Another species of the lesser faeries, with his blue skin, gangly limbs, pointed ears, and long onyx hair. But even from atop the stairs, I could see the blood gushing down the faerie's back — blood from the black stumps protruding from his shoulder blades.

Lucien rushed into the foyer below just as Tamlin shouted, "The table—clear it off!" Lucien shoved the vase of flowers off the long table in the center of the hall. Either Tamlin wasn't thinking straight, or he'd been afraid to waste the extra minutes bringing the faerie to the infirmary. Shattering glass set my feet moving, and I was halfway down the stairs before Tamlin eased the shrieking faerie face-first onto the table. The faerie wasn't wearing a mask; there was nothing to hide the agony contorting his long, unearthly features.

"Scouts found him dumped just over the borderline," Tamlin explained to Lucien, but his eyes darted to me. They flashed with warning, but I took another step down. He said to Lucien, "He's Summer Court."

"By the Cauldron," Lucien said, surveying the damage.

"My wings," the faerie choked out, his glossy black eyes wide and staring at nothing. "She took my wings."

I took up a spot across the table from Tamlin, and the breath whooshed from my chest as I beheld the damage.

She hadn't just taken his wings. She'd ripped them off.

"She took my wings," the faerie said again, his voice breaking. As he trembled, shock taking over, his skin shimmered with veins of pure gold — iridescent, like a blue butterfly.

"Keep still," Tamlin ordered, wringing the rag. "You'll bleed out faster."

"N-n-no," the faerie started, and began to twist onto his back, away from Tamlin, from the pain that was surely coming when that rag touched those raw stumps.

It was instinct, or mercy, or desperation, perhaps, to grab the faerie's upper arms and shove him down again, pinning him to the table as gently as I could. He thrashed, strong enough that I had to concentrate solely on holding him. His skin was velvet-smooth and slippery, a texture I would never be able to paint, not even if I had eternity to master it. But I pushed against him, gritting my teeth and willing him to stop. I looked to Lucien, but the color had blanched from his face, leaving a sickly white-green in its wake.

"Lucien," Tamlin said—a quiet command. But Lucien kept gaping at the faerie's ruined back, at the stumps, his metal eye narrowing and widening, narrowing and widening. He backed up a step. And another. And then vomited in a potted plant before sprinting from the room.

The faerie twisted again and I held tight, my arms shaking with the effort. His injuries must have weakened him greatly if I could keep him pinned. "Please," I breathed. "Please hold still."

"She took my wings," the faerie sobbed. "She took them."

"I know," I murmured, my fingers aching. "I know."