FAIRYTALE Read online

  The smell of musty pages and rich, old leather filled Killian’s nose. He stepped further inside and the breath vanished from his lungs.

  “Wow.”

  Endless shelves of books stretched up to a cavernous ceiling covered in frescoes. Iron chandeliers hung low, emitting a dark orange glow from millions of tiny candles. Globes and small statues lined the shelves, and deep redwood writing desks were scattered across the floor, all adorned with enormous atlases and maps, but absolutely nothing with any real color. Killian skimmed the wallpapered walls, seeking out more paintings like those in his bedroom, the vivid scenes that transported him elsewhere in a way that a faded map could never do, but instead found enormous portraits, men and women he didn’t recognize with judgmental eyes and stiff mouths. He quickly looked away, nerves tingling.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, and the familiar jingle of the bell rang in response. It was almost comforting somehow. Still, he entered cautiously, half expecting the eyes to reappear at any moment.

  Enormous windows were set high into the walls, each of them letting in more light than the rapidly setting sun could possibly provide. Killian walked slowly, his footsteps echoing against the marble floors, and he trailed his fingers lightly against the thick spines, approaching another shelf.

  He skimmed their spines when he stopped, realization setting in. None of the books had titles written on the binding. They were all the same, plain, black, or brown, and impossibly thick.

  Killian hesitated and picked out a book by random, opening it to the middle of the page. Tiny print filled the page, not even broken up by an illustration or two. Half the words looked to be written in a language he’d never even seen before. He squinted at it for a second before grimacing and shoving it back on the shelf.

  “Are you serious?” he muttered as he took a step back and looked up at the towering shelf. “This is supposed to help me?”

  The bell chimed happily, almost mockingly. Killian resisted the urge to scowl.

  “Wonderful.”

  Two curving staircases led up to a second floor overlooking him, but Killian kept alongside the shelf that lined the wall, stopping every couple of feet or so to pull out another book at random. Every time he was met with another wall of text, small enough to be read through a magnifying glass, and as usual, words that he’d never even heard of, and, as usual, no illustrations. Even the front page gave no indication of the subject inside.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what he was even looking for. Instead, he set aside anything that even remotely seemed useful.

  Herbology.

  Astrology.

  Lycanthropy?

  “This is ridiculous.” He placed another volume on his stack. “I have less than two weeks to figure this out. Do you really expect me to get through all of these?”

  The waist-high pile teetered in response. He glared at it, then snatched the top three books, hugging them to his chest. “Fine.” He turned down an aisle in search of a desk. He’d ventured deeper into the library than he’d thought, the rows of tables now long gone. He cracked open the first volume as he walked, scanning the first page.

  Dermatopathology

  Killian blinked.

  What?

  He closed the book again, trying to clear the fluff from his brain. His arms ached, and he picked up the pace, peering down every aisle, frowning, trying to remember which direction he’d originally come from. There were no walls anymore, only endless rows of more and more books stretching higher than he could see, and soon even the light from the windows began to fade away.

  He picked an aisle at random and started down it. His footsteps grew louder, his breathing echoing inside his ears. Killian clutched the books tighter, slowing down. Then the aisle ended, opening up to a tiny, round clearing. Pushed up against the wall perched a tall wood-carved statue of a man atop a pedestal. He stood with his arms splayed at his sides, palms up, head tilted back. In one hand he clutched a small book. His face and shoulders were completely covered, the wood carved to resemble the intricate folds of a piece of cloth draped across him.

  Even so, Killian stared at where his face would be. The carved fabric bunched across a nose, forehead, lips, as delicate as if it were made of real silk. Killian set his books down and approached it. The dark wood gleamed, smooth, and he reached out, brushing his fingers on the cuff of the man’s sleeve, half expecting it to rustle against his touch.

  A hairline crack trailed down the side of the man’s leg. Killian frowned, leaning in closer to study it. It traveled to the base of his foot and circled around the edge of the platform. Killian ran a finger along it and stopped when he reached the back of the statue. It wasn’t a crack at all. His eyes widened. It was a seam.

  He took a few steps back, taking in the entire statue one more time. It was pushed up against an otherwise completely plain wall, with no bookshelves or décor. He scanned the edges, and his heart leaped as he noticed the seam running up around the edges. A door.

  He rushed back to the statue and placed both palms on the pedestal, giving a small push. The statue didn’t budge. Biting his cheek, Killian sucked in a breath and pushed harder, a jolt of excitement racing up his spine as the pedestal creaked and slowly began to tremble. He shifted his weight, adjusting his footing so he could push harder. A droplet of red splattered on top of his hand.

  Killian didn’t notice at first, focused on the platform as it continued to slide. Then a second droplet splashed onto his skin. He stopped moving. The two drops pooled together, and then slowly slid down his wrist in a thin line of bright crimson. Killian jerked back with a gasp, wiping his arm on his shirt, and looked up.

  Streams of blood oozed from the statue’s face, seeping down the folds of the cloth. Killian choked, stumbling further back. The blood splattered to the floor, drawing into a thick puddle, seeping toward him. Killian stumbled and his back collided into a shelf. His knees buckled.

  “Killian.”

  He turned. Dmitri stood beside him, bits of broken glass and jagged metal embedded into his face and arms. Torn flesh stripped away, red and raw, hung from his cheek, his eyes. Torn clothes and bloodless skin, pale. His lips did not move when he spoke. He took a step forward.

  Killian ran. Sprays of blood kicked up after him, the floor slick and slippery. The aisle stretched on forever. Oh God.

  Ragged breaths filled Killian’s head. Strained. Dying. His own or Dmitri’s, he couldn’t tell. He ran faster, had to escape. He turned down every corner that materialized, refusing to look back. A desk appeared and he slammed into it at full speed, toppling over with a booming thud.

  Killian couldn’t move. He lay panting on the ground, staring up at the cherub faces gazing down at him from the frescoed ceiling, the million flicking candles twinkling like stars. He sucked in a breath, and untangled his legs from the chair. His hands were dry, clean. No sign of blood. Slowly Killian pulled himself up to a shaky stand, the ground still wobbling beneath his feet. He leaned against the desk, his vision swimming.

  “Dmitri…” He inhaled again, throat raw. “…Fedya.”

  He tilted his head up, and the double doors to the library splayed wide open, waiting for him. He staggered toward it, still refusing to look back. But as he touched the doorknob, the candles on all of the chandeliers blew out, casting the room in darkness.

  Killian stood, quiet, and slowly inhaled. Tightening his grip on the knob, he forced a glance inside. A thin stream of light seeped in through a single round window, high up in the middle of the room. Not a single star twinkled, but a thin sliver of moon hung low in the blackened sky. Killian stared at it, the last bit of warmth seeping from his body. The Pink Moon was coming.

  K

  illian sat by his window until dawn. Pressed up against the cool glass, he stared at the mansion grounds, watching the light shift across the undisturbed snow from purple, to gray, to orange. Somehow the sunrise didn’t seem nearly as beautiful as it had that morning in th
e castle. He could see the iron fence now, a smudge in the distance, trapping the manor inside, surrounded by dark, dense forests. The gate was swung closed, locked, like a prison.

  He couldn’t close his eyes. Every time he blinked, every time a shadow crept into his vision, he saw Dmitri again. The empty, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach rose into his chest, festering deep, as though it threatened to creep deeper inside. He couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat away, his eyes raw as he stared outside.

  And when sleep finally took over, the Grimbeasts did too, slashing and snarling through his subconscious until he woke, heart pounding, and covered in sweat. Their howls and laughter rang in his ears long after their memory faded away. He tried to force them back, hiding behind his carefully crafted mask of smirks and confidence, except smiling felt like a distant memory, a painful reminder of a life he took for granted.

  Fedya hadn’t seen Dmitri. At least, Killian was fairly sure that if Fedya had, he would have known about it by now. So that meant Dmitri was only showing up for him. His stomach squirmed. He pulled his legs up closer to his chest. This wasn’t supposed to happen to Dmitri. It wasn’t supposed to happen to any of them.

  He heard a whinny, and the door to the stable swung open and his mare trotted outside, head swinging, kicking up snow. A bright green blanket was wrapped around her back, and even from here, Killian could see the white and emerald ribbon threaded through her mane and tail. It reminded him of the flags of Thale.

  There was nothing for him out there. All of his answers were inside these walls. He’d left everyone behind. Killian tore his gaze from the window, looking back inside his room. His fire had remained burning bright throughout the night despite never having once gotten up to feed it.

  Hot needles stabbed the back of his eyes, and with a sharp breath he extracted his legs from beneath him, stood, and walked across the room to the large oak desk. Despite the typewriter, he pulled out the quill pen and ink bottle instead. He yanked the lid off, not even bothering to sit. Droplets of ink spilled across the desk, but he didn’t wipe them away. It felt better to write. More real somehow. Maybe not everyone had been left behind.

  His hand shook as it touched paper.

  Melchior…

  He hesitated, and then forced the quill across the page.

  …I wish I hadn’t left before seeing you first. I do not even know how you fared after the earthquake. Are you safe? Is Cosette still well? Please forgive me for leaving you both, I miss you terribly…

  The night of the Pink Moon was coming. He had to find Fedya, bring him home. They couldn’t stay here.

  …I am so lost here. I don’t even know where I am. There is magic, but it’s impossible to understand…

  He had to find a way out of this place. As beautiful and enchanting as it was, it was only an illusion. Just like Fedya’s curse.

  I miss you.

  Just like Dmitri.

  Please…

  Killian stopped. The pen shook in his white-knuckled grip, and he squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the world. There was no one else here to help him. Not Melchior. Not Annette. There was only…

  Killian cracked his eyes back open.

  “Dmitri.”

  He stared down at the parchment; blotted in ink, bits of it smudged with teardrops he didn’t remember falling. The words jumbled together, a blurred mess. But he sought out Melchior’s name and his heart welled in his chest. They were all waiting for him, but there was someone else who had been waiting longer.

  Heart pounding, he snatched up the paper, folding it into quarters. His fingers fumbled, numb as he stuffed it inside his trousers’ pocket. He cleared his throat loudly and ran his hands through his hair, pulling the stray locks back, and rubbed his sore eyes. He dug his nails into his palms, knees locked in resolution. He had to do this. They couldn’t all wait for him forever. He faced the door.

  “I would like to go to the library,” he said flatly. “Please.”

  He half expected the door to transform right there in front of him. It didn’t. He reached for the knob; it was warm in his hand. It swung open noiselessly, and the scent of books tickled his nose.

  The library looked smaller than he remembered. While it had the same wallpapered walls, hanging chandeliers, and yawning windows, it evoked a sense of normalcy. He ventured in, the dust sparkling against the rising sun filtering in through the windows, falling across the floor like specks of gold. He glanced down the aisles, but they no longer seemed to stretch into infinity, and the stacks of books he’d picked out from before still waited for him.

  He kept to the staircases, hand gliding across the railing as he made his way to the second floor. From here, he could overlook the entire library. Huge, yet somehow, completely ordinary. Killian sighed, a shudder of relief tugging his shoulders.

  He continued down the length of the balcony until he reached an enormous, round window, almost as tall as he was. The icy wind outside seeped through the glass, goosebumps prickling along his arm as he peered outside. He squinted. A beam of sunlight pierced his eyes and he winced, pulling back. He gripped the railing again and sighed, staring back out at the aisles of bookshelves and desks. He wasn’t going to find what he needed up here.

  He scanned the aisle, trying to find the statue from above, but no such clearing seemed to exist.

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  With a final glance out the window, he walked back down the stairs, and chose an aisle at random. Somehow he was sure it wouldn’t matter which way he went, eventually he would get where he needed.

  He focused on the books, running a trail along the thick coat of dust that caked their spines. He ran into a wall, and turned around and kept going. He turned whenever a new aisle appeared, determined to keep going. Soon his footsteps sounded louder, echoing all around. He looked up, and the windows looked further away. Distant.

  A curl of doubt nestled in his chest, but he forced his legs to keep moving. He turned another corner and stopped, frozen.

  The aisle ended, opening up to the familiar half-circle clearing. The wooden statue stood at the center, the arms of the man open wide, inviting him in. Killian’s heartbeat tripled its pace, his eyes darting around furiously. Dmitri was nowhere in sight.

  He forced another step. Then another. He never looked away from the shrouded face of the man, skin icy by the time he stopped in front of him. His ears rang, something screeching. But there was no blood. No bits of broken glass, twisted metal, ripped flesh.

  He let out a breath. Calm. Contained. Then reached out and placed his palms on the side of the statue. He kept his eyes opened and he pushed, and slowly the sculpture began to slide away from the wall. The sound of scraping, and a small burst of dust. It tingled in Killian’s nose, but he refused to close his eyes or look away. He held his breath and pushed harder.

  The statue completely fell away, and Killian stumbled back, staring at a gaping hole in the center of the wall. Dark shadows crawled out, seeping across the floor. Killian tensed, but as he peered inside, a flickering light radiated from within.

  That tickle of dread blossomed in his gut. But he’d made it this far. He straightened up, puffed out his chest, and walked directly inside.

  He headed straight for the light, half expecting it to snuff out the second he walked in. But it didn’t, and he saw that it was a single lamp, sitting on the floor. He snatched it up, holding it like a weapon. But as he inched toward the open doorway, he tilted his head back as the light from the lantern began to seep all around.

  The room was small and perfectly square, each wall covered entirely in shelves. He peered upward, but found only yawning shadows instead of a ceiling. Killian shivered and looked back to the shelves.

  Four golden, rolling ladders were attached to each wall, but just like the roof, he couldn’t see where they ended. Clutching the lantern tight, he eased over to the closest shelf, peering at the books. He expected to find all their spine
s blank, like all of the other books in the library. Instead, his eyes widened as he found not words, but images, delicately embroidered into the spines. A teardrop. A star. A music note.

  He took a step back, looking up one more time at the towering shelves before he reached for the nearest ladder and began to climb. The handle of the lantern dug into his wrist, but he refused to put it down. The higher he stepped, the more detailed the images on the spines became.

  A unicorn prancing beneath seven stars.

  A swan sleeping atop a full moon.

  A flame inside a heart.

  Killian rolled the ladder along the shelves, taking them in one by one. It stopped suddenly, and he grabbed the rung, looking up. There was still no ending in sight. He kept climbing, one by one, until he lost count and his calves ached.

  He stopped again, the light from the lantern swinging wildly. Beads of sweat prickled on the back of his neck and he groaned in frustration. None of these were going to help, they all looked just as vague and dusty as everything else in the library. Sighing, he looked back down and instantly yelped.

  The floor was nowhere in sight, nothing but gaping darkness as endless and deep as up above. How could he possibly be so high? He swallowed and hugged the rung tight. Knuckles white, he eased back down a single step, when the light from the lantern spilled on another row of books, and his eye landed on one in particular.

  It was completely black from cover to pages, and easily twice as thick as all the others. Still clinging tightly to the rung, Killian craned his neck, inspecting its spine, and found the delicate engraving of a rose. The rose was simple, the petals full and blooming, and just beneath it was the head of a lion. Its eyes two black pools, that somehow seemed to be staring at him. An eerie chill tittered up Killian’s spine.

  He reached out for it, but his fingers barely brushed it. Gritting his teeth, Killian grabbed the shelf, trying to pull the ladder closer. It creaked from the force, but the squeal of metal on metal clanged, the ladder jammed. He glanced around, but there was no other ladder in sight.