Author's Preface
By the following evening, the second missing citation had convinced Tessa to stop blaming the catalog.
The first had been easy to excuse. Old collections were messy, especially after a war. The second was harder.
She leaned closer to the library screen and checked the archive number again. The Dragon Crown Chronicle cited an early evacuation report. The index confirmed it had once existed, but the shelf numbers skipped straight past it.
Wonderful. Apparently history could misplace entire documents now.
Tessa rubbed the space between her brows. She had spent most of the day trying not to think about the extra bell or the weak answer she had given Zoran afterward. He had let her leave without pushing, but his expression had made one thing clear.
He knew she had lied. So naturally, she had come back to investigate the same subject that had already made him suspicious.
Excellent survival instincts.
Sarah set another thin ledger beside her. “This is the nearest surviving catalog from that period.”
Tessa opened it carefully. “Please tell me this one still believes in keeping records.”
“It believes in dust.”
“Close enough.”
Sarah’s mouth twitched. Together, they checked the Chronicle’s sources one by one.
One document was missing. Another belonged to a numbered collection with several entries gone from the catalog. A third still existed, but pages mentioned in its notes were missing. Then Tessa found an old evacuation collection marked restricted.
She frowned. “Why would records this old need that level of access?”
“Collections get moved,” Sarah said. “Catalogs change and documents are sometimes restricted later.”
“So this could be normal?”
“It could.”
Tessa looked at the gaps. “Even this many?”
Sarah did not answer. It wasn’t proof, but the missing records were suspicious enough to keep investigating.
“Still researching Aileen and Kael?”
Tessa looked up. Zoran stood across the table.
Of course. One problem at a time was too much to ask.
Zoran glanced at the open ledger.
“You know,” Tessa said, “most people at least pretend they aren’t reading over someone’s shoulder.”
“I wasn’t.”
“No. You were just standing there staring at my book.”
He smiled and set a thick dragon-law volume on the table. So he actually had a reason to be there.
Too bad. Tessa would have enjoyed accusing him of following her.
“Why are you still researching them?”
Tessa glanced toward Sarah. She had moved to a distant shelf, though her attention flicked briefly toward them.
“The records don’t match.”
“We talked about that last night.”
“And now some of their sources are missing.”
Zoran leaned closer to study the ledger. His voice lowered with the library hush, and Tessa became annoyingly aware of how near he was.
“That proves records are missing,” he said. “Not that someone removed them on purpose.”
“You keep assuming the records that survived should be trusted.”
“And you keep assuming the missing ones mean somebody lied.”
“I said it was suspicious.”
“You meant more than that.”
Of course he had noticed. He remembered too much.
“The accepted history mostly comes from records connected to the people who ended up in power.”
His expression tightened. “My family.”
Right. She was questioning more than history. She was questioning the story his family had inherited with it.
“I didn’t say your family invented all of it.”
“Generous of you.”
Tessa gave him a dry look. “I try.”
A quiet laugh escaped him. Annoyingly, she liked the sound of it.
Zoran looked back at the ledger. “The old system was unstable. Whatever happened during the war, what came after brought stability.”
“Stability doesn’t mean every story about how you got there is true.”
Instead of arguing, he studied the page again. Why did he have to be so irritating when he made sense? Worse, why did he have to look so good while doing it? They reached for the same page. Their hands nearly touched, and Tessa pulled hers back.
A soft pulse moved through the library wards.
11:54.
Her stomach dropped. Across the room, Sarah looked up too. Her gaze moved from the clock to Tessa and sharpened. She closed the catalog in front of her and headed toward the staff side passage.
Tessa barely noticed. At 11:54, every other problem had become secondary.
Tessa closed the ledger and gathered her notes.
Zoran frowned. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“You looked ready to argue for another hour.”
“That was before I remembered I had somewhere else to be.”
Her cuff slipped lower on her wrist.
Too soon. A faint pulling sensation moved beneath her skin. Mirrorroot was already weakening.
“Good night, Ashencroft.”
Zoran followed. The stone corridor beyond the library was colder, and his footsteps echoed behind her as the warm library wards faded into the blue-white glow of the staff passage.
11:56.
“Monroe.”
“I’m suddenly very tired of hearing my own name.”
“You’re avoiding me.”
“Finally, something else we agree on.”
Her voice changed on the last word. For a brief moment, Theo’s deeper voice slipped into Tessa’s natural one before the potion corrected it.
Zoran stopped. “What was that?”
“Magical exhaustion.”
“You sounded different.”
“Late-awakened warlock and unstable magic. Pick whichever explanation makes you stop following me.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. He clearly did not believe the excuse, but he followed her without saying more.
11:57.
At the private staff corridor, Zoran stepped into her path. He did not touch her, but the amusement had vanished from his face.
“What are you hiding?”
Tessa’s throat tightened. Her real voice was already pressing beneath Theo’s borrowed one. Another slip might answer him for her.
“Mostly my growing dislike of this conversation.”
She moved around him.
11:58.
Magic flickered over her skin as Mirrorroot briefly lost its grip. Zoran’s attention sharpened. His dragon reacted, and Tessa felt the pressure of it.
She sent a quick burst of witch magic into the nearby book-return ward. Several waiting books lifted at once, pages fluttering through the corridor.
Zoran looked toward them. That second was enough. Tessa slipped through the staff passage.
“Monroe—”
Footsteps sounded from the side corridor. Sarah reached the residential boundary, her expression already alert.
“Theo is under my protection,” she said. “This is a private residential area.”
Zoran stopped at the ward line. Tessa hurried into the Keeper’s House and reached her room at 11:59. She locked the door just as midnight arrived.
Mirrorroot released. Her height dropped, her body shifted, and within seconds Theo was gone.
“Monroe?”
Zoran’s voice came from beyond the outer wards.
Tessa froze. He could not cross the privacy boundary, but he was close enough to hear her, and Theo’s voice no longer existed.
She stayed silent. As the last of Mirrorroot faded, her magic changed with it and Zoran’s dragon reacted beyond the ward.
The protection blurred whatever he was trying to sense, but Tessa knew he had felt the change. Sarah’s voice carried from the corridor.
“Theo is done for the night, Ashencroft. Whatever you want can wait until morning.”
After a pause, Zoran’s presence receded. Tessa exhaled. She had made it behind the wards with less than a minute to spare.
Somehow, that did not feel like winning.
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