A deadly fae assassin needs to uncover the truth about her existence while also carrying out the task she's hired for. Only, she never planned to fall in love with the biggest adversary in her mission-or rather fall in love at all.
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Larkspur i...
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"Do you want to stay longer here?" I look up from the book I am leafing through. The kind-faced librarian is peering at me from over her silver-framed glasses.
"Actually yes. I need to do some homework for extra credits." I try a small smile, just to appease her.
"But my shift is over. I'm not allowed to keep the library open beyond eleven ' o'clock."
"Can' you make an exception?" I ask slowly.
"I'm afraid not"—I click my fingers. Her eyes glaze over for a second before becoming clear again.—"Yes, you can stay for a while."
"Give me the keys please, I'll lock up after you."
She nods and hands me the keys and proceeds to collect her bag from the counter.
"Take your bag tomorrow," I whisper my command. She steps away and turns back, slowly exiting through the door. A little bit of compulsion always comes in handy. Why hurt innocent people when you can sweet-talk them into getting what you want?
Once she's out of the door, I close the wooden panes slowly and click the lock into place. Turning back, I survey the grand library. There are two floors. The front of the hall has wooden benches and tables neatly lined in rows. Beyond that, a spiral staircase rises to the hanging top floor, which holds an equal number of racks like the ground floor, stacked to the top with various books. The ground floor mainly is an all-access floor with course books and reference books. The top floor has all books on ancient fae literature and history. You need to have a special card to access books from that section. But none of these racks is of any interest to me because I bet the books I need aren't available on display on the shelves.
The emptiness of the library is almost scary and I wish Hemlock was here. He'd have known exactly where to search.
I look at the watch. I have almost six hours before students start streaming in for some early morning study.
"Need help?" I am startled to hear Hemlock's voice, also maybe a bit relieved. He comes out from behind a bookshelf wearing the same dress he was wearing earlier. Did he come to the library to sulk?
"Hem, were you here the whole time?"
"Kinda." He comes closer.
"Hey, I'm sorry about earlier," I whisper.
"It's okay, Lark. I am not mad at you." He seems to hesitate for a moment. "What are you doing?"
"I'm doing what we planned to do, Hem!" I squint at him, surprised.
"Ah right! The plan." He nods. There's something off about him but I can't place a finger on what it is.
"Are you feeling okay?" I ask, reaching out to touch his arm.
"Yeah,"— he steps back, just out of reach. "I'm fine."
"Listen, if you're mad about earlier then—" I don't try to touch him anymore. If he needs space, I understand. "I can never forget how you saved me. It was so wrong of me to lash out like that."
