Feyre Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

Feyre carried the book out of the old library and could not read a word of it. The gold symbols on the cover swirled like her tattoos, but they stayed silent. For six days she bent over the pages at her table. She filled notebooks with guesses. Each night her arms ached worse, and a black line crept up her left wrist that had not been there before. The curse was counting. Miriam had named the source but could not read the script. Feyre needed someone who could. Miriam gave her one name. A librarian of a rival order, a woman who had spent her life on dead tongues. Feyre found the cottage by the chimney smoke. Inside, warm lamplight fell on shelves packed with ancient texts. A calico cat watched her from a stack of books, unbothered. At a table buried under notes and open volumes sat a small fae woman with round glasses and blonde hair pinned up tight. The woman did not look up. "Door was closed for a reason. State your need or leave." "Miriam Ashwood sent me." Feyre set the book on the one clear corner of the table. "I can't read this. You can." The woman glanced at the cover. Her hands went still over her own work. "Fae origin script. Older than anything in this house." She touched the leather with one finger. "Fourteen years I spent on a dead language. Nearly quit twice. This is worse." Feyre rolled back her sleeve. The black line had reached her forearm. "I have two years. Less now. The marks are a key. This book names the lock. Read it and I live." Elowen Scriptweaver looked at the tattoos, then at the book, then at her own half-decoded text. Feyre saw the choice cross her face. The woman had her own race against time, her own pages to finish. "Last woman who read this died from it," Elowen said. Not a question. "Yes." Elowen pulled the book closer and opened to the first page. She read in silence for a long moment. Her finger traced a line of symbols, then stopped. "This word. It appears in your skin. Here." She pointed at the page, then at Feyre's wrist. The same swirl. "It is a name. The name of what sleeps in you." Feyre's breath caught. "Say it." "Not yet." Elowen shut the book. "Spoken wrong, the name kills faster than the curse. That is what took the last woman. She read it aloud before she understood it." She met Feyre's eyes. "I can learn this script. But not in weeks. Months, maybe." "I don't have months." "Then we work every hour you have left." Elowen slid a blank notebook across the table. "Sit. You will learn beside me. The key cannot be read for you. It must be read by you." Feyre sat. The black line pulsed on her arm. The race had a partner now, and a far shorter clock.