by Jaymin Eve
“A wall,” Larissa said. “Just the normal wall at the back of the library.”
Oddest thing ever.
“Okay, so it looks like this is an Atlantean-only zone, unless you can get the librarian to let you into this restricted section.” I looked around. “I can’t see Mab anywhere, but if I find her, I’ll send her out to help.”
Ilia narrowed her eyes on me. “Did you just say Mab?” I nodded, realizing I hadn’t actually mentioned her in my explanations earlier.
“Oh yeah, she helped me find the library. She’s been keeping it safe for years.”
Ilia and Larissa exchanged an odd glance, but I didn’t have time to press for whatever that was. We had to research. “I’ve gotta get in there, but I’ll send Mab out to you.”
I got a hug from them both before stepping back in with the guys.
“You know Mab is one of the most dangerous creatures to walk this world, right?” Axl said conversationally, curiosity burning in his eyes. “Are you sure you heard the name right”
I turned a look of disbelief on him. “Definitely not the same Mab. My Mab is only a few inches tall and has gorgeous gossamer—”
“Wings,” Calen interrupted, sounding incredulous.
I nodded, a strange feeling in my stomach. “Right. She’s a fairy.”
The silence was heavy. “She’s not a fairy, Mads,” Jesse said in his rumbly voice. “She’s the fairy. The first of her kind—she’s the queen.”
“A very old, very powerful, very, very scary queen,” Rone added from where he was bringing up the rear of our group.
“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s just no way.” She had been kind and sweet, and sure, she was extremely old, but I felt a kindred spirit in her.
Like we’d summoned her, she appeared in the path, and immediately four supes stood between me and the tiny fairy.
“Holy fuck,” Calen breathed. “It’s Mab.”
I was attempting to push my way through, but the guys would not give an inch, and shelves on either side stopped me going around them.
“Maddison,” Mab said, and the power in my name sent the hair across my arms standing up.
“Back here,” I said loudly, trying to wave and jump, but of course, tall as fuck dudes were obstructing that too. “The guys are feeling a little overprotective of me because this place blocked my energy before and they thought I died.”
Axl hissed, and it was an odd sound from him. “Don’t give her our secrets, Maddison,” he said softly. “Fairies will take your secrets and use them against you.”
Mab didn’t reply, and I couldn’t see her to know what she was doing, which wasn’t an issue two seconds later when all four guys were jerked away from me, held immobile against the shelves. Mab drifted forward. “There you are,” she said softly.
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “You’re kind of proving their point right now.”
She shrugged, tiny shoulders lifting with her wings. “They wouldn’t move.” She released them in that next instant before she flew forward and settled onto my shoulder.
Four pairs of wide eyes locked on to us, and the disbelief in them was actually visible. “How in the fuck?” Calen said, rubbing a hand over his head, mussing up the brown strands. “Only Maddison James would befriend a scary old fairy.”
Mab and I ignored him, setting off again toward the library. “Can you fix it so my friends can enter?” I asked her as we walked. “Ilia and Larissa aren’t Atlantean, and the first barrier stopped them.”
She nodded, waved her hand somewhere behind us, her glittery wings catching my attention from the corner of my eye. “They’ll be let through shortly. The librarian was arguing, but she’s been set straight.”
Nice. I hadn’t really noticed this streak of authority in Mab the first time I saw her, but it was becoming much more apparent. Maybe by finally freeing her from watching the library, I freed something even greater inside of her. Strength and independence.
Queen of the fairies.
When we reached the back wall, I didn’t hesitate, stepping right on through. My boys would follow me without pause. I knew that as well as I knew that the hole in my soul would never be filled.
My body did some sort of involuntary sigh of relief when I was back in the blue-toned room, the water around us, the scent of books and magic in the air.
“Well, fuck me.”
Rone looked astonished, and it was such an odd expression on his overtly masculine face that I chuckled. “I know, right?”
Laughing felt odd, but also cathartic. I wasn’t someone prone to depression, but losing … Ash … it was breaking me in ways I never anticipated. I thought I would be stronger. But I felt as fragile as a spiderweb drifting in a storm.
“You know,” Mab started conversationally. The room went quiet and everyone turned to her. “Spiderwebs are very unique in their characteristics. In truth, many of them are able to withstand gale force storms. And did you know that if you break one strand of a web, the entire web as a whole becomes stronger?”
I gulped and choked on air or something. “You can read my mind?”
She fluttered up and off my shoulder. “No, my darling,” she said softly. “But when your pain is broadcast so strongly, I feel it in my soul, and occasionally our minds connect. We have bonded, somehow, and you are one of the few supernaturals in this world I give a damn about.”
My eyes were burning like someone had a blowtorch aimed right for them. “Spiderwebs get stronger when they’re broken?” I choked out.
She nodded. “Yes. Just because you’ve had some strands destroyed does not mean you are weak. If anything, the fact that you are still standing here, trying to save the world, tells me that you’re stronger than you will ever understand. Do not underestimate a delicate, beautiful thing. It is never weak.”
Mab was the epitome of that, if the fear from my guys and the power she exuded was any indication.
And we were bonded. I had no idea what that would mean for my life, but I would take it like everything else.
One day at a time.
20
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Jesse said, breaking the tension. “We need to start researching.”
Everyone moved about the room, Mab flying into the center and perching on a small pillar there. “What information do you feel is most pertinent?” she asked, looking down on all of us.
“I think we need to find out what Maddi is,” Rone started. “What it means if she was born half god?”
“We need to know why Atlantis sank,” I added. “I mean, the real reason, and what actually caused it.”
Everyone nodded.
“Also what gods we might be going up against if it rises,” Calen piped in. “Not to mention there’s probably a prophecy somewhere about what its rise will bring about.”
No one else had anything to add, but that was probably enough for the few hours we had left before having to leave for Atlantis. Everyone had spread out, moving toward the multiple towering shelves, when a loud noise from behind drew my attention.
“We made it, bitches!” Ilia said, bursting through the fake wall. She had a bottle in both hands, and her hair was looking a little disheveled, springing out around her face in crazy disorder.
I snorted. “Are you drunk?”
She shook her head, and at the same time Larissa nodded. “Yeah, she got to drinking with the librarian, trying to get into this room. Apparently, fairy wine is the librarian’s weakness.”
Mab chuckled, the musical tones ringing out through the room. That drew Ilia’s gaze. She stared and then spluttered. “Fuck. Me.”
I lifted my head to meet Mab’s gaze. “That’s like your standard greeting now.”
She shrugged, delicate shoulders and wings lifting. “I’m afraid my reputation precedes me.”
“Hell yes it does,” Ilia said, splashing wine over the edge of the open bottles. “You’re Mab, the fucking queen of the fairies. You are badass, girlfriend, and I
’m not even going to ask what you’re doing here, because it’s just so freaking awesome you are.”
Mab’s lips twitched, but she managed not to smile at my insane best friend.
Ilia and Larissa hurried forward and I hugged them both. “Ready for some research?” I asked.
Larissa nodded, and Ilia screwed up her nose. “That’s why I have the wine. It helps with the research.”
She handed one of the bottles to me, and I was about to refuse when I thought … what the hell. Maybe it would help; maybe it would dull the pain just slightly. Either was a win in my book.
The first swig was sweet with a slight burn as it trailed down my throat. I took another straight away, remembering how hard it was to get supes drunk. Of course … this was fairy wine so the rules kind of went out the window.
Jesse reached out and stopped me before I took a third gulp. “Let’s see how you go with two,” he said softly, wrapping his arm around me and letting me fall into him.
I wrinkled my nose and shrugged before handing the bottle back to Ilia. “You might be right,” I admitted, feeling the warmth spread through my body. It reminded me of my power, and I panicked for a brief second that I might lose control of the energy.
“I’ll keep you safe,” Mab promised, still on her perch.
That made me feel marginally better.
Everyone was now around the room, pulling books from the shelves and flicking through them to try and determine if there was anything important. Axl was totally in his element, magically taking notes as he read at super speed through whatever thick tome he held.
“Atlantis was actually a series of islands,” he said out loud, his pen racing across the paper next to him. “Some of them remained after the main ‘royal’ island sank. Eventually though, they were lost to the sea.”
I turned toward him, finding that pretty interesting. “So the royals lived on the main island, but the others spread out.”
He nodded. “Yes. I have a population chart here that was taken the year before it sank. There were fifty thousand Atlanteans by the time the gods cursed them to exist beneath the seas.”
Wow, that was huge. So many lives lost when they sank—or so we thought. There was that other theory that they were simply in stasis, waiting to be freed. The same way I had been in stasis…
There was more silence, and I was reading some newspaper articles about life in Atlantis, marveling at the world they lived in, when Jesse cleared his throat. “I found something about Maddison.”
I stood suddenly, blood and alcohol rushing to my head and almost sending me face-first into the bookshelf. I was halfway to drunk, clearly, and it was doing exactly as I hoped: slightly dulling my pain. “What did you find?” I asked as I reached his side. He held a photo album, and in it was some text.
“This was Queen Helene, the ruler of Sonaris’s bloodline.”
Helene was beautiful, tall with curves for days, her long blond curls cascading over her barely-covered skin. In this image, she had just risen from the water, wearing less than a bikini in coverage.
“She looks like a god,” I breathed.
Jesse lifted his eyes to me, and then jerked his head down to where there was more text.
The top line was in Atlantean script. I recognized it easily now and could even pick a few words like “goddess” and “child.” Neither of which was enough to read it, but thankfully someone had penned the translation beneath.
Queen Helene lent her body to Lotus, Goddess of Storms, to conceive the child who would save us all.
Holy mother…
I gasped, my breathing rapid and loud. What the fuck? What the actual fuck? Queen Helene was the Atlantean who they believed birthed me. The one who had a child with a god. There was no legit evidence to support this, but hearing her name threw me.
“Am I that child?” I wondered out loud in a voice too high-pitched. “Could I be born of two gods? Or was it my mother that was the god, not my father?”
Jesse shook his head. “I have no idea. This is all the information I have in this book. The rest is about the other royals and their houses.”
Ilia appeared at my shoulder, bottle in hand, and I took another huge gulp. When Jesse shot me a side-eye, I glared at him and hugged the bottle to my chest. “I need it,” I said, only half joking.
His eyes ran across my face, and I fought the urge to hide my eyes from him. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but it made me uncomfortable. With a shrug, he broke the moment and snagged the bottle and took a long drink himself before handing it back. “That’s more like it,” I said recklessly, heat coursing through my veins. Jesse just shot me his cocky grin, that beautiful face looking a tiny bit less devastated. For a moment we both forgot we had lost the most important person to us and just enjoyed the heady sensation that only alcohol and love could bring.
We all went back to our research. I found myself drawn to the far back section of the shelves. It was darker here, the light from the water and magic that held this room not quite touching the back corner. My hands traced over the books. I hoped something would jump out of me. Mab appeared suddenly, and I hadn’t noticed until this point, but there was a faint glow surrounding her. “Are you making yourself light up?” I asked, fascinated by her.
The tiny fairy shook her head. “No. This is the natural glow from my power. The stronger you are, the stronger the glow. The upper gods … sometimes it’s hard to look directly upon them.”
I couldn’t remember anything like that with Shera. But then again, she wasn’t supposedly that strong. Minor deity of the sea, Axl had said.
“You will glow,” Mab whispered to me, “when your full potential is released.”
I blinked at her, my breath catching in my chest as I tried to fill my lungs. “Full potential?”
She just shook her head. “Now is not the time for you to know everything. Now is the time for you to find out exactly what you’re facing.”
She nudged a book out from the shelf and then fluttered away like this weird-ass conversation hadn’t just happened. I was already reaching for the book, trusting that she was leading me exactly where I needed to go. It was not a large book, only a little bigger than my hand, and the cover was a nondescript plain green, rough textured, a few marks and scuffs on it. When I cracked the front open, it creaked like a book that had never been opened before.
I sensed this was a book that had been overlooked, so small and plain.
“Axl,” I called, staring down at the front page. It was written in Atlantean, no translation.
He hurried over me to, his face awash with happiness and excitement. Boy was totally in his element. Before I could say anything, he swept his arms around me and hauled me closer, holding so tight that all the air sort of huffed out of my lungs.
“Thank you,” he murmured, not letting go. “Thank you for finding this library. It’s … beyond anything I could have imagined.”
Swallowing hard, I patted his shoulder, and eventually he sat me down. His expression sobered a little. “I’m not going with you to Atlantis,” he said quickly, like he needed to get the words out. “I think it’s more important that I stay here and compile information. Anything to help us with whatever we’re facing.”
“Good idea,” I said, knowing that no one would be better at that job than Axl. Providing he didn’t get distracted. “But first, can you help me translate this book?”
I held it out to him, and a reverent expression crossed his face. No one loved the mystery of what was inside a book more than this dude. He led me out into the light, to the cushions in the center of the room. “What made you grab this book?” he asked, seeming confused.
I shrugged. “Something pointed me in that direction.”
His brow furrowed, but for once he didn’t complain about my wishy-washy explanation. A notepad and pen whipped through the air toward us and Axl wasted no time starting his translation. Asher was the best with the language, but Axl was a close second.
“
It’s a diary,” Axl said suddenly, his eyes speeding across the sloping, artistic text that the Atlanteans used. Almost like hieroglyphics or pictographs, with a decidedly Asian flare. “A diary from the days before Atlantis sank.”
I was basically glued to his side as I stared down at the page, willing my brain to suddenly understand Atlantean. I mean, come on, I could make magic happen, surely I could learn a language in two minutes.
Like he understood, Axl’s notepad moved right in front of me and I watched the pen race across the page, powered solely by his magic. He flicked through pages until he found the parts worth translating.
Three days until the countdown clock ceases. Three more days until we know the fate of our world. For hundreds of years we have lived…
“It’s very modern,” I said quietly, “the way they talk.”
Axl shook his head. “My spell both translates and modernizes. Best it can anyway. Some words have no literal translation to our language today.”
Axl could make a fortune if he could market some of his magical inventions. I went back to the diary.
…on Earth, mostly at peace with everyone around us, but then they had to go too far. Push too hard to control everything. I fear for my children. For my mate who is on the frontline, waiting for Sonaris and Lotus to war. To destroy.
It broke off then, and Axl turned the page.
Two days until the countdown clock ceases. The babes are due to be born any day. Three royal god babies that are the reason we are all here, waiting for our last breaths of air to cease in our lungs. No amount of magic can prevent this from happening. No spell has worked, and Faerie has forsaken us. Many Atlanteans have fled, but I stay with my mate. With my children. There is no place in this world that is far enough to escape the wrath of these vengeful gods.
I rubbed a hand across my chest, trying to ease the ache there. This was making me feel things I wasn’t sure I could handle on top of the Asher things, but we had to find out exactly what happened.
Axl continued to turn pages, his pen racing. There was more talk of her day-to-day, the children and what she was doing to love them in their last days. It was heartbreaking to read most of it, and then…
