After we left the throne room, one of the castle staff members took my carpetbag off to whichever room I'd be staying in for the night. I wasn't picky, and I wasn't really curious about the accommodations.

I was annoyed that yet another person wanted something from me because of magic that I didn't ask for, and I wanted the information that I was promised.

Calen, exercising his intelligence, recognized that I wanted to be left alone. Dante was... Well, not less intelligent, but required to stay with me so that I could move around the palace. He had volunteered himself as my escort, which was sweet. It was silly that I needed one, but it was sweet of him to offer.

Besides helping pick the correct books from the shelves, Dante stayed silent, too. Apparently, I gave off some kind of aura that made it clear that now was not the time to talk to me.

Luckily, research always helped calm me down. As long as I had something to focus on, I'd be okay.

Three hours after entering the library, I finally found myself in a state of calm.

Well, maybe I wasn't calm as much as hyperfocused. My ADHD brain issues weren't with staying focused, but with un-focusing once I was on a roll. I didn't really plan to stop any time soon, but I would need to at some point.

In fact, it was only the painful growling of my stomach and subsequent food delivery to the library that stopped my hyperfocus long enough to really take stock of what I'd managed to learn.

The records were... somewhat helpful? They gave names, locations, and ages of death for all the previous Weavers that had been identified. There were gaps in them, of course. Not every Weaver had been identified as such, and many had died young.

Almost without exception, they'd died young.

I'd looked for a similar book on the Hourglass, but there wasn't one. In fact, there was precious little information on the Hourglass in general. The few books that said anything at all about the existence of that magic mentioned it in terms of the Weaver.

Apparently, in a historical sense, it was much easier to locate the Weaver than the Hourglass. That made sense, in a way. If the Hourglass didn't want to be found, they could change it.

That was the balance. The Weaver controlled fate and the future. To balance that magic, the Hourglass was created, someone with the ability to rewind time and undo what the Weaver had set in place. My magic had limits, though. Inside itself, there was a balance. Big changes had big costs.

I couldn't tell what the balance for the Hourglass might be, though. If they could rewind time without anyone knowing, except for the aforementioned déjà vu, then what was the balance? How far back could the Hourglass go? Was everything across all these lifetimes a part of it?

There also didn't seem to be any way to track the Weaver's magic, which was unfortunate. Most magic was genetic, passed through bloodlines, but this one didn't seem to be. Instead, it was something else.

Maybe it chose who was most suited while they were in the womb? Maybe not. All the past Weavers appeared to be female, judging by the names, but that was the only connection I could draw.

"So... the Council appointed the Sylvan Prince to protect me?" I asked carefully, flipping through a book. "I'm honored."

"Are you angry that I didn't tell you?" he asked. All the confidence from earlier was completely gone. Bright blue eyes wide, he gazed at me in a way that almost seemed... nervous.

"No," I said. "I get it."

Dante sighed, shoulders slumping as he nodded, and pulled out the chair next to me.

"I'm adopted," he said quietly, taking a seat. "King Hilbern might call me his son, and I appreciate it, but he isn't my biological father."

"Who was?"

"His best friend. The former king," he said. "My parents passed away when I was a child."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "That's awful to deal with so young."

"I was lucky, really," Dante said, shrugging. "I got to have parents because Hilbern and Elinor adopted me. They've even named me as their successor to the throne when they could have, by all rights, picked one of their biological children instead."

"I thought you said they didn't have any interest in politics," I said, recalling his statement from earlier.

"They don't," he snorted. "Still could have picked them over me, though."

"You're going to be a great King," I said, shooting him a gentle smile.

I meant it, too.

Dante looked at me for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face.

"I think you're a good soul. I hope you make it through this alive," he whispered. A cold chill went down my spine.

Was there really, genuinely a chance that I wouldn't make it out of this? I should know the answer to that. Someone very clearly had tried to kill me. Magical war was on the horizon. Maybe it was because things were moving so fast, because the situation seemed so insane, or something else entirely, but... none of it felt real.

"Very Princess Bride of you," I said absently, chuckling.

"I... I'm sorry?"

"Don't consume a lot of human media?"

"Can't say that I do, no," Dante said, placing another book on the stack beside me.

"We'll have to have a movie day sometime," I said absently.

Finally at the end of the road in this particular book, I decided to turn back to the pile of journals. Dante had pulled a box from the archive full of battered, handwritten books. The only label on the wooden box was "Weaver."

Presumably, they were journals from past Weavers, but there was no way to be sure.

At least the characters in this one were familiar. It was the Roman alphabet, but I had no idea what language this was. Maybe it was some kind of Sylvan-human hybrid language?

I could pick out names. Ginalea. Kaiyen. A couple others? Nothing else useful in this one, though.

"Weird," I muttered, but I just kept flipping pages.

"Find something?" Dante asked, peeking over my shoulder.

"Not in a language I can read, unfortunately," I grumbled. "I could handle it if it was Latin. I actually know Latin. This? A mystery."

"Not many witches who would say that." Dante laughed outright, shaking his head.

"Not many witches who need it," I scoffed, rolling my eyes, but I was smiling. "Pop culture makes everybody think you have to do spells in Latin to be a witch. It's really dumb."

"Then... why is it in pop culture?" Dante asked, nose wrinkling. "Even Sylvan stories say that witches have a history of Latin use."

"They probably did at one point," I said with a shrug, opening another book. "Latin is usually considered a holy language, thanks to the Catholic Church. A lot of early magic was based on the idea of holy versus unholy. It's also a useful way to hide what you're doing from other people outside the practice."

"Then... why stop?"

"Latin grammar is a fucking nuisance," I spat, closing the book I just picked up. That one didn't even use characters or letters I recognized. "Do you have any idea how many kooky spells I've corrected in the old family grimoire that were marked as duds, but actually someone conjugated the verb incorrectly?"

Dante laughed, a loud, rolling belly laugh that I'd never heard from him. It made me laugh, too, and my chest felt lighter as I looked through the journals in the box.

"Hallelujah!" I cried, holding up the book. "I found one in English."

It was a thick, leatherbound book with yellowing pages and a cracked cover, and it opened easily under my hands.

It had to be pretty recent, at least in the scheme of thousands of years of magical history. English as a language had only existed a limited amount of time. I couldn't see any dates on the entries as I flipped through, but the writing was definitely in English. It was in cursive, and a little difficult to make out, but I with time I'd be able to read it, ink blots and all.

Curious, I flipped to the last entry. Since most of the Weavers had died young, I wondered if she knew it was coming, or if she'd suspected anything at all.

My eyes caught on one line: I know he is coming for me, but I don't know when or how.

Shit.

"Looks like Weavers have a history of not knowing who we can trust," I said, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment.

I closed the book. Yes, I needed to look at it, but now that I was faced with a concrete record in my hands, I wasn't sure that I was ready.

"I want to tell you that you can trust me," Dante said. "I understand why you wouldn't, though. I'm too close to the Sylvan Council for that."

There was a slight bitter undertone to his voice. The irony was that the fact that he was able to admit I shouldn't trust him made me want to trust him more. Dante had done everything he could to try and understand me, to try and give me options, and I appreciated that. It was more than even my own magic had done for me.

"Ever since I was a kid, I've spent my life feeling like I was locked into a system I couldn't control," I said as I stared up at the stars. "I could tell who was going to talk to me at school. I knew what the weather was going to be. I even knew which family members were going to die next."

"It sounds like a terrible burden for a child to carry."

"It wasn't... fun," I said carefully, "but it did teach me something important. I don't ever want to be the reason that someone feels locked into their fate. I don't want to impose that system on them any more than I want to see it imposed on myself."

I could see something forming between us, dangling there in midair. A casual affection, an attachment, a friendship. This moment wouldn't be forgotten, and if I was honest with myself... I didn't mind so much. It felt like a moment I chose for myself, watching the Thread form like that. I wanted to hang onto that concept a little longer.

I only got about the space of another two breaths, though.

"Find everything you needed?" a voice called, the sound echoing between the shelves. Only a moment later, Calen stepped around the corner.

"How did you get down here on your own?" Dante asked, frowning.

"I asked one of the maids to escort me," he said with a shrug. "Thought I'd see if Sunday wanted to chat a little more before bed. Though... don't you think it's odd we're in separate rooms?"

"Your rooms are right beside each other," Dante said flatly.

"Yes, but why separate—"

"Separate is fine," I said gently, putting a hand on Calen's shoulder. "Come on, I'll walk back with you. We've finished most of the research, and we all need rest."

It didn't take long to replace the books on the shelves and put the journals back into the boxes so that we could leave. As we cleaned the tables and I stacked my papers full of notes I'd taken, I slipped the journal written in English into my pocket.

I could return it later. This thing was thick, and I needed time to go through it. Sure, they probably wouldn't appreciate me taking it from the library, but who else was going to use it? This thing was a potential lifeline.

Neither Dante nor Calen noticed, Dante being too busy shelving books and Calen being too busy brooding. Apparently, the two of them were determined not to acknowledge one another for the rest of the trip, if there was any way they could get away with it. I'd take the silent treatment over fighting any day, but it still wasn't my favorite.

No one spoke a word on the way up to our rooms. I was too busy trying to figure out the layout of the palace, and Dante seemed to be stewing over something. Calen was certainly stewing over something.

By the time we reached the rooms we'd be staying in for the evening, I was more than ready to break the silence. I needed to bounce a few ideas off Calen, and then I might have enough time to take a look at that journal.

"Thanks, Dante," I said, flashing him a smile. He bowed politely.

"Any time."

The door closed between us, and I followed Calen into his room for the night. He took a seat on the bed, lounging against the headboard, but I was too antsy to sit. Instead, I found myself pacing around the room, still in my combat boots.

Too many questions swirled around in my head. I couldn't focus, I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe.

Wait. I needed to breathe.

The rest of it, though... It felt like I had the basic elements of a puzzle in place, but I couldn't see the whole picture. I was working blind. There was something going on that involved me, and yet... it was bigger than me. I didn't have enough information to figure out what I thought about it all, much less what I planned to do about it.

"You don't want to join me?" Calen asked, patting the spot beside him.

"Can't," I said. "Need to move. Thinking."

"You didn't have any problem getting close to Dante earlier," he muttered.

That was enough to make me stop pacing and turn towards him.

"Are you seriously jealous?" I scoffed. "He's gay, you know."

"I don't like you being close to him. We can't trust him," Calen said, crossing his arms. "And I don't think he's gay, either. Where did you get that from?"

I decided to ignore the second part of that for the moment. The point was moot, anyhow. I was with Calen, and I was more worried about the fact that he didn't feel he could trust my friend.

"I get you don't like each other," I said slowly. "That's fine. I need you to tolerate each other for the time being, though. At least until this is figured out."

"You want me to tolerate the Sylvan Council trying to push you into joining forces with a world in which you have no rights and no representation? Fat chance," he snapped.

"Hey," I shot back. "I want you to tolerate a friend who is trying to help me. Dante is not the Sylvan Council, and he's been good to me."

"Mm," Calen grunted.

It was better than nothing.

"Why aren't we represented here, anyways?" I asked, nose scrunching. "I mean, historically. No one's ever really said why the social order is like this for us. Seems like witches are just another type of Sylvan to me."

"Now you're thinking like the rebellion," Calen said with a bright smile, gently nudging me in the side. "Witches are human descendants possessing Sylvan magic."

"So... mixed ancestry?" That sounded... Well, it was strange considering the tension between witches and Sylvans. Magically, it made sense, and it also matched what was in the library.

"Not always. Legend says that the Sylvan goddess of the night blessed a human woman with magic through her connection to the moon and stars, where all fates are woven together and reflected back towards us in the constellations," he said slowly, gazing off into the middle distance. His fingers absently traced over my skin as he spoke. "Witches are her descendants, male and female alike."

"I've never heard that story before," I murmured.

Grandma had plenty of theories and legends to tell about how witches acquired their magic, but that wasn't one of them. Apparently, Grandma never had access to a massive Sylvan library, though, or a boyfriend who seemed to know more about history than he let on.

... Hmm. Boyfriend.

I'd have to come back to that later.

"Her name was Ataraxia," Calen continued wistfully.

"How do you know all this?" I hazarded. "It feels like you have an explanation for everything."

"Not everything, no," he said, laughing. "I feel it's important to understand where you've come from in order to know where you're going, though."

"Where are we going? Witches, I mean." I had my own thoughts on the matter, but I wanted to know what Calen was thinking. He was much more involved in the broader witch community than I was, and he seemed to have his own thoughts and opinions on what exactly needed to be done to unify that community.

"As a community, I hope we're moving back towards intermingling with Sylvans," he said with a sigh. "Our magic is fading. It's only a trickle of what it once was."

"And you think being more involved with Sylvans will bring it back? As much as you're clearly uncomfortable being here?" I asked, gesturing broadly.

"Sylvans are part of our ancestry, like it or not," he grumbled.

"You clearly don't," I said, gently nudging him in the side. The worry in the pit of my stomach was genuine, though.

"I want an integrated society for the sake of keeping magic alive and strong. If witches and Sylvans don't allow their magic to mix, if they aren't all part of a working system, we lose the balance."

Balance. That was a concept all witches learned, and one we all lived by. It wasn't a creed, though— we lived by it because we didn't have a choice. Either you respect the balance, or the balance will come back to haunt you.

That was part of why I had my rules. It was part of why they were so important. The rules helped me remember to keep the balance, to respect it, to make sure it didn't bounce back on me.

I wondered if the Hourglass had his own set of rules. If he was out to kill me, he might not, but... why now? Why here? If it was him, why hadn't he been looking for me longer?

Was the Hourglass around thirty years old, too? Was he just now figuring out his destiny? If so, why was the first course of action, apparently, to try and murder me rather than just work with me? Or find answers? Or ask for help?

There were too many questions, and frankly, I wasn't ready to know all of it yet.