Mortal Fantasy

✴｜chapter twenty-five

"Stephen... this is still the library."

"Your consistent impatience never fails to amaze me," he responds, shifting a row of books from within their shelf. The intricate spines part to reveal a key, which he sweeps up and hooks into his fingers, turning towards me. "This is what I was looking for."

The library is as large and encompassing as before, only this time I have the awkward memory of having knocked the prince to the ground, along with a hefty stack of books. Well, and some other things besides—but there's no point in reminiscing when I have already spent the entirety of the last two days doing so... is there?

Stephen leans his dark head forward to observe me. "If you keep frowning like that, you'll get wrinkles all over your face."

"And?" I say, breaking from my reverie. "So what if I do?"

Stephen shrugs. "It would be hilarious, but I don't think you'd like it."

I scowl and swat at his arm, my attack of which he easily evades. "Oh, come on," he says, taking my hand. "I haven't shown you what I wanted you to see yet."

I shake my head as we travel through the rows of towering shelves along the labyrinthine pathways of the library. "Where are we going?"

"A special room," Stephen says, pulling up short in front of an inconspicuous doorway, tucked into a corner of the library. The rays of sunlight thrown from the large arched windows in the north wall are unable to penetrate the shadows that mask this decrepit recess in the large room. Opening his palm, Stephen slips the slender shaft of the key into a lock on the door; it comes open to reveal a small, pentagonal room, stacked on one side with shelves of books and the other, inset with broad window sills cushioned in velvet to sit upon.

"Is this your room exclusively?" I ask, wandering inside. The ceiling is inlaid with a twining mosaic of flowers, an intricate artistry of leaves and greenery. It is too beautiful to be a public room; the books in the shelves are immaculate if but for a thin film of dust, perhaps indicating that the room has not been used for quite some time.

"It's why only I have the key," Stephen replies, tucking it into some hidden pocket. "I didn't think I'd come back here so soon, so I left the key somewhere easy to find. This room contains some of the more restricted content, like the first teachings of the angels, how they came to be."

I glance at him over my shoulder. "Are you sure that it's alright for me to be here?"

He sighs. "I've read most of the volumes in this room. I wasn't going to touch them again anytime soon, though, so I thought it might be of interest to you."

I smile, taking a book down from the shelf. "And the queen and king aren't going to kill me for this?"

"They'll never know you were here," Stephen supplies simply, leaning back against the wall. "That is, unless, you want to go tell them yourself."

"Of course, that would be the best course of action." I flip through the pages of the volume, tracing the soft, gossamer texture of the ancient scripts with my fingertip. I come across a vividly inked illustration of an angel, kneeling with his wings unfurled, the appendages colossal in comparison to his body. I have only ever seen angel wings from afar, with the occasional array of guards patrolling the kingdom's skies, but never up close as to see what they are truly like. I hesitate, pausing on the page, and turn to Stephen. "Do angels... use their wings often?"

Stephen regards me pensively with his amber eyes, seeming to contemplate my question. "At first, yes. During the Descent, and then in the First Mortal War against humanity... though it is not particularly advantageous to use them now. There is always the chance of being shot down from the sky by a belligerent human."