The Hidden Queen: A Court of Jewels, Book 1 by Nancy Cleaver

Author:Nancy Cleaver [Cleaver, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The Crystal Palace, 1246ACS

1st week of Queen Adelina’s reign

“I was wondering when I’d see your face here again.”

The unbroken voice, on the cusp of adolescence, rang softly in Mags’ ears as she stepped into the library. Quiet enough to be indistinguishable to the scholars seated throughout the room, but loud enough to be considered an annoying disturbance. A muted cacophony of grumblings and shushes cascaded through the room as Mags considered her words.

Glancing up towards the vaulted ceilings, she revelled in silent appreciation that she was finally back where she was meant to be. In the catacombs of the Diamond Library, surrounded by the hidden accounts of generations of her forebears. As a small figure bustled his way through the dusty stacks, heading ever closer to her, Mags refused to yield her enjoyment of the moment long prayed for. She was home.

Stopping abruptly before her, the short male she had once considered an ally, if not a friend, had the gall to size her up.

“I’m still me,” she told the Imp bluntly.

“I know,” came his unphased reply.

Both held the other in an unflinching gaze, before each cocked an eyebrow and allowed a hint of a wry smile to soften their gazes.

“It’s good to see you my friend,” they both chorused, before wrapping each other in a tight embrace. Belatedly realising they were in the middle of a very public reunion, they stepped back, straightened their hug rumpled clothes and moved towards the private study they had previously frequented, before the Diamond Court had fallen.

The gloomy library was littered with such rooms. Indistinguishable from so many other similar spaces, unless you knew what to look for. Stack after stack of mahogany bookcases stretched higher than the tallest Fae could reach from standing. Row after row of runner bound ladders glided along the stacks, allowing the wingless members of the Court to reach the higher tomes. Leather bound books, in varying states of preservation, lined the groaning shelves that housed more knowledge than the worldliest of scholars could hope to comprehend within the span of their lives. Even considering that some of the Fae lived hundreds of years whilst their counterparts returned to dust after a mere handful of decades.

Douglas was an anomaly in a world of variety. With his mop of unruly sand blonde hair, the cow lick forever curbing his attempts at taming it into the latest courtly style, his brightly crocheted scarf—‘a gift from my mother’ the only conversation he was ever prepared to have on the subject—and the pungent smell of the specific pipe tobacco he insisted was the only one worth having. Then the youthful face, barely brushing adolescence, that hid the three hundred years he had supported the Baka Rangers of the Diamond Court. Nobody considered that this erudite man, bearing a cheerful pre-teen like appearance, was actually older than most of the scholars present. If pushed, all remembered that their own masters had introduced them to Douglas, that they had all shared a strange

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