Page 35 of A Treachery of Swans

The Château’s library is a dusty jewel of a room, an elegant contrast between gilt shelves and dark, fraying spines. Plush emerald carpets muffle our footsteps, and the domed ceiling depicts a wild forest and a young, golden-haired girl kneeling before a crumbling shrine—the Little Saint summoning the Mothers. Some of the Spider King’s magic lingers in the fresco, as a few paper-thin leaves peel off the ceiling and fall to the ground, vanishing before they can land.

The main room is clearly intended for the public, set with velvet chaises and writing desks splattered with candle wax. It smells warmly of old paper and leather and ink, tickling my nose. Aimé leads me through the room and past rows of bookshelves until we reach a small gallery displaying mismatched vases. I inspect them as Aimé approaches a small door, but my focus is quickly broken when something flashes in my periphery. I turn in alarm to see Aimébrandish a thin dagger and prick the pad of his thumb.

“What are you—” I start, but he only throws me a grin and holds up his hand, a crimson rivulet slipping down onto his palm.

“The doors demand a sacrifice,” he says cryptically, and presses his thumb to the door. The door swings open with a muted creak, and he beckons me inside. “One of my lovely grandfather’s creations. It will only open for fresh royal blood. Apparently the same spell is on the door to the Couronne’s vault.”

I startle at his nonchalant mention of the Couronne. “Have you ever been in the vault?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Never. My father never allowed me to accompany him. But they say it’s a maze. A maze only the Augier king can navigate. If anyone else attempts to enter, they will be killed by the Spider King’s traps. I do not look forward to my first visit there.” He shudders in emphasis and holds the door wider for me. “After you, my dear fiancée.”

Three hours later, I find myself squirreled away in a small room with walls paneled in dark wood and filled to the brim with archaic books—rows upon rows of stained spines squeezed into sagging shelves, tucked into crevices, and stacked on tables. My sleeves are gray with dust—I keep fighting back sneezes. My leg has begun to bounce under the table.

“Nothing.” I toss aside another useless book. “Mothers, does anyone in this world even enjoy reading this stuff?”

“I do,” Aimé admits sheepishly. He looks out of place here, a polished coin against a dirt path, his golden head glinting over a stack of discarded books. All have proven to be mundane, illegible journals or ledgers detailing imports and exports. “Well,did,when I was younger. This was my… sanctuary, I suppose. I’d hide awayhere with my favorite books when my father—” He cuts himself off, shakes his head. “When I needed to get away. The fairy tales were my favorite.”

“Fairy tales?” I repeat, baffled.

“What? Is it truly so startling to think I would engage in a bit of escapist whimsy?”

“Startling for the Dauphin.”

He snorts. “My darling father would have agreed with you. ‘Fairy tales are for children and wastrels and idiots who think they’re fairies,’?” he quotes, doing a frighteningly good imitation of King Honoré’s baritone. “He said that to me once before all his courtiers. I was sneered at for a week after.” He chuckles, as though the story is meant to amuse me. “Never set foot in here again after that, but it did no good. My reputation was already on the path to destruction.”

“If gossip is to be believed, you shirk all your duties,” I tell him mildly.

“I do now,” he admits. “But there was a time I tried to be taken seriously. Attended every Conseil meeting. But I didn’t have what it takes. I was too… emotional. Once there was a riot in Verroux over the rising poverty in the city. It was brought forth to the Conseil, and the noblesse were so… callous about it. Saying it was a necessity that taxes be raised because of the toll Morgane’s curse was taking. As if it was the responsibility of the common people to shoulder the burdens of their rulers. I tried to speak up, but my voice started to shake, and that was enough. I was dismissed for merely showing emotion. I can’t say I blame them, really.” Aimé sniffs. “When I stand beside my father, who was confident and severe and perfectly composed… it does make a ridiculous contrast.Henever read fairy tales.” He sighs. “Didn’t stop one from killing him.”

I push the journal aside and pick up another, but I find only someold noblewoman’s diary filled with gossip on long-dead noblesse. “Sorciers aren’t fairy tales.”

He looks at his hands. “I thought they were all gone. My father always said they simply fled, because the kingdom had nothing left for them anymore. He called them traitors. It didn’t quite make sense to me. Now I see why. I… I did not know the people had turned on them.”

“It’s what happens when you decide to blame the sins of one man on a whole people,” I say, and I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice. “Many of them lived off their sorcery. They were considered artisans, and sorcery an art.”

I feel a pang of longing as I say it. There is nothing I want more than to be able to wield sorcery the way it was intended: to bring beauty, life. I still remember the stories my mother would tell me—stories that had come from her grandmother, from a time before Morgane’s disappearance. Of my great-great-grandmother hunched over a workbench, imbuing jewelry with spells that could alter the wearer’s appearance or body, change the color of their eyes, or turn weariness into energy. Shoes with a golden clasp could grow, changing sizes with the wearer. A golden coin placed in a bucket could clear the murkiest of waters.

“When magic vanished,” I say, “the sorciers were left with orders they could not complete and faced angry customers, many of them wealthy noblesse. They lost their income and were called liars for it. The Spider King did nothing to help them.”

Aimé stares at me wide-eyed. “I have never been told any of this. How could I not know, and yet you heard of it all the way in Auvigny?”

I’ve let myself get carried away, my bitterness show. But I can’t help it. I want him to know. To see the truth. Tocare,unlike his predecessors. “I met a sorcier man once,” I say honestly. “He told me stories.”

“Oh,” Aimé whispers. “And you trusted him?”

“I did.” That’s all I say—I need to change the subject before he asks too much, gets too close. I stand, stretching my arms. “Speaking of sorciers, have you found anything?”

“There’s something here. It’s a journal from a noblewoman who seems to be obsessed with eternal beauty. She mentions her favorite sorcier was able to keep himself almost ageless but wasn’t able to do the same for anyone but himself. She calls him a fraud, along with several other colorful words.”

“Pleasant,” I say, and then frown. Regnault has never told me anything about how sorciers age. “Does it sayhowhe managed to do so?”

“Unfortunately not.” He pushes the book away, looking drained. “That’s all she says about him.”

I sigh and turn, surveying the room, the shadows swamping its corners, the sticky cobwebs clinging to several old, thick manuscripts. I inhale sharply, then freeze as I notice a familiar scent tucked between the smell of aged wood and binding glue: magic-scent. Sage and iron, barely there but unmistakable. I walk across the room, and it grows stronger. After a moment’s searching, I spot the source beneath a stack of books: a small brown chest with a tarnished keyhole. My breath catches in excitement—I have to hold myself still. Whatever is in there is enchanted, and I would rather not reveal too much to Aimé until I know what I’m dealing with.

In the same moment, Aimé groans and drops his forehead to the table with a defeatedthunk. “Perhaps I ought to send my guards to prick the fingers of every courtier and ensure none have golden blood.”

Horror spears through me at the thought. “Surely that wouldn’t go over well with the noblesse,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “And it would alert too many people to something being amiss.”

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