Page 70 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
“I have no idea.”
“He’s drawn it several times,” noted Pru, turning over the scrap of paper and pointing.
Violet shivered. She didn’t like this. “Let’s see if we can find anything in the library.”
So Sedgwick had taken up residence in Shadowfade Castle, she mused, even if just part-time. And he was working on something in addition to looking for the Eye of the Serpent. It had to be the blight, and hopefully the sample in her pocket would give Nathaniel the edge he needed to reverse it.
But Sedgwick’s being here presented a different problem—if he was searching for the Eye, then he would have looked in the library. He was a person who knew the value of information, so he would have found and read any useful books already. Violet needed to get on the same page as him. Even if he was ahead in the race, she needed to catch up before she could surpass him. Sedgwick hadn’t been part of Shadowfade’s inner circle, though. Perhaps he wouldn’t have known where to find the truly rare texts.
Violet was lost enough in thought that she barely noticed they’d reached the library until she threw open the doors and noticed Pru looking at her strangely.
Right. She wasn’t supposed to know her way around.
“I, um,” she said awkwardly. “I found the library.”
Pru looked like she wanted to say something but closed her mouth. Finally, she said, “Yes, you did.” Then that odd expression disappeared, and she smiled, looking like her cheerful self once more. “I can’t wait to steal some books. I should have brought a bigger bag.”
Violet laughed, relieved that the subject had shifted. “Eat some more pastries and you’ll be able to fit a few books in that basket.”
While stepping through the gardens and into the castle had brought Violet sadness, being back in this library washed her with nostalgia. How many evenings had she spent here with Guy as a child, poring over magical texts and practicing her magic? The battered armchair in the corner still had the split in the leather where she’d accidentally grown a tree through the armrest, and over there at the window seat was where she’d sat anxiously before her first solo mission, looking out over the mountainside. She had been fifteen years old.
“You can do this,” he’d told her, his voice as warm as the fathershe’d pretended he was. “You are capable of so much more than anyone knows, petal, and we’re going to uncover it all together.”
Violet had kept her eyes on the window as she admitted, “I want to make you proud.”
“Ah, my darling, there is nothing under the moons that I am prouder of than you.”
That was the thing no one had ever understood about her relationship with Shadowfade, what Violet herself still struggled with. It wasn’t just that she’d worked for him; it wasn’t even completely that he’d raised her. It was that he’d encouraged her, trained her, empowered her.
Guy Shadowfade hadlovedher.
He’d done terrible things as well—to her and to others—and she wouldn’t, couldn’t, forget that, but moons, how she’d loved him too. And even now, with the full knowledge of what he’d done to her and what he’d taken from her, Violet knew that part of her always would.
Pru lurched toward the shelves, head cocked to the side as she scanned titles for anything that might be of use to them. “The History and Mystery of Rock Goblins!” she exclaimed, pulling out a book and opening the cover.
“Maybe you can figure out why they’re so obsessed with your music,” Violet teased.
Pru guffawed and began to read aloud, “ ‘Rock goblins are magical beings, not biological creatures. They do not, to the knowledge of the scientific community, reproduce, and are only created when a being of immense magical power is—’ ”
“Why don’t you take that one home with you?”
“You’re right. I’m getting distracted already.” Pru tucked the book into her bag and resumed searching the shelves. While she was occupied, Violet made a beeline around a corner shelf to another row of books against the wall next to the dark, emptyfireplace. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Pru was out of sight and twisted the ugly brass candlestick on the mantel, triggering the mechanism that opened the door to Guy’s private library.
It was clear even from a glance that Sedgwick had never set foot in this place. The study felt messy in an in-progress way, as though Guy had simply left the room and would return at any moment. An empty teacup on the desk. A notebook open to a half-scribbled page. A high-backed, overstuffed chair pulled out as if waiting for him to sit back down. Behind the desk, Violet spotted a dried rose in a vase and recognized it as one of hers. Softly, almost reverently, she touched the stem and tugged magic through her stiff fingers until the rose blossomed once more, petals soft and as vibrantly purple as the Thornwitch’s cloak. For the first time in weeks, the color didn’t make her recoil.
There was a bookshelf on the opposite wall, and Violet began her search there, abandoning her emotions in favor of single-minded purpose. Keeping an eye out for Pru, she found books on sorcery and on the Merethi Empire. Scrolls that contained workings for spells to raise the dead or curses that would make the target forget the people they loved most. But nothing that referred to the Eye of the Serpent or a magical blight. With a sigh, she moved to the desk, opening drawers and searching inside.
It was more of the same—detailed sketches of magical daggers, maps of the Darktide Isles, a contract in a language she didn’t recognize that appeared to have been written and signed in blood. And then—
A book, hardly bigger than the palm of her hand and embossed on the leather cover with the same symbol that Pru had found in Sedgwick’s notes. Frost blossomed through her veins. She opened the cover to begin reading the first page.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there reading. She took inwords she didn’t understand and some shewishedshe didn’t. She traced her fingers over long-dried ink in Guy’s familiar handwriting, notes he’d pressed into the pages, probably in this very room, sitting in this very chair. She caught snippets she recognized from Pru’s storytelling, things about the Eye of the Serpent, and more about its power over life and death.
Hell and Undersea, the box in the Great Hall…
By the time Pru wandered into the open door of the study, Violet was slumped in the chair, staring out the stained glass window.
“This is a great room,” Pru said admiringly. “Shadowfade hadstyle, I’ll give him that.” She held up a book and continued. “I found some great information about the legend. Apparently, there’s actual evidence that the witch and the warrior were real people who founded Dragon’s Rest. But while the story is the same everywhere it’s told, and there are reports of a dragon living in this region a long time ago, scholars take issue with the idea that they defeated the dragon as easily as they did. They must have—” Pru stopped, catching sight of Violet’s expression. “Violet? What’s wrong?”
