I started with the stark, black bureau. I rolled open the drawers, finding row after row of tidy black and gray clothing. Trousers, sweaters, even underwear. Finding nothing on the first round, I went through it a second time, slipping my fingers into pockets, checking the edges of the drawers. Touching everything, basically. As I worked, adrenaline raced through my blood. I was all too aware of what could happen if Ruadan caught me doing this. The threat of execution hung over me like a … well, like an executioner’s sword.

Once I’d completely cleared the bureau, I moved over to Ruadan’s bed. It smelled of him, and I found the scent disturbingly pleasing. I pulled down the sheets, slid my hand into the pillowcases. I scoured every inch of that thing before putting it all together exactly as it had been. And at every moment, I was painfully aware that Ruadan could bust into the room. Or more likely, waft into the room like smoke so that I wouldn’t notice him until his hands were around my throat, ready to snap my neck. I worked as quickly as I could.

I wasn’t a tidy person, but I knew how to clean. It was just that I didn’t normally expend the effort, because honestly, who cares? I stepped back, scanning the bed to make sure it looked exactly as it had when I’d come in. Looked perfect to me.

Then, I surveyed the room once more. The only other pieces of furniture in the entire place were the rough stone table and a black desk that stood under one of the windows. But the desk didn’t have drawers, just a few blank pieces of paper on top, and a pen.

Still, something about the placement of the desk seemed odd. Everything in this room was so symmetrical, so tidy. But the desk stood unevenly between the two windows—too far to the right.

I crossed to the desk, and I got down on my hands, crawling under it. I craned my neck to look up. Nothing. Then, I scanned the stone beneath the desk. At first, I found only a smooth expanse of flagstone. But after a moment, I noticed something irregular about one of the squares—a smaller square was inset into it.

Now, my pulse was racing wildly. Could this be what I was looking for? I was on my hands and knees under a desk, in a position that had no graceful explanation or exit plan. But I had to find out what he was hiding….

I pried open the small stone, my heart hammering. But what I found wasn’t a key. No, it was a small piece of parchment.

My heart raced out of control as I pulled it out. I sucked in a sharp breath, reading through a list of names—

Adonis

Kratos

They were two of the horsemen—Death and War.

A number of other angelic names ran down the list. Refugees and fugitives from the war decades ago. Then, another name that made my heart leap out of my chest.

Baleros.

I hadn’t found his key. I’d found his kill list.

It was about that moment that I became aware of a disturbing feeling of hairs standing on my nape, and goosebumps rising on my skin. I hadn’t heard Ruadan come in, but I could feel him looking at me. Generally, I was very good at hearing footfalls and heartbeats, breaths moving closer behind me. But he was the gods-damned Wraith, and he didn’t give anything away.

I swallowed hard, painfully aware of how I looked right now. On my hands and knees beneath his desk, in a skirt that was already too short, my pink knickers probably hanging out, and clearly reading his kill list. I loosed a long breath, shoving the kill list back into place.

I had a terrible feeling my name would be on there soon.

Then, I slid the stone panel back into position.

With my pulse racing, I backed out from under his desk, my mouth dry. When I turned to look at him, his violet eyes had darkened to pure black.

Oh, shit. That was generally the signal that a demon was about to rip your head off.

My knees felt a little weak. “I dropped a coin. It rolled away. Oh well.”

Smoky magic carved the air around him, and he shifted in a blur of black to his bed. He lifted his pillowcase, sniffing it. He looked at me, snarling.

Oh, hells. He could smell me all over his bed.

In another blur of black, he was at his dresser, sniffing the air.

At this point, there was really no purpose in denying that I’d searched his entire room. So I started backing up toward the door. “I just wanted to know who I’d be living with. You’d do the same.”

My gaze flicked to his arsenal of weapons, but I already knew I couldn’t move as fast as he could. He’d be there before I landed my first step. Instead, I continued to back toward the door. His fury spooled out of his body in dark magic, like spirals of ink sliding through water, darkening everything around him. I opened the door behind me, keeping my eyes on him as I stood in his doorway.

When Ruadan growled, my stomach dropped. He lunged for me, picking me up by my ribcage. The next thing I knew, I was landing flat on my arse on the stone floor.

He’d literally thrown me out of his room. Hard. Just a moment later, he hurled my bug-out bag at me, and I raised my arm to block it from hitting me in the head.

“I want my whiskey back!” I yelled as he slammed the door.

He hurled the whiskey bottle at me, and I caught it easily.

And thus began the first day of our beautiful anathra relationship.

Since Ruadan had thrown me out of his room, I spent the rest of the afternoon searching the Institute’s grounds.

I’d learned that half the rooms were barred by ill-tempered ogres. Granted, I was pretty sure I’d managed to charm one of them—a beer guzzler who’d nicknamed me Viscountess von Tittington and kept trying to get me to sit in his lap. I suspected anyone with boobs could charm him, to be honest. Already, he’d told where I could find the Institute’s library, and I was now on my way up a hidden spiral staircase, lured by the scent of old books.

At the top of the stairwell, an ancient fae guarded the entrance. Her white hair cascaded down a midnight blue cloak, flecked with stars. A high ceiling arched above us, as tall as a medieval cathedral’s. I didn’t think this had been here at all when the humans had controlled it, but I loved the addition. Just like the librarian’s cloak, it been decorated with silver stars, moons, and constellations dappling midnight-blue paint.

I peered past the librarian. Glowing balls of light hung in the air, illuminating shelves crammed with ancient tomes. The stacks spanned two stories. Flowering vines grew between the books, and the air smelled of honeysuckle. I could have sworn the vines were moving. Gods, this place was amazing.

The librarian peered at me over the rims of her crescent-shaped glasses. “A novice, are you?” she trilled from behind a wooden podium.

“Yes. Freshly recruited. I’m looking for….” I couldn’t exactly come right out and say I was looking for the World Key. “Information about magical realms. I understand the role of the knights is to keep supernaturals in their worlds, using death as a deterrent. And I wanted to read more about the locked worlds.”

A whirring sound filled the air as the librarian turned, gliding over the stone floor. It was at this point I realized she was on a sort of wooden Segway with silver wheels, powered by fae magic. It hovered gracefully in the air. Gods-damn, I really wanted one of those.

“This way,” she chimed.

I followed her into the library, my gaze roaming over the towers of books that reached high up to the vaulted ceiling above us. A flicker of movement in the corner of my eye turned my head, and I caught sight of a large pair of cream-colored moths, fluttering around the books’ spines. Their wings looked like ancient paper, and their rapid wing strokes raised dust clouds. Around us, dust motes hung suspended in the air, caught in the light.

“Aren’t moths bad for books?”

“Those are the library moths,” she said in a tone that suggested I was an idiot. Surely everyone knew about library moths. “They dust the books.”

It was at this point, I realized the glowing balls of light were, in fact, giant glowworms. They hung curled up and suspended from the ceiling by thin threads of silk.

This place was a gods-damned orgy of magical knowledge. Magic Segways, towers of books, isolation from other people—I wondered if there was any way I could persuade the Shadow Fae that I should work here instead of becoming a knight. All I asked for in return was the World Key. Killing people was starting to get old, anyway.

She led me to a corner of the library, where pale light shone through steeply peaked windows, breaking through iron-gray clouds. It looked like a storm was about to hit us.

“Here we are,” she said. “Magical realms.”

The Segway whirred, and she abruptly zoomed up another story. She pulled out a book, blew a cloud of shimmering dust off it. Then, she plunged back down to the ground at an alarming speed, before screeching to a halt an inch above the floor.

Pretty sure my librarian friend had a bit of a risk-taking side. I liked her already.

A flash of light illuminated us. Then, thunder boomed, rumbling over the horizon so loudly it rattled the bookshelves.

Staring at me over the rims of her glasses, she said, “You’ll find everything you need to know in there about the magical realms. Maremount, Acidale, Loukomourie, Lilinor … all of them. It’s merely an introductory guide. Once you finish with that” —she waved a hand at the stacks of books— “you can delve deeper with some of the other, more detailed books.”

“Can I stay in here as long as I want?”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And with that, she zoomed away, her white hair flying behind her.

I sighed. She just might be the coolest person I’d ever met.

I began flipping through the ancient pages, skimming one world after another. The vampire realms, the witch realms, fae realms … none of this was really helping, because none mentioned a World Key.

I paused only at a world labeled Emain—a one-page entry with hardly any information, apart from the words, Mythical Headquarters of the Shadow Fae. The top of the page briefly described it as a legendary Shadow Fae world, one that probably didn’t exist at all. Apparently, many fae dreamt of it, but no one credible had ever been there.

Still, the pictures had my attention—a palace with columns that overlooked a rocky valley, its slopes dotted with apple trees. I brushed my fingertips over the brittle paper. It looked almost exactly like the palace of my dreams.

In the library, I dug into my bug-out bag. I worked my way through chocolate bars, lollipops, and my emergency water supply over several hours. It wasn’t like the fae used card catalogues or digital databases, and this was a serious time investment. They just lumped everything vaguely related in one section, and Segway Lady remembered it all.

By the time I actually found something referencing The World Key, night had fallen. The glowworms weren’t cutting it in this corner of the library, and I flicked on my headlamp.

I held a large black book in my hand, its spine engraved with the silver words Protectors of the Realms. Just the sort of pompous shit that the spell-slayers loved. Sorry—Knights of the Shadow Fae.

Unsurprisingly, the book was about them. I halfheartedly scanned the contents, until my blood began to race a little at the sight of the words World Key.

I began reading as fast as I could. Apparently, there were six fae Institutes, each populated mostly by noble Mor. Orders of Shadow Fae, Fire Fae, Storm Fae—and so on. Each Order had appointed a seneschal—a keeper of the World Key that locked up the magical realms. That, I supposed, was Ruadan. But where did he keep—?

My thought was interrupted by a powerful hand snatching the book out of my grasp.

Crikey.

My mouth went dry, and I looked up into the glacial gaze of Ruadan. Had he seen what I was reading?