The palace slept.
Outside Selene's window, the garden shimmered under moonlight. Inside, candlelight flickered low, brushing gold against stone.
She sat alone at her vanity, staring at the note.
No seal. No crest. No flourish.
Just one sentence, written in that unmistakable slant of ink:
"Library. Midnight."
No signature. No need.
She already knew the hand behind the ink.
Cassian Viremont.
The man who had challenged her in full view of the court, and walked away with no answers.
The man who had watched her burn a treaty, then asked her to dance like it was a negotiation of kingdoms.
Now, this.
Selene turned the note again. Nothing new. Just silence pressing in.
In her first life, she would've ignored it. She might have sent someone else in her place.
Now, in this timeline, she understood one thing:
Sometimes the only way to survive a trap is to walk into it first.
She rose and crossed the room.
The silver gown was gone. In its place: a black cloak, hooded and soft, trimmed in midnight-blue thread. Silent steps. Clean blade.
She slipped into the hallway.
The palace at night had no resemblance to its daylight mask.No laughter. No lace.Only hush. Only stone.
Her boots whispered over marble as she moved east, toward the old wing. Moonlight cut across the floor like blades of ice.
She passed a familiar alcove, a narrow recess between two pillars, where books slept forgotten under dust.
In another timeline, she would've walked past it again.But not this time.
This time she saw them: the faint sigils etched into the shelf, half-scratched, mostly erased. Old magic. Forbidden.
Her father's voice drifted like ash:
"Lucien Mordel marked things the way curses mark the tongue. Don't stare too long, Selene. Magic doesn't forget curiosity."
She traced the marks with her gloved finger.
They pulsed. Barely.
Not dead.
Not yet.
The library loomed ahead. Carved doors. High arches. And on the wood: the crest of Veylore.
A lion swallowing a serpent.
Of course.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, silence. Dust. A vastness that felt like a chapel carved from forgotten time. Shelves rose like guards. Candles flickered on distant tables.
And between them, movement.
"I wondered if you'd come."
Cassian emerged from between the stacks, voice smooth as ever, same calculated calm he wore in the ballroom, but this time with no audience.
He was dressed in shadow again. Black coat, high collar, silver-threaded trim.
Selene let the note dangle from her fingers."I expected something more… dramatic."
"I tried that already," he said. "You burned it."
She raised a brow, stepping closer."You mean the treaty? That wasn't drama. That was clarity."
"Careful," he murmured. "Clarity has a way of exposing things best left blurred."
They stood on opposite sides of the reading table now.
He didn't invite her to sit.
She didn't ask.
Cassian's gaze held hers, unfaltering."You surprised me, Selene."
"That was the point."
"Most surprises here end up dead."
"Not all of them stay that way," she said.
That gave him pause. A slight narrowing of the eyes. Maybe recognition.
Maybe suspicion.
Then, without breaking eye contact, he reached into his coat.
A gloved hand placed something on the table.
A single black feather.
"What is it?" she asked, not touching it.
"A key. For doors you don't yet know exist."
"And the lock?"
"That depends on the questions you're brave enough to ask."
She lifted the feather. It felt unreal in her palm, like darkness given shape and softness.
"And if I choose not to play?"
Cassian smiled, but only with his mouth."Then you're already on the board. Might as well move like you mean it."
Selene tucked the feather into her cloak.
When she looked back up, he was already walking away, vanishing between the shelves as quietly as he came.
But just before he reached the door, he stopped.
Without turning, he said:
"You see the marks on the shelf."
She didn't answer.
"Don't stare too long, Selene. Curiosity ruins noble daughters."
Then he disappeared.
Selene stood alone in the vast silence of the library, her fingers tightening around the feather.
Cassian had made his move.
Now it was her turn.
And far beyond the candlelight,the name Lucien Mordel whispered again through her mind, like smoke from a fire she hadn't lit yet.
But soon would.
End of Chapter 6.