“Maybe a shawl,” I finally said, the admission a bit like pulling a tooth.
It presented me one of purple velvet.
“Maybe a real shawl,” I amended.
Over the next several minutes, we haggled in a way that would have put even my father and his merchant colleagues to shame until the wardrobe at last spit out an unadorned woolen shawl. I thanked it so woodenly, we may both have been made of the same birch.
Nevertheless, the shawl was a big improvement. I wore it everywhere, and despite my fearful expectations, it did not disappear. But the castle reassured me it was still enchanted through a much more grandiose gesture.
It produced a library.
I had wandered all the ballrooms, kitchens, studies, sunrooms, bedrooms, and even the dungeon. It was impossible I would have missed a library. Yet it sprang up on the same floor as my bedroom as if it had always been there, and I could not remember what it had replaced. Whatever it was, it was no loss to see it go.
The library was a warm room, full of the softest rugs and tallest windows, with bookshelves stretching high enough it required a ladder to reach their loftiest shelves, and when I first saw it, I sank to the floor and tried to pretend my eyes weren’t burning with tears. Astra surely would have laughed in scorn to see me so moved by a collection of “overpriced firewood.”
At the height of Father’s fortune, we’d owned four books—three of them indulgences he’d purchased for me against better judgment when each one could have filled a wardrobe or started a dowry. Most of my reading had been done on borrowed materials or directly from the hand of my tutors, and I had been fortunate to receive such instruction.
All the tapestries, all the gold statues, every sign of wealth in the castle, this single room outshone them all. I’d never imagined so many books existed in the world.
I pulled them reverently from the shelves, pressed my fingertips to the ridges of the leather covers, stroked the spines. If I set one down, it floated back to its place and settled firmly on the shelf, as if the castle believed they were as decorative as the gilded portraits.
As if I would stand for that.
I clutched a volume of poetry to my chest, hunching to protect it from enchantments the same way I would protect it from rain. Then I sat in a red-cushioned armchair and sank myself into the words. At first, I read to myself, but some of the poems I murmured quietly aloud, enjoying the tinkling rhythm and rhyme.
It was then I felt the presence of another person in the room.
“Beast?” I swallowed, clutching the book to my chest.
The silence was not a guarantee he wasn’t there. He might be measuring his thoughts, finding the words.
Sure enough, the rumbling voice came from behind me, so close I felt a tremor in the leather cushion against my spine.
“You may read aloud ...” He hesitated, not content to reserve pauses only for between sentences. “If you’d like.”
Listening was fine to gather information, but it would not help him learn to read the words himself. For that, he would need to see the words, to follow their shapes as I taught their sounds. Such a thing was impossible if he refused to let me see him. The only other way would be for me to copy a poem by hand, then have him read my copy on parchment as I read the original from—
Another leather-bound volume appeared in my lap, identical in size and coloring to the one in my hands. I thumbed its pages to be sure, but it was the same poetry from the same unknown author.
My knuckles whitened to see the book appear so casually, as if the original could be easily imitated, as if its value was a farce. I almost wished it gone.
“Beauty?”
He spoke my name softly, more rumble than letters.
“I need another book,” I said. “I won’t turn.”
I set both volumes of poetry on the table beside my chair. One vanished while the other floated back to its place. I stood, careful to face forward and walk rigidly without turning.
On the second shelf from the door, I found a thin volume of folklore. The poetry had been dense and lofty, weaving music of the veiled sun who tried each day to descend to Earth only to be stopped by a lunar gatekeeper. I could have read it all afternoon, but it would not do for teaching.
Returning to the chair was no easy feat, but I felt my way carefully, head turned to the bookshelves, hand outstretched until I touched the leather of the high-backed chair. I eased myself into it and curled tightly, letting the softness envelop me like my father’s arms had when I was younger.
At a thought, the book of folklore mirrored itself, and I stretched the second copy over the back of the chair without looking.
“Here.” I willed my hand to stop shaking. “Read along.”
My arm began to ache. The muscles pulled along my side, and just as I was about to drop the book in his stupid lap and relax my shoulder from its twisted, strained position—
