Elara
The palace was quiet when I slipped into the east wing, but my mind wasn’t quiet. My thoughts churned endlessly, like a storm trapped inside a glass bottle. Why did Xavier turn away from me? Why wouldn’t he mark me? Why was he punishing me with silence when all I wanted was the truth?
The questions clawed at me until I couldn’t breathe. I needed someone to listen, someone to hold me together before I broke apart completely.
And there was only one person I could think of. Olivia.
I found her in the library, where the smell of aged parchment and burning candles hung thick in the air. The great shelves loomed around us, rows upon rows of books climbing toward the ceiling like walls closing in. She sat at one of the long oak tables, her head bent over a pile of papers, dark hair spi
