Page 90 of This Prince Is Not Charming

Meera hopped up onto the chair. “I agree. I don’t even care if I disappear at this point. Besides, I’m fairly certain everyone will return once the competition is over.” She gestured at me with her paw. “So go on. Go find whatever you’re meant to.”

I planted my hands on my hips. “You’re not going to help me at all? I have no idea where to start.” I gestured around the space, to the rows and rows of tall shelves looming over us and the spiral staircase that led to a second level full of even more books. “There are thousands of books in here. It could take me days to find the right one.”

Marsten let out a dramatic groan and pushed himself out of the chair. “Fine. I will help. But I better not break a nail.”

“I’ll help if you promise me fish.” Meera flashed her teeth.

“Okay. Sure. Fresh fish. I’m sure I can find a stream somewhere on the mountain.”

They both began wandering down the aisle between the shelves, and I ran to catch up. “Morton said something about the past. So maybe we need to look in the history section?” I suggested.

“See?” Marsten stopped in front of the shelves labeled History. “You don’t even need us.”

Meera walked between the rows of shelves, peering at the books. “Maybe we are supposed to find a book about the history of queens and read it?”

Marsten picked out a book and stared at it with a tilted head. “Or maybe one on queenly duties? Do those have anything to do with breaking curses?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head. “It’ll have to be more obvious than that. Not just a random book but the one that Castle wants us to find.”

“You know, I always hated reading,” Marsten flicked the spine of another book.

“Somewhere in this castle, Morton just fainted from shock,” I said to him.

“You should be happy you were taught to read,” Meera said.

“You weren’t?” Marsten asked.

Meera huffed. “Honestly, you humans know nothing about the Fair Folk.”

I bent over to peer down at a row of books.

“To be fair,” Marsten said, “up until two years ago, I thought you were just a children’s bedtime story.”

“Well, you’d think after living with us for two years, you’d make more of an effort to learn about the Fair Folk.”

I straightened, remembering something Niamh had mentioned during one of our book club meetings. “Is it true that Fairwitch destroyed all the books and literature about the Fair Folk?” I asked. “So that when the godwitches went to the Otherworld, humans would slowly forget about your existence.”

“Yes,” Meera said. “But Fairwitch wouldn’t have destroyed the books. The godwitch of knowledge wouldn’t have allowed that. Fairwitch would’ve hidden the books somewhere no one could find them.”

“Wow, whoever stumbles upon that will have the find of the century,” Marsten said as we reached the end of the aisle and wandered into another one.

“I don’t understand why Fairwitch went to such lengths to punish all of you. Surely they understood you’d fight back against slavery.”

“Fairwitch didn’t care about that,” Meera said. “Many of the godwitches were setting their faerie slaves free, letting them live their own lives. Fairwitch allowed it.”

I stopped in front of a book about the history of kings and queens in Aubergn. I touched it to see if anything happened, but I got no reaction, nothing to tell me I was on the right path.

“I thought that was the whole reason Fairwitch hated your people. Because you rose up against them.”

“No, Fairwitch didn’t hate us. Fairwitch hated Aoife.”

“The faerie queen?” I asked, running my fingers along the spines of the books. At this rate, we would never find what we were looking for. “Are you telling me the entire reason Fairwitch cursed you was because of your queen? I thought they had her killed.”

“They did,” Meera said, tail flicking behind her. “But Fairwitch wanted to teach all of us a lesson. We embarrassed them with our uprising, humiliated them when we almost won our freedom.”

The cruelty of Fairwitch was horrific. “I’m so sorry, Meera. For how much your people have suffered.”

“Yes, well, we’ll find a way to free ourselves yet. We found all of you. Brought you to our mountain. I think there’s a reason behind all of this.”