Page 98 of Bent Out of Shade
How truthful had Tatiana been about the nature of Zev’s love? Or, rather, how much had that contributed to why she’d stayed with Samuel? She’d been with Zev before she met her husband and given the impression that affair with the vampire had gone on for decades. Had she really had enough? Had Samuel known and given her an ultimatum? Or was it something else entirely?
Did Tatiana worry that an elderly woman with a younger-looking man (vampire) would be considered a sugar mama? Did her unassailable confidence not extend to bucking the stares and going out in public with Zev when she grew old?
Pulling a U-turn, I headed back to the bridge, because despite my misgivings, I couldn’t let Sabrina remain unconscious. I didn’t have that right. Still, when I got to Nora’s place, I sat in the car, gathering my courage to go inside.
I’d inadvertently caused the raven shifter trauma and wouldn’t blame her if she refused to have anything more to do with me, but I also had no one else to turn to. Sabrina was the first enthralled vampire that any of my team, including Zev, had heard of. Even stopping enthrallments was brand-new territory. Our knowledge was predicated on my experiences with Ohrists, all of whom awoke immediately after I applied CPR compressions. We’d assumed it was the shock of severing their shadow and losing their magic that sent them into unconsciousness and convulsions in the first place.
As a healer, it should have been a piece of cake for Juliette to wake Sabrina up. Yet her shadow had returned, and Sabrina was still out, so why the holdup?
A curtain twitched in Nora’s front window, so I exited the car, grabbing the gift basket filled with teas, macarons, shortbread, and fancy chocolates from my trunk. I didn’t bother with an umbrella, using the basket as cover.
Amazingly, she answered my knock without hesitation.
“Harry told me you were taking a few days off,” I said. “How are you?” Her color was good but that didn’t speak to her emotional state.
“It’s all faded like a fuzzy dream, which is for the best. Come on in.”
“Thanks.” I slipped off my shoes and followed her into the kitchen. With the curtains wide open and the warm-toned lights on, it was a much cheerier room even on this gray day. Plus, all those creepy candles last time had been a real mood killer. I set the basket on the table. “This is for you. It’s an apology gift but I’m afraid it’s going to come off as a bribe.”
“Hmm.” She tore off the cellophane wrapping. “On the one hand, chocolate, tea, and treats. On the other, supernatural invasions of my brain. Ooh, shortbread.” She ripped the package open. “Screw it. Bring on the voices.”
“Not that kind of favor.”
She brushed crumbs off her lip with the back of her hand. “Even better.”
I rubbed a finger over my wrist. “If I had a question and the only answer might be in the Library of the Arcane, could you research it? I know you said it isn’t open to the public, but I have a problem I need answered immediately.”
“It depends on the question. Archivists work in cells so that no one person becomes too knowledgeable and thus too powerful. I don’t even know who oversees the whole thing.”
A fat bumblebee walked up the outside of the window before shivering its wings and lifting off.
“Could I get access to the library?” My wrist tingled. Not so much a warning as a reminder that the blood oath would know if I’d been bad or good. My own personal Santa.
“Tea?” Nora stood abruptly, took the basket with her to the counter, and busied herself filling a kettle.
“Not an option?”
“Technically, one-time visitor passes exist, but you’re not going to like the cost.”
It had to be better than Vincenzo’s wrath if I couldn’t wake his fiancée. I’d even considered having Sadie give it a go and null whatever this interference was, but she wasn’t trained enough to separate out magic and if she nulled vampire magic, Sabrina would die.
As would Sadie.
“Is it a raven shifter game?” I said.
Nora put the kettle on the burner and flicked on the heat. “You wish.”
My eyebrows shot up.
“All kinds of Ohrists work there,” she said, “but the pass is determined by a test.”
I brightened. “I’m excellent at tests. Give me the topic and I’ll rock studying it.”
“You are,” Nora said.
“I’m what?”
“The topic. The library will read you and if you’re interesting enough or your brain contains enough knowledge that the library wishes to obtain, then you’re issued a pass.”
