Star Cursed

He scuffs one heavy black boot through the snow. “Why can’t I go and get the files for you?”

I frown at him. We’re wasting precious time arguing. “You said there are hundreds of files. I’m not confident we can find the ones we want with both of us looking, much less just you.”

“I read very fast,” Finn says huffily.

“I’m certain you do.” I roll my eyes at the snowy cobblestones. The last thing I want is to offend his scholarly pride. “But what if you’re caught sneaking around Szymborska’s office in the middle of the night with forbidden files? I doubt the guards would look very highly on that. I could compel them to forget. I can protect us.”

Finn bends down and draws the pistol from his boot. “So can I.”

“Not like that, you can’t!” I bury my face in my hands, exasperated. “I’m not going to let you shoot someone just to prove how brave you are. I am going to the Archives tonight, whether you come with me or not. But I would very much appreciate your help.”

“Fine.” Finn sighs, setting off through the snow. “You’re the most infuriating girl.”

I grin, reaching for his hand. “You know, that’s not even the first time today I’ve been called that.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He squeezes my hand and then drops it. “We should be careful. Never know who might be up and about.”

I squint at the gas streetlamp above us, and its flame wavers and goes out, plunging the street into shadows. Ahead of us, the next one extinguishes, and then the next. I grab Finn’s hand. “Better?”

“Much,” he says, voice low and admiring. He brushes his lips over mine. “Now, run through the plan for Wednesday night once more?”

I start, but the moment I get to glamouring ourselves and the carriage, Finn stops me. “I’ll borrow Denisof’s carriage. It will be easy enough while he’s at the council meeting, and it will have the Brothers’ seal, so that’s one less illusion you have to worry about.”

The city is quiet around us. No wagons rumble past at this late hour; the sidewalks are empty. Without the gas lamps, I can make out the stars in the night sky. “I can’t let you steal a carriage for us. What if one of us crashes it, or—?”

“Borrow,” Finn interrupts. “And I’ll drive it myself, because I’m coming with you. The rest of you will have to play at being Brothers, but I’m the real thing.” He gestures at his black cloak, his voice bitter.

I laugh to lighten his mood. “I’d try to dissuade you, but I suspect it’d be impossible. I’d never let you do something so mad on your own.”

“Exactly,” he says emphatically. “We’re a team now. Where you go, I go.”

“I suppose I can live with that.” I grin, slipping a hand into my pocket and drawing out a small packet of herbs. “I have another task for you. You said Sean Brennan is a good man, and it turns out your judgment was right; he’s been Sister Cora’s spy on the Head Council for years now. Is there any chance you could engineer a meeting with him Wednesday morning? Fetch a cup of tea for him, perhaps? The herbs in here will make him sick, but only temporarily. Long enough that he’ll have to miss the Head Council meeting.”

“Brilliant.” Finn takes the packet from me and tucks it in his own cloak pocket.

I run my thumb over his palm. “You’re quite dashing in the role of spy, Mr. Belastra.”

It feels terribly daring to hold his hand out in the open like this. We pass a cheese shop and a furrier’s and two cafés, but everything in the market district is shuttered for the night; all the windows are dark. The city usually feels so alien to me, so big and noisy and foreboding, but tonight it feels intimate and abandoned and deceptively safe. Like it belongs just to us.

• • •

The National Archives are beautiful.

“It’s like a temple,” I breathe, holding my candle aloft. “A temple for books.”

I’ve never seen anything like it. High above us, the vaulted wooden ceiling disappears into the shadows. A dozen trestle tables, piled high with books ready for cataloging, fill the center of the room. Bookshelves jammed with thousands more books line every wall. And a spiral staircase leads up to the balcony, which is filled with yet more rows of bookshelves. Crystal chandeliers catch the moonlight spilling in through the high arched windows.

“It’s beautiful,” I say. Beautiful doesn’t feel like enough. There’s something of the divine in this room, something that makes me go hushed and reverent. Standing here in this palace of books, I feel humbled, the same way I do when lightning flashes across the sky during an enormous, pounding thunderstorm.

Tess would love this beyond all reason. Bookstores are her church, and this is a cathedral.

“In other countries, they have libraries like this in all the cities,” Finn says. “Anyone can borrow any book they like.”

“I didn’t know there were so many books,” I confess, spinning around. I walk to the nearest shelf, lifting my candle to peer at them all.

Finn reaches out, fingers tripping over a row of dark spines. “They keep the ones sanctioned by the Brothers down here: translations of Scriptures, approved histories of New England, philosophical treatises, language texts, dictionaries, science and natural histories. But upstairs there’s everything.” He gives me a playful, wicked grin. “Everything they don’t want us reading: mythology, plays, novels. Come, I want to show you something.”

The guards just patrolled the main library; we waited until their lanterns passed to leave our hiding spot in the bushes outside. “Do we have time?” I ask.

“You’ll want to see this,” Finn promises.

I pick up my pink skirts and lead the way up the narrow, curving steps. I trip once, and Finn rights me, his hands gentle on my waist. His lips brush my neck, just above the pearl buttons that run up the back of my bodice, and my heart races.

Upstairs, I set the flickering candle on a low, wheeled cart filled with books. I lean over the balcony, admiring the beautiful room below. Finn braces his hands on the railing on either side of me. His mouth weaves a warm trail down the side of my throat, across the bare shivery skin of my collarbone, to the pale arch of my shoulder. I lean back against him. My entire body suddenly feels flushed and full of wanting.

“Cate,” he sighs, and I turn to face him.

I’m wearing the new winter gown Elena had made up for me—the one Tess saw us together in. He loops one finger through the pink satin sash at my waist and tugs me against him.

“You, in the moonlight, in this library, in this dress—” His eyes rove over me, from my frothy pink skirts embroidered with dark pink roses, past the swell of my br**sts, up to the creamy skin of my neck. My breath comes fast as his gaze lingers on my lips. He’s barely touching me, but it feels as though he’s already undressed me with his eyes.

“It’s the most beautiful thing. Like a dream.” His voice is hoarse and full of wonder.

“Then it’s my dream, too,” I confess as I claim his lips with mine.

It’s a long, slow delight of a kiss. We melt into each other, soft pink chiffon and gray cotton and hands and lips and—oh, I could stay here like this until the sun came up. I could stay here like this forever.