Waking up with Gwyn in his arms was an honor that Azriel still wasn't sure he deserved, but he'd known the moment that her gaze had first lingered on him a little longer than necessary that he would do everything he could to be worthy of her. She shifted in his arms, her cheek pressed against his chest, her hands still tightly gripping his shoulders, as if to reassure herself that he was still there. She'd practically climbed on top of him at some point, and the way his wings were now loosely draped over her, covering everything except her shoulders and head, it felt natural, right somehow. Azriel brushed his fingers through her unbound hair, each strand a burning fire in the dim dawn glow. The fire that had once savaged his hands had glowed orange and red, the only light in his tiny cell, and he'd hated the colors ever since, but on Gwyn, it was beautiful, calming. He twirled the ends of her hair around a finger, absentmindedly tying and untying little braids, the way Rhys' mother had once taught him, and their little sister had demanded every day since he'd learned. It had been almost five centuries since he had last braided anyone's hair, excepting the prank they'd played on Cassian. Azriel chuckled to himself at the memory of his brother walking outside with little pink bows still in his hair after he and Rhys had rushed him to get ready so that he wouldn't look in the mirror. Azriel had spent the next decade sleeping with one eye open, but Cassian had never retaliated, at least not that he knew of.

Gwyn stirred in his arms at the movement, and he brushed her hair gently, murmuring nothing and everything until she hummed and quieted again. Even the shadows had fallen quiet, a rare moment of stillness, the one part of him that had never sat still, always having something to do, but here, with Gwyn. It was contentedness he realized, for the first time in five and a half centuries, the shadows were truly content, and it was because of her. He'd woken earlier than he'd needed to, instinct still telling him that the moment the sun rose he was in danger, but the moment he'd opened his eyes he'd relaxed, no momentary panic, just that calm that found him whenever Gwyn was around. He closed his eyes, and must have slipped back to sleep because Gwyn was blinking her own eyes open when he opened them what had felt like moments later. She smiled sleepily, and nestled into him a little more, his heart swelling in his chest at the display of trust, of comfort. She blinked again at the sunlight starting to stream past the poorly closed curtains,

"What time is it?"

"No idea," he wrapped his arms tighter around her as she wriggled to try and see the clock,

"Azriel! You should have woken me!" He shrugged, "It's almost midday,"

"I don't care," she shrugged him off and made to sit up, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back down, "No, you're warm,"

"Off," she ordered, but giggled when he narrowed his eyes in refusal, "Off," she laughed, "I promised I'd look for a spell for Amren in the library,"

"Go later,"

"Stop being a baby and let me go,"

"Five more minutes," he complained, for possibly the first time ever, memories of being the one to drag Rhys and Cassian out of bed surfacing at the thought,

"Off,"

"Four minutes,"

"One."

"Three,"

"One."

"Two."

"Fine." Azriel kissed her temple when she snuggled back into him, "You're such a bad influence,"

"You were already bad," he teased, "You just needed a little nudge," she snorted, but turned to stare up at him,

"I missed you,"

"I could tell," he chuckled, and she smacked his chest, her cheeks coloring as she ran through last night's events,

"Last night," she started, and broke off, her words trailing into nothing, "I want you to know, I, I don't regret it, and, thank you for looking after me," Azriel brushed a hand up her spine to cup the back of her head,

"Thank you for trusting me like that, and you never have to thank me for looking after you, it's rare you need it, but I will be always, always be there should you need it." A gentle smile was her only response, but Azriel knew that the words had taken root where they needed to, she would remember, and would actually ask him for help if she needed it, stubbornness aside.

Gwyn allowed him another few moments of comfortable silence before she extracted herself from his arms, laughing to herself at his grumbles and complaints, but made no move to answer them.

"I was thinking," she started,

"Uh oh," she glared at him, "Don't hurt yourself, love,"

"You're one to talk," she countered, and sat in front of the mirror to braid her hair back, grinning to herself when she found a little braid that Azriel had left, "Did you do this?"

"Maybe,"

"Azzy,"

"Rhys's Mom taught me, you have such beautiful hair, it was a crime not to play with it," she chuckled again,

"Do you want to?"

"What?"

"Do my hair, you can if you like," He shifted to sit up, and slung a pair of pants on before crossing to stand behind her,

"Brush," he demanded, and she grinned as she handed it over, leaning slightly into his touch as he teased the tangles out of her hair, his fingers remembering the style he'd always liked best, even without his thinking about it. Two braids, pulling the hair off of her face, tied up behind her head, forming a crown as the rest fell loose around her shoulder, it would suit her. "What were you going to say?"

"Oh, right," she hesitated for a moment, as if thinking about how she wanted to say it, but Azriel didn't rush her, she could have all the time she wanted, and he would wait until she was ready, "I wanted to ask if it was okay if I moved in here permanently? With you I mean, I just, I never actually asked, I just moved in."

"Of course, you can, but, what about the library?"

"I think, I mean, it was a place to heal, to recover, a temporary haven unless I wanted it to be permanent, and I thought I did for a while. Then I met Nesta, then I truly met you. What I'm trying to say is that I think I'm ready to leave the library, I want to move on with the next stage of my life, I want to stay with you. The library will always hold a special place in my heart, but it's not my safe place anymore, you are." Azriel faltered, and swore as the braid slipped loose,

"I'm your safe place?" He whispered, and she inclined her head slightly, so as not to disrupt him again,

"You have been for a while, you make me feel the safest I've ever been."

Gwyn's steps were light as she made her way down the steps to the library that had become her safe haven, her home, and now, a place that she was ready to move on from. Clotho looked up at her arrival, surprise evident in her movement, even thought Gwyn could not see her face,

Gwyneth, I had not expected to see you back so soon,

The enchanted pen made its way across the paper with a slight glow in the dim light,

"I need to find a spell, Amren and Feyre have been searching, but have come up empty, Amren asked if I might have anything in here, any ideas?" Clotho hesitated,

Try level four, the fifth stack on the right, it has spellbooks that I have never seen elsewhere,

"Thank you." Gwyn made to leave, but hesitated, "Clotho?" Clotho looked back up at her, "I assume you are aware of my relationship with Azriel?"

Yes. The two of you are well-matched.

Gwyn chuckled to herself, they certainly were that, but that wasn't her point,

"I've been staying with him recently, and I, well I wanted to make that permanent,"

You're ready to leave us.

"Yes." She had no other words, but Clotho nodded,

I wish you a lifetime of happiness with him, and you are welcome here whenever you want to return for an hour or a week, we will miss you.

"I'll miss you, all of you, and I will return, hopefully more frequently after this rebellion is dealt with."

She bid Clotho goodbye, a weight she hadn't known she'd been carrying lifting from her shoulders at Clotho's blessing. She counted the steps down to the library's fourth level, her mind focusing onto the task at hand.

She allowed her gaze to run across the stacks, pausing at the one that Clotho had suggested, waiting for her instinct to act, to tell her where to look. Her gaze snagged on a dusty tome above her head, the dust settled around it in a such a way that it couldn't have been removed from its shelf for years, a hum of power filling the air as she reached up for it. She pushed herself up onto her tiptoes and jerked her hand back as it made contact with the ancient leather binding, the feeling like a bolt of lighting had arced down her arm. She yelped and stumbled backwards, tripping over a chair and glared up at the book once she'd crashed to the floor.

It had been years since that book had been touched, perhaps it was just a build up of power that had been released. She eyed the still-glowing book again, perhaps not. She dragged a stool over and peered closer at the book, its barely-visible dark power almost reaching for her when she moved her hand close to it. If it was her touch, perhaps she could still retrieve the book, and she pushed her sleeve down, careful not to let the book touch her skin until she set it down on a nearby table.

Bound with leather, golden script marking out faint words that she couldn't decipher, the binding along the spine, it was typical of one of the truly ancient tomes, one that may have been written prior to the High Lords creation. She narrowed her eyes at it and it, it hummed, sentient? Could a book even be sentient? She didn't doubt it, not with all of the strange occurrences she'd seen in this very library.

Hello Shadowsinger, a voice purred, and Gwyn pivoted to glare into the gloom, a chuckle filling the air around her,

"Where are you? Why do you call me Shadowsinger?"

Are you not one? Do you not converse with shadows, do they not protect you? Or perhaps it is because of your-

"Stop." She demanded, whirling back to the book, the chuckle louder as she stared it down,

You cannot hide from the truth indefinitely,

"I'm not hiding from anything,"

But you are, you know the truth, fear it, yet you want it at the same time.

"You know nothing," she snapped, doubt creeping into her mind, a million questions fighting to be acknowledged, but her voice was steady as she asked, "Do you have a spell to keep winged faeries from taking flight?"

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Are you brave enough to read these pages?

"What was the power I felt just now?"

Ancient, lovely death. It crooned, and Gwyn resolved not to touch it again, but it almost certainly contained something useful. Amren would know what to do with it, and the ancient, lovely death part, perhaps Nesta would have more luck, power limited or not. She shucked off her jacket, using it to carefully handle the book without risking touching it again, and shivered at the sense of malice that descended upon the library.

Darkness swirled around her feet as she made to move, and old fear rioted in her veins, the urge to run almost overwhelming. A dark chuckle from the bundle in her arms, damn! It had never meant for her to leave here with it, at least not alive. She refused to give in to that fear, and she snarled in defiance,

"Was it you last time?"

I wanted to know what kind of power had awoken in my library, it was you, but I cannot allow you to leave, we still have so much to discuss.

"Discuss? You disgust me," another chuckle, Mother above, it was really starting to grate on her nerves now, and she channeled all of her fear into that anger, and power awoke within her, that familiar hum building into a crescendo in her ears, the sun's rays dancing at her fingertips as she let it go, not much, but the darkness recoiled, and couldn't break through this light as it had before. But there was too much, and it surrounded her. She clutched the book to her chest, spinning around to block a lick of darkness that shot for her exposed back. She wouldn't last long like this.

Azriel! She screamed the word into the ether, he would never come, he couldn't know, but she silently screamed for him again and again. She screamed for Rhys, for Feyre, clinging to the slim hope that their daemati abilities might allow them to hear her. The darkness was getting closer and closer, recoiling with each attack of light, but she was tiring, her breathing already labored, her vision starting to fail, she was going to lose, but she was going to go down swinging.

Azriel was running through Gwyn and Maddy's findings when a bolt of fear that was not his own flashed through him. He started and dropped his pen, shaking his head to clear the sensation, but moments later he heard it, faint, distant, but clear as day. His name, screamed in desperation, a plea for help. Gwyn. He didn't think, didn't plan, just acted, winnowing to the library in a heartbeat, not bothering to ask for permission to enter.

Some sixth sense steered him down, and he landed hard, not caring that the impact had jarred his knee, sprinting forward before he'd finished recovering. Shadows swirled in his wake, more and more, as if the library was lending him its arsenal, the darkness thick, almost as if it were attempting to hinder him. It was, he realized when it skittered away at the glimmer of a siphon, he'd seen it before, it was the very same power that had attacked Gwyn once before, and this time, this time he would destroy it at its very source.

A faint light glimmered in the stacks ahead of him, disappearing and reappearing mere heartbeats apart. The next time it appeared, he made out a flash of auburn hair, teal eyes wide with fear, and something else, something so uniquely her that he couldn't name it, and he sped up, running faster than he'd ever thought possible. His shadows shot out in front of him, slamming into the darkness around Gwyn as a shield of glimmering blue encased her, the darkness unable to penetrate it. She was panting, swaying slightly on her feet, but she held her head up high, a book clutched to her chest, triumph now in her eyes.

The darkness parted around him, slinking off to the depths of the library, but Azriel sent power shooting for it, blocking its path, leaving it trapped between the stacks, trapped with him. He couldn't hear anything over the roaring in his ears as instinct demanded he destroy it all. Power surrounded each piece of sentient darkness, blue light flaring as the killing power squeezed tighter, tighter, until one piece exploded into blue sparks.

It wasn't long until the air around was filled with the same sparks, and the faelights that usually filled the library began to glow anew. Azriel's heart was thumping in his chest, his breathing heavy, but his anger started to fade, and fizzled out at a light touch on his arm,

"Az?" He turned to find Gwyn gripping his elbow, "What was that?"

"Are you hurt?" His voice was hoarse as he scanned up and down her body, "Who did this to you?"

"I'm fine," her voice was steady, quieter than usual, but steady, and she wasn't limping,

"Who did this?"

"The book," she gestured to the book in her arms, and Azriel reached out to examine it, "Don't touch it!" She yelped, "It has some sort of power,"

"Did it hurt you?"

"Not really,"

"It did, didn't it? What happened?"

"It just sort of blasted me with power and I fell over, it's fine," Azriel narrowed his eyes, and Gwyn sighed, reaching up to cup his cheek, "I'm fine, Azzy, I swear," he leaned into her touch,

"You're not coming back down here alone until I figure out if that thing can summon more of that darkness," defiance shone in her eyes, but faded as she considered the sense of his decision, it was fueled by fear, fear of losing her, but it was sensible, and she wasn't stubborn enough to deny that. She didn't complain when he scooped her up and shot into the air, soaring out of the library, ancient book in tow.