The Shadow's Son by Nicole R. Taylor Page A

feel relief that she only had to look out for herself again. Tristan was smart, they'd worked together for over a hundred years. He knew that she was a solitary being and didn't feel the need to latch onto her. She didn't need to protect him. Love was an unnatural feeling to her. She would do anything for Zac, even if that meant leaving to protect him. He'd said it himself. Their love was driving him mad. Perhaps if they had met under other circumstances it would be different.
    Aya couldn't love him the way he wanted. The way he needed . Not right now, not until she found Victoria's secret and Regulus was a pile of ash. When the threat was eliminated, she would find him again and hope it wasn't too late. She needed his love as much as he needed hers.
    Hope was a strange thing.
    "You need to forget him," Tristan's voice broke through her melancholy. "Wallowin' is not productive, Arrow."
    "How do you know what I'm thinking?" she hissed.
    "It's written all over your face," he shrugged. "Regulus will keep. I know for a fact that he's not in London right now. He will come back, but we should use this time to find out about Victoria."
    "Yes, of course."
    "That is, after all one of the reasons we came here."
    "Where do you suggest we begin?" she asked, having no idea how to go about it in this day and age.
    "The British Library," he said. "It holds a lot of records. Births, deaths, that kind of thing. If we're lucky it will hold records of her ancestors."
    "I don't like our chances," she said. "I have a feeling that any trace of her might have been erased. Especially after Regulus turned her."
    "You forget, Arrow," he winked. "I was in Regulus' back pocket for two hundred years and I have a very good memory."
    She sat up sharply, "What do you know, Tristan?"
    "I know her true name. I'm hopin' that we will find what we need with that. There is a high chance that everythin' is there…"
    Aya sighed, cutting him off, "Maybe, but don't get your hopes up. Witches are annoying when they want to hide something."
    "That they are, but I don't know where else to start."
    Truth was, neither did Aya. She hadn't known much about Victoria other than the glaringly obvious. She had been a witch and foolishly, she had been in love with Regulus. From what Zac had told her, she had fallen out of favor with the Roman and had followed her to America, where she had already gone to ground before she could catch up.
    "Then," she said. "Let's go to the library."

 

 
    The British Library stood near Kings Cross and St Pancras station. The buildings had been modernized somewhat, but they still bore a striking resemblance to what they had once been and still were. Train Stations. Here, Tristan told Aya, you could get a train to Paris in under three hours through a tunnel that had been built under the channel.
    Watching the flow of humans, Aya shook her head. She couldn't seem to get over the amount of people going to and fro, into the station and the Tube, onto busses and on foot. London had always been busy, but it had multiplied by thousands.
    To her annoyance, Tristan pulled her down the street and into the main foyer of the library, where the clerk sitting at the cloakroom eyed them suspiciously. They really were a pair. Tristan with his tall stature and broad shoulders and shock of curly hair and her in her dark clothing and long hair which he had told her made her look like something called a punk. To human eyes, they didn't fit together at all.
    She glared at the clerk, who looked away quickly as she followed Tristan towards the stairs, taking them two at a time. Coming out into a modern looking reading room, books lining every available space, she asked, "So, what's Victoria's real name?"
    "Dowling was her family name. She came from Wiltshire to the west. That's all I know."
    "Surely she would have been intelligent enough to use a different family name," Aya rolled her eyes as they came to the enquiries desk.
    "Perhaps, but we have nothin'