"This book…" Alaric frowned at the familiar red cover with it's florid gold lettering.
"It's Emma's," the man said quietly. "She loves it. She says the poems make her feel happy."
Alaric forced himself to stay calm as he flipped through the pages. Maybe he was wrong and this was just some other book, some other poems, with no meaning to it being here at all.
But no, he'd seen Loma reading it enough times to recognize it.
"Loma says the same thing." Alaric closed the cover. "This book is just like hers. Why would it be just like hers?"
For all he knew, there were copies of this same book on many nightstands. There were many people who found happiness in the words written within the gilded pages. Except when it came to the Creature and the man who created it, Alaric had learned the hard way that there was no such thing as coincidence.
