Two hours later, I’d found very little I deemed helpful. Avie and Ignatius hadn’t found much more. Several times we’d find a passage we thought useful, but after a discussion we discarded it as not pertinent. I sat back and saw Owen and Lysandor coming toward us through the stacks. They held hands and exuded a deep contentment.
The knife-edge of envy sliced through me. My youngest brother had found his happiness, while I was denied mine with Cinaed.
“You’re scowling,” Avie whispered as the boys passed us. “Your time will come, and when it does, it will be perfect.”
She was right. Cinaed and I spoke of it often, and I believed it would happen. In moments like this, however, it still hurt. “Iknow.” I’d have smiled, but it would’ve looked fake. “But that doesn’t mean I can always keep the longing at bay.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She patted my hand before giving it a squeeze. “I was just reminding you not to lose hope.”
As long as Cinaed was alive, I’d never give up. Wewouldbe together, and now that this cycle was coming to an end, I was more hopeful than ever that our time was near. “I haven’t, but I can’t promise not to be impatient.”
We sat quietly for a few seconds, her hand still over mine. She understood being alone all too well. Once I had my affairs in order, I’d turn my attention to helping her find happiness too.
“You look like I feel,” Avie said, pushing away the leather-bound tome she’d been reading for a while. She stretched her arms above her head, and then stood. “Let’s take a proper break and go for a walk. I need to clear my mind.”
Grateful for her suggestion, I pushed back from the table. The others glanced up, perhaps hoping we’d invite them, but Avie wanted a break. I did too. With every dead end, my frustration grew. A short breather would allow me to reset my patience.
Avie led me up a narrow spiral staircase, and we eventually emerged in a small sitting room that overlooked a snow-covered courtyard. Several chairs had been set on a thick, colorful rug and were arranged facing each other. It was an ideal place for scholars to come discuss what they’d learned without disturbing anyone still working.
“Leita showed me this place last time I was here,” Avie said, settling into one of the chairs. “We’d been researching the klarion, and our discussion upset Syrax and the others who were still reading.”
I sank into the remaining chair, grateful for the private retreat. “It’s peaceful up here.”
“You seemed aggravated, so I figured this would help rejuvenate you.”
She wasn’t wrong. Negative energy wasn’t going to help find answers. “Does it feel like we’re going about this the wrong way?”
“How so?”
The fact she didn’t act like I was crazy made me feel a bit better. “Blackstone isn’t crazy—I mean, maybe he is, but he’s been planning this for a very longtime. Destroying the Great Ward will allow mages to summon demons again. Like 1200 years ago, all it takes is one person to raise a demon they can’t control for the world to be plunged into a new demon war. How is that scenario worth the effort and risk Blackstone took to get this far?”
“It isn’t,” Avie said. “So how does he prevent that outcome?”
I didn’t know, but I had a theory. “Remember when Blackstone raised the demon prince to try to kill Bart?”
Avie’s expression soured. “Are you going to remind me I insisted he was wrong about Declan trying to kill him?”
I should’ve realized she was still salty about her mistake. “Not unless you want me to. My point is, did anyone examine the glyph with anyone other than Declan in mind?”
“You know we didn’t,” she said. “And yes, we erased it before Bart recovered to prevent him from ignoring his doctor’s advice.”
The problem with being one of the smartest people in the room was that you didn’t always have room to hear contrasting opinions. “I did.” I let those two words settle.
“Why…. When did you do that?” she asked.
Maybe we should’ve had this discussion sooner, but I’d known it wouldn’t go down well. “Before I visited Bart in the hospital, I visited the campus. As for why, once Cinaed and I realized we were mates, we knew that wouldn’t have happenedunless it was connected to the Great Ward. We spoke to the guardians, and they shared that the Ward was slowly losing its potency. By the time Blackstone unleashed his plans to kill Bart, I was already on alert for something unusual.”
Avie remained quiet and stared at a spot on the wall. “I assume you didn’t tell me about your visit to Utrecht given my attitude toward Bart’s belief it wasn’t Declan.”
I nodded, glad she hadn’t needed me to spell it out for her. “I didn’t learn who created that glyph, but it wasn’t a simple summoning circle. When he’d recovered, I showed Bart the images from the glyph. It took him a year to guess what the symbols meant, but unless he wanted to test his theory, we wouldn’t know for sure.”
“What does our genius brother think Blackstone meant to do with that glyph?”
Standing, I moved to the window. Nothing disturbed the snow in the courtyard below. It was as calming an image as I could find. “Mostly it was a summoning spell for a very powerful demon, but hidden in the greater spell were two others. One was designed to trap the demon, and the second was anchored to the sacrificial mage.” I went back to my chair. “Had Bart never appeared or had the demon killed him, the demon prince would’ve been trapped in the circle. Had it eaten the mage, as it tried to before Bart killed Declan, it would’ve been subjugated to the will of the person who created the glyph.”
“Blackstone,” she said. “So that’s his endgame.”
“Was,” I said. “I’m not sure what his plan is now.”
