Six hundred and thirty-two years?
Adrenaline patters in me. Maybe these are the right libraries to start in after all.
Will Theron have figured this out as well?
The servant angles his eyes at me. He starts talking again, and I realize he meant for me to respond somehow—with proper oohing and ahhing, or some show of acknowledgment beyond absent, silent staring.
“Should you need assistance, the librarian in residence will be about,” the servant says, his words slow, as though he’s giving instructions to a child. “Do try to treat this space with the respect it deserves.”
And he leaves, darting past me. Bluntness seems to be a Yakimian trait.
I start toward the first row of books and find I’m not the only patron here—but I am the only non-Yakimian. A few people glance at me as I pass, brief snatches that turn into shocked staring that unabashedly morph into outrightcuriosity. Like I’m not a living person, but a statue, and they’re trying to figure out how I was carved.
Four rows of maddeningly unhelpful numbers later, I stop. The rest of the row is empty of Yakimians for the moment, and I breathe in the solitude of not being looked at so curiously. To top it all off, I have no idea what I’m searching for. Again. These books all have titles likeLaw and JusticeandCivilities in Common TownshipsandDeclarations from West of Ardith. Nothing about magic, or even about the Klaryns.
I lean against a shelf, exhaustion muddling my thoughts. Maybe if I can convince Theron to let me see the key I found in Summer—maybe there’s something I missed, a lead to the next one. But that would mean having to touch it again, and I don’t want to risk any more . . . memories.
“You were quite convincing.”
I jump, flailing off the bookshelf. Ceridwen crosses her arms at the entrance to this row, her lips lifted in a mischievous smile. Next to her, holding his body so he can see the rows behind us, stands the slave who followed her out of the party in Summer. He must be hers. Though I can’t imagine she’d willingly keep slaves, not with her stance on Summer’s practices. Maybe he’s just her friend.
“Convincing at what?” I ask.
“At playing sick. Theron swore you’d head straight to your room when you returned, and I thought so too—until I asked myself, if a Rhythm had just given away somethingof Summer’s, what illness would keep me down?” Her smile sobers. “And I couldn’t think of a single one.”
I tighten my jaw. If the man behind her is her friend, he’s probably trustworthy—but I keep my tone low all the same. “I told you. I don’t want to involve you in this—you don’tneedto be involved in this. This isn’t—”
“I just traveled here with you and Cordell,” Ceridwen snaps. “Iaminvolved in this. Or whatever your cover is, so I might as well be involved in the truth of it. And I helped last time, didn’t I? Besides,” she smiles again, “I quite like you being in my debt.”
I can’t stop the way my mouth instantly turns down. But the spark in Ceridwen’s eyes speaks more to camaraderie. I nod at her friend, who eyes me with cautious interest.
“I assume he’s trustworthy?”
The man smiles, white teeth cutting brilliance through his tan skin, hisSbrand wrinkling under his eye. But Ceridwen gets to his introduction before he can.
“Lekan.” She taps him in the chest. “He’s been helping with raids longer than I have, plus his husband runs the camp where we send our freed slaves. He’s trustworthy.”
Lekan bows. “My princess trusts you, so I do as well.”
One edge of my mouth starts to rise but cuts off when a realization flares through me. “You’re Summerian, though,” I state. “Aren’t you affected by Simon’s magic?”
I angle the question at Ceridwen too, because in all the chaos since I met her, I never thought to askhowshe’s ableto think clearly when her brother pumps dazed joy into everyone else in their kingdom. My question makes Lekan’s smile vanish, but Ceridwen chuckles.
“Took you this long to ask me that?” She clucks her tongue. “You’re not the brightest flame in the fire, are you?”
“Don’t make me hit you in a library.”
She laughs again. “Years of practice, learning how to distinguish our own feelings from magic-induced ones. It also helps that Summer’s magic is, shall we say,weak, what with how much of it my ancestors have used on bliss. But most people are so accustomed to it that they don’t need much help to remain happy anymore.”
She says it all with no more pomp than if she had just told me it’s hot in Summer. Lekan shuffles, slanting away from us, his reaction breaking Ceridwen’s apparent lack of concern.
It’s hard, what they do, resisting their king’s magic. Harder than Ceridwen lets on.
Summer would certainly benefit from a lack of magic too, if their ruler was forced to govern simply by strength and will.
A throat clears behind me and I glance back, hand going to the dagger in my bodice.
The servant who led us to Giselle, who drove our carriage through Putnam. Those black eyes lock on me again, the studious way I’m more than a little sick of.
