Amryssa nodded. “Of course.”
“What do you remember about your mother?”
She blinked. “My mother? Hmm. Warmth, I suppose. Laughter. Brown skin. Shiny black hair. Fingers stained with charcoal—she was always drawing. And a smell like...bergamot tea, maybe? Oh, and hugs. Lots of them.”
My heart squeezed. “She loved you a lot?”
“Oh, fiercely. Me and Father both. Sometimes I think...”
Her throat worked. I waited.
“I think she’d be sorry to know what’s happened to us. Where we’ve ended up.”
That rammed an arrow through my chest, but I forced myself to continue. “But what about the dagger? It was hers, right? Do you remember much about that?”
Amryssa’s attention fell to my belt. “Oh, yes. She used to wear it, just like you. I always thought it was because...well, I don’t know. I suppose I never asked. It’s an heirloom, perhaps.”
Her gaze strayed to the window again. The sheer longing in her eyes made me wilt inside. Goddess, Ihadto help her. I had to fix this.
So I devoted the rest of the afternoon to sifting through the last brown books in the library. Hours later, I was sweating, cursing myself into a foul mood, when I slid the final volume from its shelf. I cracked the cover to find a primer on...ornithology.
Birds. Freaking birds.
Something snapped inside me. I hurled the book and sank to my knees, my face buried in my hands. I’d failed. I’d pinned my hopes for Amryssa to this, and had nothing at all to show for it.
A pent-up sob cooked the inside of my chest. A moment later, a warm hand landed on my shoulder. I looked up to find Kyven smiling down at me. The collar of his shirt hung open, exposing the smooth column of his neck.
I shouldn’t have stared, but I did. I liked that he so often left that button undone, that I could see the ripple of muscle when he ate, the bob of his throat when he laughed. Moreover, the sight of him—thatthingthat blazed inside me whenever he came close—chased away the shadows clogging my veins.
Right now, it was probably the only thing that could.
“The diary might not be in the library,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in this house.”
I scrubbed at my cheeks. “We don’t know that it actually exists, though. What if that steward was wrong? What if the Lady was writing letters? Or...I don’t know. Shopping lists?”
“She wasn’t. He called it a diary. He sounded sure.”
“Maybe. But if she kept a journal, it should be here.”
A mischievous spark flared in his eyes. “Well. There is one more place we could look. A rather obvious one, actually.”
I rocked back on my heels, suddenly wary. Oh, gods. “Why do I have the feeling I know exactly what you mean?”
“Because you do. Of course you do. Great minds, and all that.”
I swallowed. Or tried to, but my throat had gone drier than sand. “We can’t,” I whispered, even though no one was here to overhear. Lunk had taken Amryssa to dinner, bless his soul. “If Olivian finds us in his wife’s room, he’ll kill us. Actually kill us.”
“Then he won’t find us. We’ll make sure of it.”
I fisted my skirts. There were few things I feared, at least physically, but the rage the seneschal had unleashed on that steward was one of them. “We have no way to get inside, though. Olivian keeps the only key in his pocket.”
Kyven’s lips twitched. “You’re forgetting my many talents.”
I frowned, but... Right. He could pick locks.
Like any normal person.
“I’d be happy to do a little breaking and entering,” he said. “It beats reading, at any rate.”
