Chapter 35 Isi
ISI
Islipped inside Trew’s office and eased the door shut behind me.
The scent hit me first. Warm and entirely him. Like cedar and storms and something wild. I inhaled before I could stop myself. And instantly regretted it. Because now I could feel him, even though the room was empty. I had no business missing his presence.
The room was dim, private, and quietly humming with something I didn’t quite understand, and it was warmer here. If there were wards, I’d probably just triggered them, so I’d have to be fast.
Shadows clung to the corners, deepened by the amber glow spilling from a trio of low-burning torches on my left.
The scent of books clung to the air along with that vague, spicy taste of magic I’d discovered during our afternoon training sessions. The area felt dormant. Waiting. Like the room might come alive if touched in the wrong way.
Which meant I’d also have to be careful.
Beyond the desk, a broad bookcase stretched to the vaulted ceiling, each shelf full of leather-bound volumes in a riot of faded colors, gold leaf on the spines catching the light like the wink of coins.
Not all the spines had titles; some had been etched with strange symbols.
Between the shelves, niches displayed relics, from blade hilts worn smooth from countless hands, to dragon scales no larger than my palm but shimmering with an inner fire.
I even spied a tarnished gold crown lying on an angle.
Several narrow tables stood here and there, each littered with unusual objects. A cracked map drawn on hide. A polished horn worked into a drinking vessel. A dagger with a hilt wrapped in black leather, its blade nicked and blackened as though it had been pulled from a fire.
The rug underfoot muffled my quick steps, a heavy weave in shades of crimson and gold, patterned with curling designs that might be flowers or flames. My boots sank into it, soundless as I crossed the room. Every surface whispered of power, of a man who kept history close at hand.
The desk dominated the space, carved from dark wood, the surface nicked with a few scrapes from use. It appeared old. Maybe his father or grandfather had used it before him.
The skull of a horned creature I didn’t recognize hung on the wall beyond it, its hollow sockets staring down at the room like a silent sentinel.
Papers and tomes littered the desk in organized chaos. Some stacked into neat piles, others scattered as if he’d dropped them and strode away.
I moved around the room as fast as I could, scanning the surfaces, taking care not to touch anything, stopping at the desk only to study the papers.
Notes and sketches. None of it mentioning Addie.
I had no idea what I was hoping to find.
A note scrawled with “yes I murdered your sister” in dramatic villain handwriting?
My fingers still itched to rifle through everything, but this appeared to just be a man’s workspace.
I hurried to the bookshelf and began tugging books free at random.
My fingers traced the spines of thick military volumes, heavy spell theory texts, atlases, and battle maps.
I found a slim volume of poetry tucked between two tomes on magical creature behavior.
My brows rose. I pulled it free and flipped it open. The pages were worn. Well-read.
I squinted at the cover: Songs for Lovers Lost and Found.
I stared at it. Closed it. Shelved it again.
One section held titles on beast-bonding rituals and symbiotic casting. Another section delved into old, likely-forgotten magical theories that made me want to sit and read. Another held records of trade negotiations, court correspondence, and border conflicts.
I kept moving.
Past the wall of shelves I stopped in front of a beautifully maintained weapons rack. Swords, daggers, and something that looked like a staff lined with embedded red crystal were mounted on the carved wooden frame.
Cabinets lined the next wall, and I opened each one quickly. Neatly hung cloaks filled the first. Another held stacked journals bound in dark leather. I lifted one, flipped it open, and found it blank. Did he collect them or…
Ah, maybe he’d used magic to hide the contents? If so, that was going to be a problem.
I was tempted to steal one and wait until my magic got good enough to unspell it, if such a thing was possible. But with my minxpip still avoiding me, the odds of me being able to do even a few simple spells before I turned sixty were slim.
The next cabinet held a row of storage drawers that yielded little but seals, loose parchment, ink refills, and a pair of thin leather gloves.
I got down on my knees and peered underneath the furniture. No secrets there—and surprisingly little dust.
Everything felt almost too clean. Not in the sense of someone hiding things, but as if every object here had a place and a purpose, and not even a shadow dared drift out of line.
I told myself I was looking for evidence. Instead, my fingers brushed a cloak he’d laid across the back of a chair, seeking his warmth. I snatched my hand back as if it had been burned, only to find myself pressing my fingers against my mouth, breathing in the scent of his skin.
Fates, I hated that part of me wanted to keep it there.
Time to check the desk drawers.
I sat in Trew’s big leather chair, leaning back a moment to suck in his scent. Then I realized what I was doing and snarled at myself. I slid from the chair and knelt in front of the desk, tugging on the top right drawer.
Locked.
I slipped the tip of my blade into the gap beneath the lock and fiddled, biting my lip.
The lock clicked, and I tugged the drawer open.
Inside, I found a few loose sheaths of paper. Supply manifests, letters stamped with broken wax, and some half-filled forms about beast licenses and trade routes. Dry. Official. The most incriminating thing about them was how tidy Trew’s penmanship was.
I quickly checked the next drawer, finding it locked as well. The lock gave way just as easily, but the inside held more of the same.
My jaw flexed as I broke into the upper left-side drawer, finding a half-finished letter addressed to someone I’d never heard of where he talked about the encroaching wasteland, though I didn’t learn anything new.
A folded scrap of paper with a child’s messy drawing lay beneath the letter, smudged fingerprints still visible, plus a map marked with trails and landmarks.
It looked like the southern border of Syllavar, if my geography lessons held true.
The second drawer was suspiciously full of candied ginger.
I paused, blinking down at it. “What…?”
A flicker of memory hit, one of his mouth tasting of ginger and heat. The heat came from him—and me, I supposed—but this must be where he kept his secret pile of candy.
Everyone had a weakness. Ginger must be his. Before I closed the drawer, I pocketed a few pieces.
The bottom drawer refused to budge. I twisted my blade into the lock and gave it a wiggle, hoping I could coax it the way I had with the others.
Nothing.
I tried again, pressing the blade hard against the catch, the metal protesting beneath my fingers—
Snap.
The blade slipped, poking my left palm. It bled. Of course it did.
“By the fates,” I hissed as I sucked on the wound, glancing toward the door, half-expecting guards to burst in with drawn swords over the sound of my cry alone.
I blew a strand of hair off my face and once my cut had stopped dripping, tried again to get past the lock, taking better care with the knife. “Come on, you secretive thing. What are you hiding?”
Finally, the lock gave way, and the drawer creaked open.
More papers. A mess of folded documents, dog-eared notes, and a few sealed envelopes shoved toward the back. I flipped through them rapidly, unable to stop my hands from trembling.
And then—
There.
Beneath a loose sheaf of survey maps and an ink-stained sheet outlining army supplies for the border from five winters ago, a leather-bound journal caught my eye.
Small, it may have been tucked into the drawer and forgotten.
The corner held a faded silver crescent moon with pearl inlay no larger than my thumbnail.
My blood turned to ice, and the world collapsed.
I gently lifted it.
The leather was worn, soft from use, its edges curling on the corners.
It still smelled faintly of the primamint oil she’d hoarded, rubbing it into her hands at night to keep them soft. My breath snagged.
I ran my fingers over the spine and opened it to the middle. Slanted handwriting danced across the page—looping, neat, and much too familiar.
Addie.
I flipped another page, then another. Names in the margins. Sketches of constellations. Notations in the corners in a shorthand only my sister used. My throat tightened, a soundless gasp lodged in my chest.
This was my sister’s book. After the funeral pyre, the hasty explanations my father had come up with, I might finally find answers.
Addie had written this. Her hands. Her mind. Her voice on the page.
I sat on the floor, laying the journal on my lap, and I turned the pages like they were made of spun sugar. Carefully. Desperately. Looking for answers in the margins, the notes, the final pages.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until a drop fell on the page and smudged the ink.
I wiped it away with the edge of my sleeve.
She’d used a code, a playful mess of symbols and invented punctuation, something she’d done after our mother died to keep nosy people out of her business. Me included, though I’d teased her about it for years.
I let out a strangled laugh. “You pain in the ass.”
Addie had always loved a puzzle. And now she’d left me one more to solve.
I flipped to the inside cover, hoping for a cipher. But I found nothing but a doodled drawing of a silver, pocket-sized wyvern perched on top of a book.
Hers?
I clutched the journal to my chest.