Chapter 20
I burst from Widener Library so suddenly that I scatter a flight of pigeons, which swarm into the tourists taking photos with a selfie stick two steps down. I cover my grin as I high-step past them, trying not to laugh at the idea of the image the camera must have captured.
I’m dizzy. I’m gleeful.
I did it.
It all makes so much sense. What is the perfect method of discreet information dissemination? One that reaches across the globe, while avoiding the scrutiny of the masses—unlike a secure database, which draws the attention of every government hacker in existence?
Academic. Fucking. Literature.
Who, outside of college professors, even cares about the stuff?
And elves are so pretentiously brilliant, a fact they never hesitate to rub in our noses. Of course we wouldn’t think twice about their endless publication of essays and dissertations and theses and novels. It’s only natural.
God, they are good.
But not good enough.
I hop up off the bricks of Plympton Street, tapping my heels together like a child.
I did it. I fucking did it.
Seven years. Seven long years of plotting against the elves, of looking for any weakness, any avenue into their secrets, and I finally did it. I found the crack in their armor. And damn if I’m not going to exploit it. Damn if I won’t find out every last—
“What’s got you so giddy?”
I stumble, almost tripping at the familiar voice.
No, no. Not you. Not now.
But when I turn, it’s him. Of course it is. Daerios. A toothy grin on his face.
“I could ask the same thing of you,” I say, breathless.
“I’m merely happy to see you happy. Friend.”
It’s only at the sound of that word that I remember Saechon and the conversation I overheard the night before. Stay away from Quinn Kallister. Daerios is breaking a rule set by the king by speaking to me right now. Why the hell would he risk that?
“Aaaaand… now you no longer look happy.” Daerios tilts his head, watching me. “Have I done something to displease you?”
“No,” I say too quickly. “Not to worry. I’m just distracted. Mind on a… a project.”
“I see.” He steps closer. Close enough for me to see the swirling pattern of his silvery-grey eyes. “On our project? I mean, I can’t blame you. We didn’t make much progress the other night.”
Heat winds up my neck. “N-no.” I swallow. “On something else.”
“Shame,” he murmurs, raising one hand as if to touch my face, then hesitating. Waiting for permission, for some signal in my eyes.
Shit. This conversation is not going in any helpful direction, and—for God’s sake, I’d almost forgotten—we’re standing in broad daylight.
Anyone could see us standing this close, him centimeters from touching me.
What if one of Saechon’s informants is on the street?
But all I can think about is how that hand felt when it cradled my ass the other night, when it pulled me into him, rocking me, faster and faster—
Shit, shit. I step backward, licking my lips, which are now chapped from unsteady exhales. “Well. Better get going. Get back to that project I’m working on.” Another step. Another. “Anyway—” Then my foot catches on the curb, sending me sprawling over Plympton Street.
“Quinn!” Daerios is beside me in a heartbeat, arms wrapping around my shoulders to keep me from hitting the concrete.
I huff as my back falls into him, hands instinctively reaching up to cling to his neck.
He lifts me back to standing, settling my feet on the sidewalk.
I should probably let go of his neck. I don’t. “Are you all right?”
“F—fine.” I give him a wobbly smile. “Nothing an elvish prince can’t save me from.”
He rolls his eyes, a gesture that should infuriate me but instead sends little skipping stones dancing through my stomach.
Still I don’t unwind my hands from his neck.
Still he holds me snug in the crooks of his elbows.
And here it comes again, heat spreading at the base of my stomach.
His eyes soften as he inches my torso closer, and I can hardly breathe, and my insides are a twisted mess, caught between the lingering excitement of discovery, the warm coil of desire, and the voice telling me to run away before we make a very stupid, very public mistake.
“Do you know the difference,” I whisper, “between bilabial and labiodental phonemes?”
Daerios leans away, forehead bunching into three incredulous lines. “Did you seriously just ask me a question about linguistics?”
My lips purse. “Maybe.”
His arms drop. He stares at me for a long moment, lips slightly parted.
Then he tips his head back and dissolves into laughter.
The sound is rich and careless. Like a child allowed to run free. It snakes around my body, starting at my toes, sending thrilling little chills all the way up my spine.
Too soon, his laughter ends, and Daerios’s eyes return to mine, an unusual sparkle at their edges. “I’ll tell you what,” he says. “I think I missed that part of lecture.” A smirk tugs at his lips. I can tell I’m not going to like what he says next. “But I’m quite familiar with labia.”
By the time I reach my dorm room, my heart is pounding so hard I’ve forgotten why I was so desperate to get here in the first place. Let’s see, I was in the library, and then I was in the street, and Daerios was there, and his tongue flicked as he said the word labia, smooth and easy, as if he—
No. God. No. I cannot think about that right now.
The library. Yes. I was in the stacks, highlighting Elvish papers, and—
The papers. I unhook my backpack from my shoulders and drop it onto the floor, too hurried to even reach the coffee table. I unzip the top. Inside: a mess of printed paper.
“Cara!” I holler. “Cara!”
“What, what, what?” She appears in her doorframe, pixie cut ruffled, glasses askew. “Where’s the fire?”
“No fire.” I snatch up the papers and hurry over to where she stands. “You have a scanner, right?”
“Yes?” She eyes the wad in my hand. “Why?”
“And can you—” I hesitate briefly, then plunge on. “What are the odds you can write a program that could detect a code written in Elvish?”
On the run over here—before I was so rudely interrupted by Daerios—I considered whether I could truly ask Cara to do this. To do so makes her vulnerable. Drags her into a culpable position, something I never wanted. But I’ve deemed this information too valuable not to ask.
“Pfff.” She rolls her eyes. “What do you think I am, a CS1 student? Of course, I can. I mean, it’ll take a day or two, but that’s only because I have three psets due on—”
“Great.” I shove the papers into her hands. “Because I need you to decode this dissertation.”
“This?” She flips through it, noting the circles in red marker. “What’s with the scribble?”
“They’re intentional errors,” I say excitedly. “It’s how the elves are hiding information from the humans.”
Cara raises an eyebrow, looking at me over her glasses. “And you just discovered this?”
“Yes.”
“And you think you’re the first human in one hundred years to do so?”
“Yes.”
“Oh-kayyy.” She shuffles the papers to line up evenly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Clearly, she doesn’t believe me. I don’t care. “You’re the best.”
I turn to head to my bedroom, but Cara says, “Can I ask what, exactly, you think they’re hiding in here?”
I glance back over my shoulder. “Better if you don’t.”