Chapter 12
“Denise, has Alistair ever killed any of the girls that were stuck here?” I ask as the friendly housekeeper pours me a cup of tea. Today is the first day that Alistair and I are truly working. The past two days have mostly been spent arguing and rewriting his notes so that I can actually read them.
Denise gives me a horrified look, disapproving of the way I taunt her master. All of the staff disapprove to a degree, but I think they secretly enjoy it.
“Of course not,” Denise gasps with wide eyes. Half of her dark hair is pulled into a bun, the rest swishing across her shoulders as she shakes her head. She’s younger than Milly by about ten years, but she has a similar maternal, no-nonsense attitude that I admire.
I turn a piercing look on Alistair at her answer, but he ignores me. “Do you hear that, Al?” I taunt him. “Denise says you’re a liar.”
Denise groans, shaking her head at me. “Now, Miss Stella—”
“Denise, you’re ruining my reputation,” Alistair says with dramatized exasperation. But I’m fairly certain Denise’s own exasperation is real as she sighs and sets a plate of scones on the table, squeezing it between stacks of books and half used bits of charcoal. “I don’t know if the two of you spending time together is wise. You’re liable to start some kind of rebellion,” she warns us, but there’s a smile tugging at her mouth.
“Hm, that sounds fun,” Alistair hums, stroking Narcissus’ back where he lies on the table, wrinkling the pages of an open book. “What should we call our rebellion, Beasty? The Fighting Foxes?”
“How about The Fox and the Flea? I’m the fox and you’re the parasitic insect,” I quip with a smile.
Alistair grins at me. Most men want flirtatious looks and soft giggles from women. All Alistair wants is a good, cutting comeback. Masochist.
“I’m leaving before you two start throwing things,” Denise announces, heading for the library door.
“Oh, come on,” Alistair yells after her, “We threw two books yesterday and it was to kill a spider.”
But the woman still leaves, chuckling as she goes. Alistair frowns at her exit. “I’m beginning to fear that my staff don’t respect me anymore.”
“Probably because you insist on wearing those shirts,” I mumble, knowing he’ll hear me.
“What—” he looks down at his blue shirt. “I love this shirt, and I look good in blue.”
“Eh.”
“What do you mean ‘eh’?”
“I think blue washes you out a little bit. But who cares? We have more important things to think about than your appearance.” I pull a stack of parchment toward me, using a piece of graphite to jot down my notes on Jane Antino’s book about the history of Poets. It’s a messy way to work, but it’s still easier to read than Alistair’s smudges.
“I think my appearance is very important,” Alistair huffs, pulling his book up closer to his face.
“Stop talking to yourself,” I say, rereading the paragraph I just finished writing. “Did you see my notes on the gold ball from Montaign?”
He sighs and takes the pages I offer to him. “”Saint Venino is said to have created a very powerful artifact disguised as a children’s toy.’ What kind of person gives their child a golden ball to play with?”
I tap his calf with my foot. “Keep reading.”
“Yes Miss Stella,” he mocks. I want to slap him. “”The full knowledge of the golden ball’s powers have been lost to time, but thanks to Venino’s personal notes, we know for certain that it allowed a person to transform. It’s also suspected that it gave the ability to time travel.’”
Alistair raises his eyes to mine, his gaze contemptuous. “Freckles, you don’t really believe that a child’s toy really gives someone the ability to time travel do you? I consider myself somewhat of a Poetic expert after four years in this library, and I can confidently say that time travel is one of the things Poetry has never been able to accomplish.”
“I’m not saying that the ball can actually accomplish time travel,” I explain, pulling the notes back to myself. “But if the ball has anything close to that level of power, then it could be what we’re looking for. You read the text, most of the ball’s abilities are unknown. And according to Antino’s book as well as Venino’s own personal journal entries, the last known location of the ball was somewhere in Andonia.”
“This is a big country, Stella,” he reminds me as if I’m stupid. “It could be anywhere.”
“The texts list Salvin specifically as being the possible location of the gold ball,” I say, already knowing that the duke visited the city two years ago. He left me in a cell while he was gone, not trusting me to stay put. He was right. I tried valiantly to escape the dungeons, but the guards had been warned of my propensity to run and gave me no opportunities. “Has your brother been to Salvin? Is it possible that he would have come across the ball?”
Alistair opens his mouth and then shuts it. His forehead wrinkles and he takes back my notes, looking from them to me. “I…” he shakes his head. “Yes, it’s possible.”
“Then it looks like we have a hunt to begin,” I smile. “Also, I was curious, have you considered searching the grounds for an artifact? There are many Poetic objects that could be used as lawn ornaments or easily hidden in a tree or even buried. We should look outside.”
“No.”
I glance at Alistair, confused by his refusal. But his expression is neutral, his tone dismissive.
“Have you already checked outside?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then why can’t we look?”
“Because I said so.”
“Fine, I’ll look myself.”
He leans forward, his expression hard. “No, you won’t.”
I stare at him, confused by his sudden mood shift. We’ve only been working together for two days, and I wouldn’t dare to call us friends, but we’ve been cordial.
“Why don’t you want to go outside?” I ask, daring him to be honest with me. “What are you hiding?”
“It’s none of your concern, Crocodile,” he hisses, glaring at me.
But he’s wrong. I’ve played this game before. I’ve been given pet names and told only bits and pieces of a story. It was Orrin’s way of convincing me to do the jobs he requested with less resistance. But his half-truths were whole lies. A claim he made of someone’s guilt was built on fractions of information and a reliance on a naiveté he was mistaken in believing I had.
If Alistair wants to keep his secrets, that’s fine. But he’ll soon find that I won’t tolerate anything that cages me a third time.
Furious, I stand and move quickly to the nearest window. I hear Alistair follow, but before he can stop me, I yank at the nailed down drapes. It takes all my strength, but I pull the top corner free and the fabric folds down, leaving half the window exposed as sunlight streams into the library.
Alistair, who’d been only a few feet behind me, stops just shy of the late morning sunlight.
We stand there, fuming at each other, a wide beam of light marking the gap between us. His nostrils flare and I know that he wishes his gaze could turn me to ash right now. But his hesitance to cross the space between us has me wondering if the sun can do just that to him.
“Something to know about me,” I hiss, “I’m not so good at trust. Which means that I don’t like secrets, and I certainly don’t like being told what I can’t do.”
“You don’t like secrets?” he laughs, but his look is scornful. “You are a secret, Stella. Everything about you is secretive. But I’m a man with my own demons, so I don’t ask. I would think you could give me the same courtesy.”
“Why don’t you want me to look around outside?” I ask, uninterested in hearing his excuses. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am overreacting to his evasions about the sun. But I don’t think so. It’s one thing for him to be cagey about searching outside, but the fact that he wants to keep me from doing it is concerning.
Alistair’s face screws up in a blend of frustration and stubbornness. “Why can’t you just listen to me? Does everything have to be so difficult with you?”
“Answer the question.”
“This is my home, not yours. You don’t make the rules.”
“Neither do you,” I scoff. “You’re a slave to a curse, and apparently the sun.”
“And you’re a slave to your own fear,” he spits back at me, still staying just out of the sun’s range. “I see you stalking the halls, looking for a way out or a reason to run. Your distrust is going to leave you stranded, Little Wolf. Haven’t you ever heard that lone wolves die alone?”
I flinch at the words as Orrin’s voice echoes in my head. ‘Remember, Little Wolf, you’re packless. It’s me or death,’ he used to say. And though the brothers are different, they see me the same. A lonely, wounded, vulnerable pup who can be tamed with a leash and some negative reinforcement.
They’re wrong.
“You’re right, I am a lone wolf,” I shrug, refusing the sudden urge to cry. “But did it ever occur to you that living packless has given me an edge that you don’t have? You’re doted on, Alistair. Your staff voluntarily cursed themselves for your benefit and they defend you when you don’t deserve it. You know nothing of desperation.” I shake my head in disgust, disappointed that selfishness seems to be a family trait. “So judge me for my distrust all you want, but it’s kept me alive. Meanwhile, you’re still here because others have fallen on the sword for you, their bodies creating the hill you stand on.”
“So I can’t make assumptions about you, but you can make them about me?” he demands, the anger in his green eyes so deep that it must have roots growing down to his toes. “Tell me, did it ever occur to you that I might have reasons for the secrets I keep and the demands that I make?”
“No. Because you don’t bother to explain them. You just tell me what to do. What did you think I’d say to that?”
He blinks, taken aback. For a moment, I think he’ll apologize and explain why he’s insisting no one search the grounds. But then his sneer falls back into place.
“I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything.”
When he says nothing more, I step backward, the sunlight a cavern between us that I know he won’t cross. “Then I guess I don’t owe you my help.”
I make for the door, but his growl follows me out into the hall. “Go ahead. Run, Little Wolf. We both know you didn’t need a reason anyway.”