21. 20 #3
A joke. Now of all times. This must be some nervous habit of his. I squeezed his hand back, and felt him jolt. I tried not to overthink him calling me his, and the fact that I liked it.
The butler looked between us, taking in my ring. Then he held his hand out, bidding us to stay here. “I’ll get Theolis.”
Davian nodded sagely. “I thought you might.”
The butler disappeared, his face as white as a sheet.
However Davian had left the service of Theolis and their House, it was not on good terms. This reception was nearly as frosty as my own had been with the House of Love, and that was a recent wound.
Even with the years to soften Davian’s departure, and his elevation to a member of another House, it wasn’t enough to stymie the upset.
I wanted to ask. But Davian hadn’t wanted to answer, and now was not the time to be prodding, when I had no idea who might be listening.
It was an old wives’ tale, I told myself.
The walls of Wisdom can hear you, one went.
Another suggested that Wisdom had spies everywhere.
The old adage, ‘tell a rat today, Wisdom knows tomorrow’, rang in my ears.
Knowing now what Davian had told me, that Wisdom bought secrets, helped to explain some of the rumours.
It did not, however, stop me from glancing nervously at the walls.
We stood there at the top of that staircase, alone but for the sound of nearby maestros and the rubbing of cicadas in the tree to our left. Davian looked at me, and shrugged. He still hadn’t let go of my hand, and I found myself looking down at our touch.
He looked, too. I thought this would break the spell, but instead, he only rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand. With the ring perfectly sitting on my finger, it was an overwhelming combination. I shivered, despite the warm air.
These last two nights I had hardly seen him.
He had been recovering from his treatment with the sunners, for the most part, and I had been trying to stay out of the way.
It turned out, I didn’t know how to keep myself busy and Davian clearly didn’t know how to keep himself in bed.
When I had seen him, he had seemed exasperated and bored, and I could tell he was thinking about what had transpired between us the other day.
I had been thinking of it, too. That time in his room swirled against my grief and fears, and every time I thought of acknowledging my desire for him, I couldn’t help but feel guilty. The combination of Ekris and Jusia had me nearly running from the room as soon as his eyes swept over me.
Now, though, tonight, when he watched my hand and I watched his, as he touched me, it just felt nice. The guilt didn’t brim to the top. My stomach clenched, but with anticipation more than anything else.
Then a woman swept through the curtain, stopping abruptly. There was a rebuttal on her lips, ready to fall out, as if she had already decided the butler was lying. But Davian turned to her, and she froze.
Theolis had been the Leader of the House of Wisdom for a long time; maybe even before I was born.
I expected her to look older, but she had not aged as us Craeterans do.
She was Aralaji, and didn’t look a day over forty.
Her deep skin was plump and her wrinkles barely a stroke from the tiniest brush.
She wore a dark orange velvet gown, and she betrayed no discomfort from what was surely too warm a fabric for this weather.
Her jewellery was gold and shone against her skin, and her dark brown eyes were set on the man beside me.
Her hair was enviable, the crown of her hair wrapped around a golden diadem, and the rest falling in a straight black sheet down her back to her hips.
In fact, with her posture and regal air, she was far more intimidating than I expected the Queen of Librarians to be.
Her black eyebrow curved haughtily upwards. “You weren’t invited.”
“I know,” Davian replied. His tone was light, but he had stiffened the moment she waltzed through the curtain. He let go of my hand, freeing it so he could gesture to me. “I hoped you might be willing to speak. I brought someone to meet you.”
Theolis kept her eyes on Davian for two more seconds, holding him with a look so intense I hardly knew what to make of it.
Then she looked at me, or rather, the ring on my finger.
When she turned her appraisal to my face, it took everything not to wilt beneath the judgement there. “What’s your name?”
I bowed my head, and fell into a low curtsy, despite the stairs. “Annie, my lady.”
“Rise,” she said quickly.
I did, arching out of the pose as Talia had shown me. I raised my eyes back to meet the lady of the House. She flicked her eyes between Davian and I.
Then she sighed, and I finally saw some of her age. “I imagine you’ll want to keep that infernal thing on?”
It took me a moment to realise she meant Davian’s mask.
He tensed. “I will.”
Theolis pulled the curtain back and found the butler, who was waiting nervously just inside.
“Warn the others. Tonight, he is Davian, not Ravi.” The butler nodded once, and then disappeared, as the words fogged my head.
Theolis stepped inside the building, and, with a final check that no one else was watching or approaching, waved us in. “Come in, then.”
She disappeared through to the other side, her hair swishing behind her.
Davian rolled back his shoulders, and stepped towards the curtain. He touched his fingers to it, before realising I hadn’t moved from my step.
Tonight, he is Davian. Not Ravi. Ravi.
Theolis had two children from her first and only marriage. Kali and Ravi.
Davian hadn’t just lived here as a devotee. He had lived here as family.
I swallowed, pointing at him and then at the woman who had just gone. “You’re… that’s—”
Davian bobbed his knees in a mockery of a curtsey. “That’s Theolis.” Then he shrugged, as if he hadn’t just thrown us into a fire. “My mother.”