57. Chapter 57
Chapter 57
T he Brucheion, also known as the Royal Quarter of the city of Alexandria, proves to be just as bustling, unbridled and breathtaking as I thought it would be. We’re on a mission here, but we don’t need to hide like we normally do, so I have everyone — Nuala, Lorcan, Raven, Dryden and Cain — stop in the middle of a square solely because it’s so damn beautiful.
I crane my neck to beam at them, my gaze automatically darting to Cain, who’s standing as far away from me as possible without activating the collar magic. He looks away. My smile slides off. As usual, there’s nothing in either his stance or his expression that would suggest anything but perpetual, relentless alertness to his surroundings.
But lately, he’s been making me feel more anxious. It’s like he’s grown more tense, as if he’s not even breathing around me, and when I catch him looking at me, it’s with this resentment in his eyes that he’s doing it.
Then again, he’s just standing there, and we are all on a mission.
So, determined not to let my vague hunches and personal troubles ruin this day for us, I make myself really look at the sight before me. “Gods,” I mutter, the smile returning with a vengeance, “you can literally see traces of all the cultures that used to mix in this city. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Persian…”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” I hear Lorcan drawl. “Now can we find someplace to get some whiskey on the rocks before this heat makes me lose my goddamn mind?”
It’s with a smile that I turn to look at him. “You know, Lorcan,” I start teasingly, “it’s probably owing to the history of this city that it’s remained part of the Free World in the first place. So if you want a glass of whiskey, I’m afraid it will come with more lessons .”
“That’s alright,” he answers flatly, “death by hyperthermia suddenly doesn’t sound half bad.”
Smiling, I shake my head, turn on my heel and keep leading the way, sensing Raven fall into step with me. “But it truly is great, isn’t it, to be able to walk around freely like this,” I hear her say.
And I guess I’m really feeling the freedom in the air, because her words make me stop again, turn to look at them all and smile. “By the time we’re done with the big mission, people,” I tell them, “Free and Enslaved Worlds will be a thing of the past. It’ll just be…” I look around, my smile only growing wider, “the world.”
When I turn my eyes back onto them, I catch Cain staring, that resentment in his eyes. Then he lets out a loud, bitter scoff and looks away.
I frown. I sometimes catch him glancing in my direction, but I never normally get a reaction, not even when I address him directly.
He seems to take everyone by surprise, though. But despite the fact it’s not exactly benevolently that the others are looking at him, I fail to stop myself from acknowledging this exceedingly rare instance of breaking the silence. “Everything alright, Cain?”
“Yeah, big shot,” Dryden drawls, a mix of contempt and caution in his voice and stance, “anything you’d like to share with the rest of us?”
I shoot him a pointed look, telling him to butt out of it.
But when I turn back to Cain, I find a smirk on his lips and his eyes fixed on Dryden. “I guess I just find it a tad surprising,” he starts, as smoothly and nonchalantly as if he’s been talking to us this entire time, “the fact that there are some fairly intelligent people among you, and yet you let her keep fooling you like that.”
Her . Not even when referring to me, he won’t dignify me by acknowledging my presence.
And he’s obviously getting them all agitated because it’s Nuala who cuts in this time. “This should be fun,” she replies, a hint of a warning in her voice. “ How is she fooling us exactly?”
I just manage to shake off the hurt when he gives a slight, indifferent shrug and says, “Making you believe you’re the heroes on the ultimate evil-stopping quest.”
What the hell is he talking about? I clench my jaw. “Right,” I drawl, trying and failing to catch his eye, “and the reason I’m fooling them all into thinking that, it’s simply because there’s so much to gain from hiding in an abandoned castle and leading a handful of people on missions against a military giant.”
It’s Nuala he keeps talking to, as if she were the one who replied to him. “You know what studying war history teaches you? It doesn’t matter what she’s preaching now . The only thing that matters is what she does the moment she gets what she wants. Do you think it’ll be freeing the shifters? Or will it be what every single false prophet like her eventually does — grab the power for herself and conveniently forget about all her ideals ?”
“What power is she trying to grab?” Nuala asks with a scoff.
“Nevermind me ,” I cut in, growing more upset by the things he’s saying. He’s not looking at me, but when I move to get in his face, he readily retreats. Still, I manage to lock eyes with him. “You do understand the Empire you’re fighting for is only bringing people misery?”
For a second, he just looks at me, his lip curling in disgust. “Ah,” he finally starts, sarcasm lacing his every word, “so there hadn’t been any misery before the Empire I’m fighting for? Color me surprised.” Letting out a scoff, he looks away. “There is no good or bad. It’s all just stories you tell yourselves.”
I grit my teeth. “Right. So tell me, are the work camps just stories we tell ourselves?” I demand, intensely staring at him in an effort to make him look at me.
I think I see him open his mouth to say something, but instead, I just watch a muscle in his jaw jump.
I fold my arms. “But I guess they can be,” I say, now staring at him even more intensely, “if it’s from the top of a palace you’re telling them.”
I think I hear Lorcan give a smug grunt.
But now Cain is turning to me, his features twisting into an expression that’s definitely not indifference. “It’s on the battlefield that I spend my time,” he grinds out, “not in the palace.“ He takes a step back and looks me up and down. “But, actually,” he drawls, I think I understand, why you’re all continuously falling for her act.” There’s contempt in his voice when he says, “Must be the flair for the dramatic.”
“Hey,” I blurt out as soon as I feel Lorcan brush past me.
I turn to block him just before he lunges at Cain. Fuck. “Lorcan, please,” I urge in a low voice, placing a palm on his shoulder.
“He’s not just approving of all of it,” he turns to me to protest, all red in the face, “he’s making a mockery out of the suffering of our people.”
Nuala, Dryden and Raven come to help calm him down, but everyone except Raven — who just seems sad — is throwing daggers at Cain.
I give Lorcan’s shoulder a squeeze and turn to try to repair the situation. I lock eyes with Cain. “Yes, he is making a mockery of it,” I say in a low, joyless voice, “but he doesn’t mean it.”
Say you don’t mean it, I urge him with my eyes.
It surprises me, when he marches up to me, almost getting in my face. However imperceptibly, he’s gritting his teeth, his nostrils flaring. “Let me make one thing clear. I don’t need either your approval or dis approval, and I especially don’t need you defending me.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Agree to disagree, because you know what else war history teaches us? That arrogance leads to chopped-off heads.”
For a moment, he just keeps staring at me and I feel as if he’s about to snap. Instead, I watch him collect himself, but to my surprise, he doesn’t retreat. He stays right where he is, his lips tugging into a smile as he lifts a hand to my face.
Time seems to stop, the anticipation making my breath catch.
“And I guess I’d be useless to you with my head chopped off,” he whispers as he takes a strand of my hair in his fingers, stares at it for a second, then locks eyes with me again, gently tucking the hair behind my ear.
I just let him, the intensity of his look pinning me in place. His knuckles brush along my earlobe and down my neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
I register everyone else exchanging looks, but then he just lowers his hand, clears his throat and says, “You’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to use the bathroom.”
My mind still reeling, I give him something between a shake and a nod, then lead the way to a bathroom sign I spotted earlier.
There’s a line outside, but the confident, authoritative way in which Cain moves makes the crowd part for him as if on instinct.
Did he just… touch me?
“ That’s what I’ll do the next time I’m threatened with a history lesson,” I hear Lorcan say. “Just go hide in the bathroom.”
“Weren’t you a professor, MacArthur?” Dryden asks.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lorcan snaps just as I tear my eyes away from Cain and turn to them. “To be a professor, you need to like history? Do you see me going around wondering why not all Divine Magic turds grow long, white beards?”
Dryden turns to me to sneakily roll his eyes.
Then I feel it and I freeze. I feel the absence. I spin around, frantically scanning the building.
“Anna, what’s wrong, Anna?” I hear Dryden asking.
My hand darts to my neck, my mind flashing with the image of him touching me just moments ago. “He’s messed with the magic somehow,” I whisper, “I can’t feel him.”
My words cause panic, while I myself move for the building.
“No,” Dryden stops me by grabbing my upper arm. He quickly inspects the collar and does some magic on it. “There,” he says, letting out a pent-up breath.
But the second he finishes, a much stronger pain than ever before shoots through my entire body. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling for something to grab onto and finding someone’s arm.
“What’s going on?” I hear Raven ask with worry in her voice.
“It’s more painful than usual because he’s trying to escape,” Dryden replies.
“What should we do?”
“The magic’s back on, so if he doesn’t want to die—”
The next thing I know, the pain is subsiding, I’m opening my eyes and watching Cain walk out of the building and head back towards me, seemingly as collected as always. Then again, he’s rubbing his neck, gritting his teeth and not looking anyone in the eye.
“Asshole,” Dryden lunges at him when he comes to a stop, “you fucking asshole.” He shoves him in the chest, but doesn’t move him an inch. Cain doesn’t acknowledge him one bit and Dryden moves to hit again.
“No, Dryden,” I urge him, albeit through gritted teeth, “please, don’t.”
Without taking his eyes off Cain, he reluctantly and angrily retreats.
And now I’m more desolate than ever, because of course the only reason he’d touch me is so he could make his move to escape. “Let’s just go, alright?” I motion at a patch of grass nearby. “I think that’s the spot Nimueh described, right over there, but we still need to find the entrance.”
*
It’s in sullen silence that we all march up to the patch of grass with a single tree at the center. I start looking around, grateful for the distraction.
“We’ll need to talk about this, Anna,” Dryden comes to whisper in my ear. “Not even an advanced Divine Magic user would’ve figured out a way to mess with this magic so quickly.”
But I don’t want to think about it right now. “Can it wait until we’re back?”
With the corner of my eye, I see him nod.
We spend quite some time inspecting the spot, finding nothing.
“Alright, where is the goddamn entrance?” Nuala demands. “Isn’t it supposed to be right here?”
We give it a couple of more tries, finally figuring out the magic. A trap door opens onto a dimly-lit staircase, beckoning us inside.
“This is it,” Raven confirms after she’s done using echolocation.
I turn to her, my eyes wide with wonder. “Holy shit, really ?”
Smiling, she nods.
Grinning, I turn to the rest of the team. “Alright, everyone, did you know—”
“Here we go again,” Lorcan says with a sigh.
“Shhh,” I shush him. “Please, you grumpy old man, just let the thirteen-year-old me have this moment. That’s how old I was when I first read about the Library of Alexandria, when I realized I had a dream, and when my dream got shattered, all at the same time. I never knew I’d actually get a chance to see a part of it. So,” I start slowly, throwing him a teasingly warning look, “did you know…”
He shakes his head, but doesn’t interrupt me.
“Thank you,” I say sweetly. Then I let my eyes sweep over them all again, catching Cain staring at me intently. “Did you know that this Library used to house like a hundred thousand written works? And did you know what, among other things, they did to expand it so much?”
“What, Anna?” Raven asks with actual interest in her voice.
“If you were someone stopping in the port,” I answer readily, “and if you happened to have books on board, they’d literally take your books from you, copy them and give you the copies so they could keep the original. Isn’t that insane?”
“Yes,” Nuala says, “ now can we go in please?”
I throw her a flat glare. “Just for the record, you’re all being so very lame right now, everyone except Raven.”
*
It’s in silent wonder that I make my way down the stairs and into a huge anteroom with walls built from large, sandy blocks and sconces lighting the airy, shadowy space.
“Afternoon,” I come to greet the shifter male sitting at what seems to be a Service Desk across from the entrance.
Allegedly, they’re all snake shifters in this institution, part of some ancient librarian order.
He smiles at me. “Welcome to the Library of Alexandria. May I be of assistance?”
I beam at him. “Yes, we’re looking for anything you might have on either Odin or Frigg. A tour would be nice as well.”
He gets up. “By all means. Follow me.”
“Ammon,” someone calls out, appearing the very next second as if out of thin air. A female snake shifter with her eyes narrowing at Cain.
“Yes, Master?” Ammon asks.
Master turns to look at her subordinate. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She doesn’t wait for a reply. She turns to Cain again. “My apologies, but if he had let you walk in, you would’ve been killed on the spot. You see, vampires are strictly forbidden here.”
“What do you mean?” I demand as I step forward.
The woman looks at me. “It’s mostly because of your kind that our order needs to remain underground, lest we want more books to suffer the fate of the ones that were destroyed centuries ago.”
“Alright, can you just let the four of them in then?”
She shakes her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Pst, Anna,” I hear Nuala call out.
“Ah yes,” the woman addresses her, “you’re about to call her aside to suggest using some kind of magic to trick us or to break in. Let me save you the effort, my darling. This order hasn’t survived this long on weak defenses.”
I think for a second. Egyptian order, established during the Ptolemy era, enemies of vampires. A thought pops into my head. “Well,” I tell the woman, “I guess I’ll need to tell you who we are then.”
“Anna,” Lorcan hisses at me in warning.
I ignore him. “Does the name Phinelis mean anything to you?” I ask the shifter woman.
Surprise flashes through her eyes. She instantly dismisses her subordinate, making me realize I was right — Phinelis really is an old fae family name from the North African region.
“Phinelis?” the woman demands as soon as the subordinate disappears. “You know him? You know where he is?”
I try to be as gentle as possible. “I know he’s no longer with us.”
Her eyes rounding, she shakes her head. “No.”
Damn it, I was right. Throwing her a sympathetic look, I say, “I watched him breathe his last breath.”
She just looks at me for a moment, growing cold. “And you think this is going to help your case?”
“It will when you learn he’s the reason we’re on the mission we’re trying to complete here.” I pause for a second, lowering my voice. “A mission involving a certain sword.”
Something flashes through her eyes. She runs her hand down her face, muttering, “I told him researching that damn thing would get him in trouble.” She shakes her head, then looks up at me and gives a nod. “Anything on either Odin or Frigg, you said?”
Excitement floods me. “Yes.”
“After me, but only you, and I’ll need you to be as quick as possible.”
I glance at Cain. This shouldn’t be a problem, since it wouldn’t be him trying to escape. I see Nuala give me a firm nod. Alright then.
Still, it’s not without hesitation that I follow the woman. She takes me into a wide, winding corridor that opens onto a floor of the Library. It makes me breathe a sigh of relief, when I don’t feel the magic activate. It also allows some of my focus to shift onto the books all around me.
Each looks more interesting than the last.
“How long will we be walking?” I ask as I keep glancing at them.
She throws me a knowing side-long glance. “Not long enough for questions that require lengthy answers.”
I only give myself a second to think. “How is it that the books here have survived the fire?”
“This is where we keep the most important volumes — ones impervious to all kinds of damage, including fire.”
“What do you use to treat them?”
“We use our own shedded skin to bind them.”
I blink at her. “That’s insane.” Then I realize I said it out loud so I blurt out, “Sorry.”
She gives me a hint of a smile. “That’s alright. I gather from your tone that ‘insane’ must be conveying reverence instead of contempt.”
I nod, but it’s at that moment that she comes to a stop. “Here. Unfortunately, we only have one volume that matches your criteria, but there are plenty of copies, so you’re welcome to have it.”
She takes a large book bound in green snakeskin, and hands it to me. “I trust you can walk yourself out.”
“Thank you so so much,” I tell her. “And your friend was a brave man.”
She throws me a grateful look and disappears, the words, “Good luck,” echoing in my head.
I rush back to the group. “Is that what we’re looking for, Anna?” Raven eagerly asks.
Excited beyond belief, I crack the book open and start skimming the contents.
My shoulders slump.
“Anna?”
“Yes,” I say, forcing myself to snap out of it, “it must be, but it’s all written in a script no one has fully deciphered yet.”