Chapter 31 #3
I couldn’t decide which part bothered me more.
That Kieran had told him. That Eiryx had apparently been watching me without my knowledge.
Or that a small, traitorous part of me understood why Kieran had done it.
Halos. The Codex. My magic appearing whenever it pleased.
The fact that I had nearly been killed more times since arriving here than in the previous twenty years combined.
Understanding did not make me less angry.
“You had someone following me?”
“No,” Eiryx said.
My head snapped toward him. He lifted both hands slightly.
“Since I appear to be the part of this arrangement most likely to get stabbed, I feel entitled to clarify.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’ve gathered that.”
Kieran gave him a look. Eiryx ignored it.
“I wasn’t following you. Nyxara asked me to pay attention if you were somewhere he couldn’t be.”
I looked at Eiryx. “Have you told anyone?”
“No.”
“Not another Shadow candidate?”
“No.”
“An instructor?”
“No.”
“Halos?”
He didn’t even have to consider that one. “Definitely not Halos.”
I searched his face. “You expect me to trust that?”
“No.”
That caught me off guard. Eiryx leaned one shoulder against the arch.
“You don’t know me.”
Finally, we agreed on one thing. “No. I don’t.”
“So don’t trust me.”
Kieran’s eyes flicked toward him. Eiryx shrugged.
“Trust that I’ve known for weeks and you’re still here.”
That silenced me. I hated it. Mostly because it worked. Weeks. He could have gone to Halos the day Kieran told him. Could have whispered it to another candidate. Could have turned my secret into one more rumor moving through the dining hall. He hadn’t. I looked at Kieran.
“You really trust him.”
There was no hesitation. “Yes.”
Eiryx barely acknowledged the answer. I was the one caught off guard.
Kieran trusted almost nobody. I had learned that the hard way.
Getting information from him was like trying to bleed water from stone.
He gave away only what he decided someone needed and guarded everything else until dragging the truth from him became a fight.
Yesterday I had discovered an entire piece of his identity he hadn’t thought important enough to mention.
But he’d told Eiryx about me. Not carelessly.
Because he trusted him with it. That mattered.
I wasn’t sure I liked that it mattered. I looked back at Eiryx.
“I still don’t like this.”
“I’d be concerned if you did.”
“And I don’t like you.”
“That’s early. Give it time.”
Emrin crossed her arms. “I wouldn’t encourage her.”
Eiryx’s eyes shifted to her again. “Do you dislike me too?”
“I’ve known you for three minutes.”
“Plenty of time.”
“For you, apparently.”
His mouth twitched. Emrin stared at him the way she usually looked at Dax when he was being particularly unbearable. Eiryx seemed delighted by it. Before either could continue, Kieran said, “Halos is asking questions?”
The reminder wiped away what little humor had survived. I nodded.
“Neseryn stopped us upstairs.”
“What did she say?”
“That he asked what she saw during our match.”
Any remaining ease in Kieran vanished. Eiryx straightened from the arch.
“When?”
“I don’t know. Recently.”
“And what did she tell him?” Kieran asked.
“That I lost control.”
His jaw tightened.
“Anything else?”
“She said he already knows what happened. He wants to see whether I lie when he asks.”
Eiryx glanced at Kieran. A silent understanding passed between them. I hated when people did that.
“What?”
Neither answered. I thought of the Shadow version of myself stepping from the dark. There you are. Halos had seen her. Everyone had. But a projection was not proof. Not yet. Kieran’s gaze dropped briefly toward my left hip. The movement was so small no one else would have noticed. I did.
“We need to know who altered that record,” I said.
Eiryx looked between us. “What record?”
Kieran was silent. I stared at him. He looked at me. The choice sat there. This time, he waited. Good. I turned to Eiryx.
“We found a candidate record yesterday. Aurora Circle. Twenty-two years old. Someone erased the candidate’s name, family and home without destroying the parchment.”
“Where?”
“Restricted Archives.”
His eyes narrowed. “How restricted?”
Emrin lifted her bandaged hand. “This restricted.”
He looked at it. Then at her.
“Not a shelf,” he said.
Emrin’s mouth flattened. “No.”
Eiryx looked at Kieran. Kieran gave him nothing. Apparently that was enough for him. His attention returned to me.
“What was left on the record?”
“Everything except who she was.”
“Meaning?”
“Age. Affinity. Placement. Notes from instructors. Whoever altered it left all of that.”
Eiryx went quiet. Not confused. Thinking.
“The name was removed cleanly?”
“Yes.”
“Family?”
“Gone.”
“Origin?”
“Gone too.”
“And the parchment?”
“Still intact.”
His gaze shifted to Kieran. “Selective erasure.”
“That was my read,” Kieran said.
The easy shorthand between them irritated me. Not because I didn’t understand it. Because I did. There was history there. Enough that neither needed to explain the obvious parts. Eiryx glanced back at me.
“Anything else?”
I hesitated. The note. I could feel Kieran waiting for me to decide whether to give Eiryx that too. At least this time he was letting me.
“There was a second piece of parchment hidden behind the drawer.”
Eiryx set down the page he’d been holding. “What did it say?”
“Most of it was destroyed.”
“And what wasn’t?”
I shifted my books against my chest. “Part of one line said, if they learn what she is.”
His eyes stayed on mine. “And the last line?”
I swallowed. “The girl is not to be named.”
Kieran cut in. “Umbra kept separate records before the current archive system.”
I looked at him. “What kind of records?”
“Anything involving Shadow candidates or instructors,” Eiryx said. “Reports. Disciplinary hearings. Joint assignments. Correspondence that never made it into the central archive.”
“Even about a Light wielder?”
“If Shadow was involved.”
That could mean anything. A fight. A shared instructor. Some stupid incident twenty-two years ago that had nothing to do with whatever we were looking for. Still. It was another place to look.
“Where are they?”
“North Umbra stacks.”
“Restricted?”
Eiryx nodded.
“Of course they are.”
Kieran leaned one shoulder against the wall. “I can’t access the oldest section without leaving a trail.”
I looked at him. “You’re the Shadow King’s son.”
Emrin glanced around sharply. I lowered my voice. Kieran’s mouth tightened.
“That doesn’t mean the Sanctum hands me keys to everything.”
Eiryx said, “If anything, it means more people notice when he opens the wrong door.”
Right. Politics. Wonderful. I looked at Eiryx.
“And you?”
He was quiet for half a second. “I can get in.”
“Without anyone noticing?”
“Without anyone noticing.”
I looked at Kieran. He nodded once. That, more than Eiryx saying it, made me believe him.
“How?”
Eiryx’s eyes shifted past us as another group of candidates entered the gallery. He waited until they had crossed beneath the opposite arch before answering.
“The north stacks weren’t built for candidates. They belonged to the Umbra scholars who worked here before the Sanctum centralized its records. Most of the old protections are still keyed to their system.”
“And you know their system?”
“I know enough of it.”
Kieran pushed away from the wall. “Not here.”
He started toward a narrow passage branching from the gallery. I stayed where I was. Kieran noticed after three steps and looked back.
“I have foundation work. And unless either of you has recently developed the ability to make Mistress Calis forgive lateness, I’m not disappearing into another secret corridor with you.”
Eiryx’s expression shifted for an instant. Emrin shifted beside me.
“Can we establish whether the records are actually useful before I spend the rest of the morning inventing an excuse for why I’m late?”
Eiryx considered her for a moment. “When the Sanctum changed its archive system, the central records were supposed to absorb everything from the divisions,” he said. “They didn’t.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Some records were considered internal. Some were politically inconvenient. Others were old enough that no one wanted to spend ten years deciding whether they still mattered.”
“And the Umbra records?”
“A lot of them stayed where they were.”
Kieran picked up the explanation. “Shadow was monitored differently after the Veil rose. Particularly in the first decades.”
I frowned. “Differently how?”
“More closely.”
Of course. Eiryx folded his arms.
“If an Aurora candidate was ever suspected of using Shadow, being exposed to it, training with a Shadow wielder, or having magic react strangely around it, there could be an Umbra record even if the Aurora file says nothing.”
My heartbeat picked up. Emrin looked at me.
“So if the woman in that record had anything to do with Shadow…”
“There may be another version of her history,” Eiryx said.