Chapter Twenty-Two
Istare off into nothingness as Eliaz disappears from the room, leaving me alone as I try to make sense of his last words.
I am beginning to think, however, that you won’t.
I suppose it is a good thing that he does not see me as a threat, that his perception of me is shifting in some distorted and unconventional way.
But there was something in his tone that leaves the impression that although he was willing to share his scar – to shut me up if nothing else – there was still some hesitancy to his reveal, which leads me to the conclusion that he is still not being entirely open and truthful when it comes to how my father came to make an attempt on his life.
And how he came to survive it.
I’m banking on the answer to the latter being held under that damned trapdoor.
Then it hits me. Practically throwing myself at the bed, I scour the duvet in pursuit of the exact reason I came into this room in the first place. I teeter on the brink of laughing when my hands encounter the cold metal of a slinking chain necklace, and the rusted, glorious, divinely sent keys.
My gaze slides to the door as I pocket the keys with a triumph I haven’t felt before, and my smile slips from my face with a thought, a question.
Did Eliaz’s lapse in emotions cause him to simply forget about them on the bed?
Or were these keys left intentionally for me to find?
Perhaps the full story is too painful to tell and would be easier for me to piece together on my own.
With whatever he keeps locked away under the library.