TWENTY-THREE
Ionly leave my room to bury Kieren’s body and begin Interstice, the traditional period before his soul finally rests.
But even the funeral isn’t really leaving.
I might as well be moving through fog. Hands on my arms to steady me.
Lenora murmuring instructions. The hollow thud of a coffin hitting packed dirt.
The wrongness of newly disturbed ground that’s been forced to make room for something that doesn’t belong there. Someone who shouldn’t be there.
And then I retreat again. Back to the room. To the window.
Waiting for birdsong that sometimes comes and then doesn’t for days. I stay silent through it all, because if I start screaming, I’ll never stop.
I pick at the food Lenora leaves on a tray three times a day without comment.
Until this afternoon, nearly a week in, when my stomach declares mutiny, growling so loudly even I can’t stand it.
But when I finally force myself to leave my room, Taliesin stops me near the stairs and holds out a large box.
“These are Kieren’s,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes. “You were listed as next of kin.”
The words next of kin settle heavily on my shoulders. They sound too official.
Too final.
“I can see to it if you want,” Taliesin says quietly when I don’t speak. “Give his things away. There are plenty of conscripts who show up here with nothing. Everyone at the Bellatorum knows what a stack of clothes left in the Commons means.”
Because cleaning up after the dead is just a way of life in Vennaro.
Dread bottoms out my stomach. Releasing the dead’s worldly belongings is the responsibility of the living during Interstice. “I’ll do it,” I tell him, but I cradle the box closer to my body. I’m not ready to part with the last remnants of him yet.
Taliesin nods like he understands. “If you change your mind …”
I’m gone before the offer fully leaves his mouth.
I don’t risk looking inside the box until I’m in my room.
There isn’t much. Kieren’s pack—recovered from the docks.
Mine was returned to my room days ago without comment.
Folded clothes and almost new boots. A dog-eared copy of a pirate adventure he got ten Twelvetides ago.
The little token, its carved pegasus worn down to smooth bone in spots.
A leather pouch that’s heavier than I expect, though I don’t bother to count the coins inside.
And two letters. One is mine, its creases worn soft and thin by his hands.
Now stained dark where his blood soaked through the paper.
The other is sealed, more blood splattered across Isidore’s name and address on the envelope. There’s no postage on it, I realize with a pang that destroys any lingering appetite.
I put the box with the one my family sent me from Damalis. Maybe I’ll give those things away, too.
I try to ignore them both, try to pretend my heart doesn’t stutter every time I catch sight of them.
But their presence is like monsters lurking in the shadows.
I can’t pretend they aren’t there. After a few days, I can’t stand looking at them anymore.
They’re nearly as bad as the book Bishop gave me and the answers trapped inside it.
I am fucking sick of waiting for someone else to give me answers. Sick of waiting for my magic to manifest. Sick of waiting around for someone else to come after me before it does. The only thing waiting has gotten me is a dead best friend.
I grab the leather-bound volume, determined to find them myself.
But I don’t go looking for Bishop. I go the other way, down the somber corridors toward the library.
The scent of old vellum and lingering woodsmoke from the nearly extinguished fire greets me at the door.
Hadrian is working at one of the tables, his face half cloaked in shadow. Something eases in my chest.
Answers are clearly his life’s work. I could use some answers.
I plunk the book in front of him, harder than I intend to, and Hadrian glances up sharply. His eyes narrow on the title. “I was wondering where that went.”
“Bishop gave it to me.” I stick to the facts, afraid that if I offer more, like, Stars forbid, my opinion, I’ll break again. “He said it has answers about scions. About … him.”
Because that’s what I really need to understand. The man who rescued me. Who told me his deepest, darkest secret.
And has basically been avoiding me ever since.
Hadrian picks up the book and thumbs through it before shutting it again. “It’s not where I’d start if I wanted to understand what we are.”
“We?” I repeat, blinking at him in the library’s dim light. “You’re a …”
He frowns. “He didn’t tell you.” There’s no surprise in his voice. But he pushes up his sleeve and reveals the same strange markings Bishop hides on his own body.
Hadrian is a scion, too.
Anger floods my veins. “No, he didn’t tell me.”
Of course Bishop didn’t tell me. Because he always decides what I can handle. What I deserve to know.
For all I fucking do know, everyone in the house but me might be one of these starsdamned immortals. I might have never found out until Bishop …
I shut my eyes, trying to block the memory of him in my arms. Throat torn up.
His neck a sheet of black blood that pooled into a warm puddle in my lap while shock held me in place so grief and guilt could sprout.
And then he strode into my bedroom and ripped them out like weeds. Like death can be so easily uprooted.
But I still feel what he left behind, digging itself deeper and deeper. I’ll never get it out of me, and Bishop just moved on.
He went back to living like nothing even fucking happened.
Hadrian inclines his head as if he can see my blood boiling. “Go easy on him,” he says quietly, even though we’re the only ones in the library.
I huff. “Why?”
He adjusts his glasses. “Because you don’t know what you’re asking from him.”
So much for information.
But one glance at the notes beneath his hand tells me that Bishop isn’t the only one hiding behind books. The paper is crowded with cramped notes and strange diagrams, lines of thoughts crossing and looping back on themselves as if he’s trying to trap an answer before it can escape.
“Is that why you’re here?” I point to the work in front of him. “You’re looking for answers about scions, too?”
At night, when I can’t sleep, when I wake still stumbling from that forest to find my bedroom staring back at me, I think about that. About Bishop in that bookstore and the book he stole.
About what he’s really after.
“Isn’t that what we’re all doing?” Hadrian asks. “Trying to figure out why we’re here?”
“Is that what Bishop is doing? Trying to figure out what he really is? Is that why he goes out looking for these old texts?” I can’t explain why it’s important. It’s more like it’s an itch I can’t quite scratch.
He doesn’t look up. “He has his reasons.”
“And you aren’t going to explain them.” It’s not a question.
But he glances over his glasses at me. “No.”
I sigh and shove the book I brought closer to him. “Can you at least read this to me?”
“No.”
I stare. “No?”
He taps the cover. “Learn.”
I glare down at him. “I don’t know the ancient tongue because I’m not … How old are you, exactly?”
“Roughly five hundred and thirty-four, but I might have missed a few years.”
The answer knocks the air from my lungs, and it takes me a minute to catch my breath. “You were alive during the Last War.”
A shadow moves across his face. “Yes.”
Five hundred years later, and it’s still haunting him. That doesn’t bode well for me moving on.
“Were you a scion then?” Something bubbles in my chest, the sensation unwelcome. Curiosity will only get me killed.
“No.” He shoves his notes into a stack. “That came after.”
I want to understand. I need to understand. Before this sweeps me away and I can never find my way back. I take a deep breath and push forward. “I guess that’s why you know the ancient tongue.”
“Five hundred years is hardly ancient.” He almost looks offended by the idea, but he finally reaches for the book. Squinting, he studies the pages before cursing. “Immortality should come with better eyesight.”
“I thought it might give me answers about … all of this.” I gesture vaguely to where my raven-mark hides under my woolly secondhand sweater.
There’s a difference between coincidence and the Stars smacking you in the face to force you to pay attention.
I can’t have just wound up here with Bishop, with this secret, with this mark.
“I can teach you how to read it.” He sets the book down and sighs. “It’s always better to know how to find answers for yourself. But this text won’t have the answers you want.”
He rises and crosses to the stacks to put the book away as if the matter is already decided.
I curl my hands into fists at my sides. I’m sick of having truths measured out like I might choke if I swallow them too soon. “I just want to know why the Stars chose you and Bishop.”
And not Kieren.
“It’s never that simple,” he calls while searching through a shelf. He finds what he’s looking for and yanks it out. “The Stars don’t explain their choices. You know that. They chose a different order for you.”
“I wish they hadn’t.”
He returns and drops another book on the table. “That doesn’t matter. You still have to decide what to do about it.”
“I’m supposed to rewrite destiny?” Is that what Hadrian is trying to do here? Hide away with old books like he might stumble upon directions for taking back his life? “Pretend they didn’t mark me. Pretend …” My voice cracks. “… that that mark didn’t kill him.”
“No,” he says evenly, “you’re supposed to decide who you want to be.”
I stare at the cover, at the pegasus painted on the front. I push it away. “I’m not that girl anymore.”
Hadrian nods to the book. “That doesn’t erase her.”
“I’m not an Icaros.” I swallow. “It’s not my birthright.”
No thanks to the Stars.
“Then you’re a Ravenell, and by that right, all magic belongs to you.” He slides the book toward me. “So, what are you going to do with it?”
“Start a farm?” I say flatly.