CHAPTER 4
C HAPTER 4
SETH’S ARCANE LAMP clicked on at his belt, fully revealing the scene that Raider’s arcane eye had already glimpsed. Raider was pretty sure that Seth wouldn’t appreciate it if he laughed, but it was hard not to.
Seth was standing in an aisle between two raised platforms running the length of the narrow building. He had one hand on the bar between the shackle cuffs. His other hand hovered at his belt as though to be ready for … well, the gods knew what, because it was hilariously clear that his captive posed absolutely no threat.
The slender young arcanist, who looked about seventeen, was sitting on the far platform and leaning away from Seth to the full extent allowed by Seth’s grip on the shackle bar. Julian’s eyes were huge in his delicate face, and they were locked on Seth in sheer terror.
This seemed to make Seth uncomfortable because his boots shifted audibly on the packed-earth floor and he said, “Um, Julian, you’re under arrest.”
There was no response.
Seth glanced back at Raider as though for help. Raider raised an amused eyebrow. When that made Seth scowl in the way Raider loved, he felt a little more of the tightness ease from around his heart.
That tightness had been letting go incrementally since Seth had surprised him with words that he hadn’t dared hope for.
Those words hadn’t quite settled inside Raider yet. He still felt raw and shaky and unsure, but at least he felt like he could breathe again. He could enjoy the moment, he could enjoy Seth—because Seth was his, and they would figure this out.
Seth’s scowl softened at whatever he saw in Raider’s face, and a painful yearning stretched between them. Raider needed Seth’s eyes on him, his hands, his lips. He needed Seth’s voice in his ear and Seth’s cock in his ass. They needed time to fuck, to sleep, to talk. That last part would be hard, but Raider would try. He saw now what a mistake it had been to not talk to Seth. What if Seth hadn’t given him another chance?
A tremble started in Raider’s body at the thought, and it brought all his fears rushing back. For a second, those fears threatened to swallow him like they had yesterday. Reconnecting with Seth in the olive grove had helped Raider pull himself together, but it was mere threads holding it all.
Maybe Seth glimpsed that because he rocked toward Raider with an agonized look in his eyes. Raider gave his head a slight shake. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to function like this. He could manage, and they didn’t have time.
Seth’s jaw clenched in frustration, then he turned back to his captive. Raider turned his attention there too, taking a fuller look at the man they had been pursuing for so long.
Julian had a refined, almost fragile looking beauty that was obvious in spite of the dirt smudging his nose and the mop of brown hair hanging in his eyes. A threadbare yellow kaftan draped his thin shoulders. It hung open to reveal dingy white robes cinched at his slim waist with a leather belt. A knife, notably untouched, was sheathed at that belt. That fact, combined with the boyishly innocent look on his face?
Raider was sticking with his first impression: no way was this a killer.
Seth and Raider hadn’t talked much about Julian during their travels. In the beginning, when Raider’s job had been simply to get Seth across the Kesh, it hadn’t been relevant. Seth had merely explained that Julian had (allegedly) bludgeoned a fellow scholar to death. Seth, never having spoken more than a word or two to Julian at the Arcanum, had had no idea of the motivation.
And yet, faced with the boy now, surely Seth could see that something was off here? But if he did, he ignored it to demand harshly, “Where’s the book?”
Raider’s heart skipped. Seth had said that Julian had recovered the book, but somehow Raider hadn’t thought about the fact that that meant the book—Kahzir’s book—was here.
Shit. He wasn’t ready for this.
Julian’s brown eyes remained wide and unblinking. “It’s—it’s in my bag.”
“Don’t move,” Seth warned as he plucked Julian’s knife from his belt and slid it into his own.
When Julian quivered, Raider shoved aside all his own anxiety and came down the steps. He couldn’t hang back. He needed to deal with this.
“Stop terrorizing him, Seth.”
With a huff, Seth let go of the shackles and stepped back. Julian collapsed onto the stone platform beside one of its many cavities, each of which held a large clay jug of ageing wine. One hole was empty, presumably the one from which the ifrit had lifted its loot. The gods knew where the little creature had gone.
On the floor between the raised platforms, a thin bedroll had been kicked aside during the “arrest,” and a lumpy, scuffed leather pack lay beside it. Seth snatched up the pack, flipped it open, and rummaged inside.
Julian’s eyes jumped from Seth to Raider and back to Seth as he extracted the leather-bound book before setting down the pack.
Julian swallowed visibly. “I … I need that.”
“What the hell for?” Seth demanded. Julian cringed.
Raider frowned, surprised by Seth’s manner. “Seth, it looks pretty obvious that this is no killer.”
“That’s fucking irrelevant. He’s going to answer my question.”
“ Killer ?” Julian squeaked. “I didn’t kill anyone! Who do you think I … Great Kasha! You don’t think I killed Varelli, do you? Oh, but of course you do. Catalus pinned it on me, didn’t he? Whatever he said, it’s a lie!”
Raider glanced at Seth, who was scowling at the book. If Seth had heard Julian, he was ignoring him.
“Seth, maybe you should listen to him.”
“It doesn’t matter what happened in Masir.”
Raider frowned, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Seth’s green eyes lifted to his, fierce determination blazing from them. “We need to disappear. You and me. And this thing definitely needs to disappear.”
Raider’s eyes stung abruptly. Was Seth saying what it sounded like? Did he really mean he would give up his mission? That he would give up his life as a Curator? For … him?
“No!” Julian cried. “Please! I need that book!”
Seth moved so fast that Julian and Raider both jumped in surprise when Seth grabbed the front of the young arcanist’s robes and hauled him to his feet.
“What the hell do you need this evil fucking thing for?” Seth demanded, but Julian, staring at him in terror, was clearly incapable of answering.
“Seth! Let him go!”
At Raider’s shout, Seth shoved Julian away. Julian scrambled over the wine jugs to the back of the platform and huddled against the wall.
Seth tossed the book aside then went stalking off down the narrow aisle. He stopped at the wall and bowed his head. Raider approached slowly, aware that Seth was working through one of his breathing exercises, struggling for control.
Raider stopped behind him. “This isn’t you, Seth. You’re not cruel. Stop pretending to be.”
“I have to choose, Raider. I choose you.”
Raider sucked in a breath. His heart swelled at that—but he couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t let Seth do something that would haunt him.
Raider said, “I know you won’t kill him”—Seth stilled at that, like he’d actually been considering it—“but if you abandon him here, you might as well have. He’s obviously in trouble. We need to listen to him and figure out what the hell is going on.”
Seth’s fists clenched at his sides. “How can you be so calm?”
“Because you need me to be.”
Seth turned to face him, his expression tormented. “You shouldn’t have to be. Not for me. Especially right now. It’s not right.”
Seth had such absurdly high standards for himself. His sense of responsibility was out of control. It exasperated Raider, but this wasn’t the moment to argue it, so he only said, “Come on. Let’s figure this out.”
Seth took a deep breath that expanded his powerful chest. Then he nodded. They walked back to where Julian remained huddled against the wall.
“Julian, come here,” Raider said, waving him forward. “Seth is going to remove the shackles.”
Seth let out a barely audible grumble that Raider ignored. Seth would do it because it was the right thing, and pretty soon Seth would remember how much that mattered to him.
But Julian didn’t budge from the wall.
“I would never kill anyone, especially not Varelli,” Julian insisted, his wide brown eyes darting between Raider and Seth. “He was like a father to me. You can’t listen to Catalus. He’s the one who did it. He’s not what you think. He’s not who you think.”
“Who’s Catalus?” Raider asked.
“He’s the head of the Department of Alchemy,” Seth replied, looking perplexed. “He’s the one who assigned me to this mission. He said he witnessed Julian fleeing the Arcanum with that book in his hands. He described the cover perfectly: the moon overlaid with an eye, that image set within the sun as it burst through a triangle.”
“An amazing amount of detail for him to have glimpsed as I fled,” Julian pointed out.
Seth looked uncomfortable. “That did occur to me, but he’s been a respected member of the Arcanum for—”
“Ten years,” Julian supplied, sounding more confident now that Seth was clearly listening. He straightened from his huddle, though he didn’t leave the wall. “Ever since he fled Kastari.”
Raider stilled.
Julian said, “You called the book evil, so you must know what it contains and who wrote it.”
“I only know the subject of it,” Seth said. “I haven’t read it. But I do know that it was written by Kahzir.”
When Raider shuddered slightly, Seth glanced at him. But both of them looked at Julian again when he said, “Catalus is Kahzir.”
Raider froze. So did Seth.
Seth recovered first. “That … can’t be.”
Julian pushed away from the wall and into a kneeling position. His shackled hands came up slightly, like he was pleading. “I need that book. I’m taking it to Empress Zarina as proof of her uncle’s location. He’s been squatting in the Alchemy Department under a false name for the past decade.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Seth demanded through clenched teeth.
“Varelli is the one who figured it out, and that’s why Catalus killed him! That’s why he sent you after me!”
Seth closed his eyes, clearly gathering himself. Then he said, “Start at the beginning.”
Julian launched into his story like he’d been dying to tell it for months (which he probably had).
“Varelli was my mentor,” Julian explained. “I was closer with him than with my own father. I would never hurt him! As if I even could! We used to talk long into the night about arcane paradoxes and obscure alchemical theory.
“One night, I told him that Catalus had offered me an internship in his surgery—” Raider flinched at the word. Seth’s eyes flicked to him. “—but Varelli discouraged it. I didn’t understand. It was such an incredible opportunity. Catalus was the finest surgeon in the Arcanum, in all Masir. I kept pushing for why until Varelli finally confided his long-held suspicions about Catalus. He told me how Catalus had shown up at the University a decade ago, a brilliant arcanist out of nowhere. He told me how, within a month, the head of the Department of Alchemy had mysteriously vanished. Catalus offered to serve as interim department head, then never surrendered the position. This was before I came to the Arcanum, but, Seth, you surely remember?”
Seth said, “I wasn’t in Masir at the time, but I recall the news. The timing alone doesn’t prove anything.”
“I said the same!” Julian exclaimed. “Varelli also told me about things that Catalus had done in secret, experiments and such—” Raider’s stomach churned. “—but even that I didn’t believe—mostly because I really wanted that internship. So it’s my fault, you see! Varelli was determined to prove his suspicions right, to protect me. He said he’d looked away for too long but he wasn’t going to let me get entangled with the likes of Catalus. So he broke into Catalus’s rooms, hunting for evidence, and by Kasha did he find it!
“I was in the library the night Varelli came running in. He was frantic. He shoved that book at me and told me to run, to take it to Kastari, to the empress. I just kept saying, what! what! what! like an idiot! Catalus came upon us. He lunged for me—for the book, I guess—but Varelli attacked him so I could get away. And he died for it! For me, for this!
“Maybe if I’d gone straight to the port I could have stowed away on a ship, but I hid in the kitchens. I was terrified! When I worked up my courage, I slipped into my apartment for my things. By the time I made my way through the city, Catalus— Kahzir —had raised an alarm at the port. There was no way I could get on a ship at that point, so I fled on foot. I had to fulfill Varelli’s dying wish because he died for me . So you see, I have to do this!”
Seth was frowning. “Why didn’t you go to someone, another scholar, someone on the Governing Board—”
Julian was shaking his head. “You’re not involved in the politics of the Arcanum. You have no idea how influential he is, how he can manipulate people. If anyone listened to me, he would just get rid of them! And if you managed to take me back to Masir, he would kill us both. That’s undoubtedly what he intended from the moment he sent you on this mission. That’s why I need the empress!”
Now Seth was the one shaking his head, like he couldn’t bear for this to be true.
It was, however, easy enough to prove.
Raider had a sense of being separate from himself. It was a familiar sensation, one he’d experienced sometimes when he couldn’t quite handle things that were happening to him.
It was a sort of numbness, where he felt his body but not quite. Where he chose his words but not quite.
He heard his own voice, weirdly monotone, saying, “Describe him.”
Some part of Raider’s brain registered Seth’s eyes jumping to him, but his own eyes remained on Julian, who said, “He’s, um, about my height—”
“Come here. Stand up.”
After a wary glance at Seth, the young arcanist scooted across the platform. Seth moved back to make room for Julian to stand, his shackled hands held awkwardly at his waist.
Raider stepped up to him and gauged the height, about four inches less than his own. For a second, he saw a different face, a different man. Some of the protective numbness left him, and a tremble started in Raider’s body. He pressed on, while he still could. “What else?”
“Thick curly hair, mostly gray, but it looks like it used to be black. Dark eyes, darker skin than yours—”
“His hands.”
When Seth sucked in a noisy breath, Raider didn’t even need to hear Julian say, “The left one is scarred, front and back. Like something—”
“Went straight through it.”
“Yes.” Julian frowned, clearly puzzled by Raider’s guess. “How did you …”
Julian trailed off as Raider turned away, heading up the steps. Distantly, Raider heard Seth call his name, but he couldn’t respond. He needed out—now.
Hauling open the door, he escaped into the night.