Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
“The ledger he wanted not only had coded messages for all the locations where he had squirreled away his funds, but he had also hidden the Vault key in the spine. I didn’t know any of that until he approached me a few days later.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Jacoby moaned, hands threaded through his wispy gray hair.
“I thought I’d have time, a few days at least, but by dawn, soldiers were crawling over every inch of this city.
Posters with my face on it have been plastered on tavern walls.
Everyone knows exactly who I am and what I’m accused of, and they’re all raising their prices because of it!
Can’t get a damn boat out of this city without paying an arm and a leg in bribes. ”
“Jacoby returned to the palace?” Silas asked, trying to modulate his tone from shocked to merely curious. Was he hiding under our nose the whole time?
“No, sir, I live in the city,” Quentin explained. “I don’t know where he hid after the battle of the courtyard, but one day I came home to find him sitting at my kitchen table, as if nothing had happened. He said he could only leave once I retrieved the current month’s ledger.”
Firm hands gripped Silas’ shoulders. “You’ll get it for me, won’t you?” Jacoby begged, beady eyes damp with tears. Dark shadows covered his face—like the windows Silas was looking through weren’t just dirty but made of black glass.
As soon as Silas identified the problem, the image shifted and warped, growing more distant.
There was a familiar curve to the warping, something Silas had seen in his mind’s eye a hundred times as he’d sat in Adelaide’s cottage, bolstering his mental defenses.
I’m seeing Quentin’s memories through my mental shields, Silas realized, staring at the treasury aide in shock.
When he’d first met Adelaide, she’d explained to Silas that people with weak mental shields sometimes unintentionally projected their thoughts. As Quentin recounted his interactions with Jacoby, his memories leaked through whatever mental shields he possessed.
In the weeks since Alistair and Silas’ mental battle, Silas hadn’t had any time to rebuild his shields after purposefully allowing Alistair to tear them down.
The only one that remained was a simple layer of black glass that had protected Silas from the backlash of his own trap.
Enough to shield Silas’ thoughts from any nosy mages, but it apparently wasn’t enough to block out Quentin’s thoughts and memories when they were being projected so clearly.
“What did Jacoby offer you in exchange for the ledger?” Silas asked.
Quentin’s gaze snapped to the side, unable to maintain eye contact with Silas.
“Do you think I’m the only one they’ll condemn once they find it?” Jacoby hissed, his fingers digging into Silas’ shoulders.
Although Silas had identified the source of the false memories, he still struggled to disentangle himself from them.
“With those ledgers, they can find every little bribe you took, every number you changed. You’re in this as deeply as I am.”
“Money,” Quentin said. “A portion of the funds he’d embezzled over the years.”
Silas arched a brow at the lie. Does he think it’s better to claim he was bribed than to admit he was an accomplice? He didn’t comment on the lie for now—he didn’t want to risk Quentin clamming up again and refusing to answer. “Then what happened?”
Quentin scratched his neck, disturbing the bandage. It was dirtier than the last time Silas had seen it, with black smudges and spots of blood leaking through. “I failed, and he reminded me who he worked for.” Carefully, Quentin peeled off the bandage.
Disgust jolted through Silas’ stomach, and he had to swallow down his bile. A black wound festered under the bandage, oozing blood and puss. The veins around it were black and swollen.
“Damn,” Langley whispered behind them.
Spiders poured out of a box of files. People shouted in alarm and Silas’ own distant voice barked instructions. Silas—Quentin—remained frozen as the spiders swarmed toward him. Even as one crawled up his arm and sunk its fangs right into his neck.
“He said he could lift the curse,” Quentin said, “but only after I brought him the ledger. I tried to get it from the librarian.”
“You don’t understand,” Silas insisted, voice high and strained. “I need it for my work—”
“I understand perfectly, young man,” Mr. Oakley said, glaring over his glasses.
“I understand that this ledger may contain important evidence that the king himself has ordered me to keep safe. I will not be derelict in my duties simply because you are behind on your own work. This book is going straight to the Records Room, and it isn’t coming out under anyone’s orders except the king’s. ”
The scene changed in a blink, dumping Silas back into the small kitchen of Quentin’s apartment. “Mr. Oakley wouldn’t give it to me—”
“Damned if I care what that old librarian says! You never should have let them take it in the first place! If I’d known you were this incompetent and useless, I would have fired you years ago and found someone useful to take your place.”
“When I failed, Jacoby finally gave up on me and said he would use someone else.”
The itch along Silas’ mind had worsened with every new memory. Although he could identify the source now, he still had to grit his teeth against the budding pain. “And who was this ‘someone’ else?”
“Soldiers,” Quentin replied with a grimace. “Jacoby bribed them to get the ledger by any means necessary.”
“And they set fire to the library in the process.” Phantom heat bathed Silas’ skin while the scent of smoke ticked his nose.
Quentin nodded, tears dotting his eyelashes. “I needed Jacoby to lift the curse, so I secretly followed him to the Vault that night. I found Jacoby in here,” he waved to the office around them, “arguing with the soldiers about their payment.”
“What the fuck is this?” one soldier demanded, holding up Silas’ crown clenched in one hand.
“Your payment,” Jacoby replied coldly, his back to the soldiers as he scooped armloads of gold coins into a canvas bag.
The scene was oddly skewed and obscured in a way Silas couldn’t quite identify, like he was crouched behind something, hiding himself from view.
“Bullshit it is. You promised us ten thousand gold—”
“All of that”—Jacoby waved toward the sack of jewelry one of the other soldiers rifled through. Rings and smaller gems spilled out of it onto the Vault’s floor—“is worth far more than ten thousand.”
“Only after it’s sold, and no one in this damned kingdom will touch it!”
Jacoby locked eyes with the soldiers and declared, “What does that matter? None of us will be welcome in this kingdom after tonight.”
“Eventually, one of the soldiers hit him over the head.”