Chapter Twenty-Seven
Milo
“Sir.”
I turned away from where I’d been staring at my own reflection or, more accurately, at the ornate vivid blue suit I was wearing, in the full length mirror and found Pax standing in the doorway of my bedroom. He glanced around to ensure we were alone before leaning in.
“Your wife?” he asked.
“Gone to pray,” I informed him, straightening my lapel as I turned to face him fully. “I’ll be joining her soon for services at the temple.”
“But you–”
“Best not to be seen as a wild heretic these days, Paxon. There’s no sense in giving Cosmo more fodder for his religious call to arms.”
Paxon nodded, understanding, before getting to the point of his impromptu visit.
“We found Olympia,” he told me.
I nodded and followed him out of my bedroom and down the hall.
He didn’t say a word as we went and mentioned nothing about our grandmother’s open door revealing her empty room which meant Paxon had likely known of mine and the Matriarch’s intent to attend temple this morning before I’d told him.
Sometimes, I couldn’t help but wonder just how Paxon knew as much as he did and why he so often pretended he didn’t.
“What happened here?” Pax barked suddenly, drawing my attention to the hall in front of us. Just ahead, Nick was bent over, holding his groin, and Cleo was slumped against the wall with a hand to her throat, gasping for air.
“She–” Cleo gargled as Nick groaned.
“For the Geist’s sake,” Paxon exploded and shoved them both aside as he practically ran down the stairs into the foyer.
A few aunts were standing near a pillar at the bottom of the steps and looked up with raised brows of interest as Pax blew past them. I took a slower approach, raising my chin and keeping perfect posture as I strode down the steps after my attendant, nodding a greeting to the aunts as I passed.
“–told you to stay with Nick and Cleo,” Paxon was raging at Olympia when I met them several yards before the door.
“I don’t follow your orders, Paxon,” Olympia sneered.
“And I definitely don’t let those goons you call enforcement hold me anywhere I don’t want to be.
I don’t give a shit who gave the order. I’ll go where I need to go when I need to go there.
And you. What are you, turning into grandmother now?
Are you planning on locking me in my room next? ”
“We need to talk, Olympia,” I answered her address to me as calmly as I could.
“It can wait,” she snapped and turned back to leave.
“Did you talk to him?”
She froze before slowly turning back to face me. I saw murder in her eyes. A sane man would have backed down, maybe even apologized, and let her be on her way. But I’d been questioning my own sanity more and more lately and Olympia had never scared me.
“I did,” she answered, slowly, glancing in Pax’s direction.
Our cousin’s brow was furrowed as he looked between us, trying to reason out who we were talking about.
“I’d like to hear about how that went,” I told her.
“I have–”
“Now, Olympia.”
Her gaze narrowed into a glare formed by her sheer displeasure at being told what to do, but she followed me back up the stairs and into my office.
I nodded once to Pax as we left, an order to remain behind and let us speak in private.
He was still grimacing as we climbed the steps and headed into the study above.
“Tell me,” I said the moment we were inside.
She took a second to close the door behind us before answering.
“He claims he isn’t one of them,” she began.
“He said he got the tattoo a year ago when he was drunk and some guys he didn’t know convinced him it meant something it didn’t.
When they found him when he was sober and told him what it really was, he went to a few meetings before deciding he didn’t like their methods and maybe we weren’t all so terrible up here after all.
He claims he’s never spoken to any of them since or taken part in any of their plots and that he would never commit an act as violent as what occurred during the trial yesterday. ”
“Do you believe him?” I asked from where I leaned over my desk, organizing some papers before I had to leave.
“No,” she replied and I couldn’t help but glance up at that. It wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.
“I thought you two were–”
“Whatever did or did not exist between us is done now. Not that he knows that. I let him think he could win me back by talking to the Bexleys and figuring out which side they’re on.”
I hesitated, considering what she’d said.
That was cold, even for Olympia. I had a difficult time believing the woman who’d cared enough about this guy to let me in on something she’d never want to share for any reason at all just to give their relationship a better shot at working out in the end was the same one taking advantage of his affections.
But I didn’t press. Olympia had her own way of doing things and, though I rarely understood or agreed with them, I knew enough to know that prying only made it worse.
“You’ll tell me what you find out?” I asked, raising a brow instead.
“I will.”
I nodded, satisfied.
“If that’s all, I need to get back to finding a better way into Viper. Nascha wants–”
“That isn’t all,” I said and she fell silent, waiting. “Jude has put an official end to our research alliance. We’ve lost access to the archives of the House of Harlowe. That includes our ancestor’s journal.”
Olympia frowned.
“I can’t lose access to that journal, Olympia,” I told her, lowering my tone and leaning forward on my desk.
She watched me for a moment before flipping her hair over her shoulder and crossing her arms.
“Don’t you think we have more important matters to deal with than a dead man’s weird diary?” she asked with a furrowed brow.
“Yes,” I confessed, “and I can’t explain it, you wouldn’t believe me if I did, but I’m starting to think grandmother isn’t as crazy as we think. I think she might actually be onto something with this and I can’t help but think it might make a difference in the power balance of this city.”
Olympia just stared at me for a moment, blinking in disbelief.
“Spell it out for me, Milo,” she said after a moment. “Because I want to be absolutely sure I have permission to do what I think you’re asking me to do.”
“Get into Harlowe during their lockdown and get that journal,” I commanded.
The air hung heavy between us for a few heartbeats as Olympia processed what I’d ordered her to do. There was no surprise in her expression, no evidence that she hadn’t expected this directive to come, just grim acceptance as she responded with one simple nod.
“Is that all?” she asked after a moment.
I hesitated but nodded. Then my cousin turned and left my study without another word.
I watched her go, wondering what I’d just done.
I knew Olympia was good at remaining unseen.
I was almost certain she was the one who’d started the fire on the Second Ring though I hadn’t found any evidence to support my hunch.
I knew she’d been in and out of Raghnall’s study and nearly into Cosmo’s own House.
She came and went from the lower rings without drawing a hint of suspicion and returned with more information than I could have ever hoped she would gather through simple observation alone.
If anyone could do what I’d asked, it would be Olympia.
So I needed to be sure that what I asked her to do was something I truly wanted done.
This was theft. This was sneaking into the most well-guarded, paranoid minor house’s legendary library and stealing a book from right under their noses.
They would notice it was gone and, when they did, they’d know exactly who took it.
I was risking losing a potential ally, risking fighting a war on two fronts, risking upsetting the balance of Sanctuary so badly it couldn’t be righted again, but I knew it was worth it.
I couldn’t get that voice out of my head.
Let this god come out to play. I can help you see the Light.
Maybe I was going mad just as Eximius had or, more likely, maybe I’d finally discovered the source of Eximius’ madness.
Perhaps he’d heard the voice as well and that’s what had been speaking to him, driving him mad.
Perhaps it was coming from the necklace as it had whenever I’d touched it, but that didn’t make any sense.
Nascha had had the necklace for decades, had worn it at night to feel closer to her mother, had held it when she’d handed it to me, and she’d never mentioned the voices.
Given the task she’d assigned me of finding out what drove Simi mad, it seemed like something she certainly wouldn’t hide from me.
I hadn’t had the chance to speak with her about it yet given the trial and everything that had happened after but I was planning to today.
I just needed to know. Isla hadn’t heard the voices.
If Nascha didn’t either, but Simi and I had, that seemed to confirm my suspicions that the voice didn’t speak to women.
Blinking out of my reverie, I realized I was late to the temple. Tossing the papers I’d been rifling through back on my desk, I made my way out of my study, down the stairs, and through the front door where I headed down the path out of House Avus grounds toward the temple.
The priests outside all greeted me enthusiastically as I approached, smiling broadly and pretending they weren’t memorizing every word of our conversation to report to Cosmo later.
I grinned back and shook their hands, feigning excitement for a morning spent listening to them opine about their absent gods, then I found Isla and Nascha in a row toward the front.
The women had their heads bowed in what appeared to be prayer but I realized they were speaking to one another in low tones as I approached. They each glanced up once before Nascha scooted aside and let me squeeze in between them.
“You’re late,” Isla noted.