NESSA AND DENDERA help Conall and Garrigan into chairs as soon as we return to my room. Conall caves in on himself, holding as still as he can, his injured arm twisted against his stomach. Opposite him, Garrigan leans forward with his head in his hands, quiet, still.
My heart shrivels and I step closer to them before I flinch back, not trusting myself.
“How are you?” I manage.
Pain dances over Conall’s features, but he smooths them out and nods at me. “We’ll be fine, my queen.”
Nessa puts her hands on his shoulders. “What happened?”
“I lost control. Again,” I admit, my voice dry.
Dendera rushes to the attached bath chamber to fetch water for them.
It’s Garrigan who squints at me, one hand in his hair. “Does that happen a lot with conduit wielders?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I’ll get it under control.”
Dendera returns and dabs a wet cloth on Garrigan’s forehead, wiping some of the sheen that has formed. She hands a cloth to Nessa, who does the same for Conall, and under their tender care, Conall and Garrigan seem to relax a little.
“You two, rest,” I tell them, and turn for the door.
Dendera whips to me, her face instantly serious. “You aren’t going out alone.”
“Unless Henn is available.”
“He’s familiarizing himself with the grounds. He should be back in an hour.”
“I don’t have an hour.” Theron could already be searching for the key. Finding the Order or the two remaining keys before him are my last hopes for helping Winter without Cordell’s influence. Yakim is unresponsive. The possibility of forming an alliance with Ventralli still remains, and I’ll try with everything I have left, but . . . Theron is half Ventrallan. Anything he says, they’ll side with him.
I have to find the key or the Order. Now.
“I’ll be fine—I promise. I was fine in Summer, and that kingdom was far more dangerous.” Well, I was barely fine in Summer, but that won’t help my argument.
My promises do nothing to ease Dendera’s glare. “Take Nessa, at least.”
And have her ask why I’m upset? Have her discover things that might bring up her past?
“No.” It snaps out of me, breaking the excitement off Nessa’s face. Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly hate myself more . . . “I mean—I need you to stay and take care of them.”
Nessa slumps against Conall’s chair, her hand on his forearm. She won’t look at me, her lips set in a tight line. I hurt her.
What’s left of my heart crumbles.
Dendera’s lingering disapproval mars her words. “Tell me where you’re going. The moment Henn gets back, I’ll send him after you.”
“Yakim’s libraries. The ones in the palace, to start.”
She nods, hearing my words for the harmless request they are, but Nessa frowns at me. They both know about the magic chasm, about the truth of our journey, to find a way to open it. They know that’s what I’m doing—and doing it without Theron.
“I’ll fetch someone to show you the way,” Dendera says, and rises. “I won’t let you go wandering aimlessly. And here.” She tugs a small blade from Garrigan’s sheath.
I lift a brow. For someone so adamantly against me using weapons, she’s given me quite a few these past weeks.
“Hide it in your bodice,” she tells me. Her eyes narrow and she adds, “Don’t make me regret giving one to you again.”
I take the blade. “I won’t,” I say with more sincerity than she must have expected, because her tension evaporates into something like surprise.
She leaves and returns moments later with a servant who leads me into Langlais Castle.
“The libraries in the palace guard the oldest and most valuable books,” the servant explains as we scurry down a staircase. “Putnam University houses the more functional tomes, meant for study and use. But for a Season’s purposes, I do expect the books here will suit you.”
A Season’s purposes? All I told him was that I wanted to see Yakim’s libraries. I frown at the back of his head, sorting through the meaning of his words, and roll my eyes when it hits me.
He doesn’t think I’m interested in the books for study and use. Which I believe is a lofty Yakimian way of calling me stupid.
“Oh, quite,” I return. “I just love looking at books. Sometimes I can even make out a word or two.”
The servant cuts a quick glance back at me, his eyes sweeping across my overly serene stare. After a huff, he faces forward, and our journey through the palace falls silent.
Two halls later, we step into a behemoth of a room. Three stories high, with shelves of books that stretch in wrapping balconies, cloaking the bright, warm space in leather and parchment. No fireplaces or open flames of any kind sit in the room, the light coming from more of those unwavering orbs. Leather chairs cluster in rings on auburn rugs, in rows along balconies, like soldiers standing guard. And at the end of every shelf hangs a mounted oval of mirrored metal with numbers etched on it, identifying the books within.
The servant stops in the center of a ring of chairs and pivots to face me, hands behind his back. “This is the Library of Evangeline the Second, queen of Yakim six hundred thirty-two years ago.”
Six hundred thirty-two years?
Adrenaline patters in me. Maybe these are the right libraries to start in after all.
Will Theron have figured this out as well?
The servant angles his eyes at me. He starts talking again, and I realize he meant for me to respond somehow—with proper oohing and ahhing, or some show of acknowledgment beyond absent, silent staring.
“Should you need assistance, the librarian in residence will be about,” the servant says, his words slow, as though he’s giving instructions to a child. “Do try to treat this space with the respect it deserves.”
And he leaves, darting past me. Bluntness seems to be a Yakimian trait.
I start toward the first row of books and find I’m not the only patron here—but I am the only non-Yakimian. A few people glance at me as I pass, brief snatches that turn into shocked staring that unabashedly morphs into outright curiosity. Like I’m not a living person, but a statue, and they’re trying to figure out how I was carved.
Four rows of maddeningly unhelpful numbers later, I stop. The rest of this row is empty of Yakimians for the moment, and I breathe in the solitude of not being looked at so curiously. To top it all off, I have no idea what I’m searching for. Again. These books all have titles like Law and Justice and Civilities in Common Townships and Declarations from West of Ardith. Nothing about magic, or even about the Klaryns.
I lean against a shelf, exhaustion muddling my thoughts. Maybe if I can convince Theron to let me see the key I found in Summer—maybe there’s something I missed, a lead to the next one. But that would mean having to touch it again, and I don’t want to risk seeing . . . memories.
“Find any more hidden pits?”
I jump, flailing off the bookshelf. Ceridwen crosses her arms at the entrance to this row, her lips lifted in a mischievous smile. Next to her, holding his body so he can see the rows behind us, stands the slave who followed her out of the party in Summer. He must be hers. Though I can’t imagine she’d willingly keep slaves, not with her stance on Summer’s practices. Maybe he’s just her friend.
I tighten my jaw. If the man is her friend, he’s probably trustworthy—but I keep my tone low all the same. “I told you. I don’t want to involve you in this—you don’t need to be involved in this. This isn’t—”
“I just traveled here with you and Cordell,” Ceridwen snaps. “I am involved in this. Or whatever your cover is, so I might as well be involved in the truth of it. And I helped last time, didn’t I? Besides”—she smiles again—“I quite like you being in my debt.”
I can’t stop the way my mouth instantly turns down. But the spark in Ceridwen’s eyes speaks more to camaraderie. I nod at her friend, who eyes me with cautious interest.
“I assume he’s trustworthy?”
The man smiles, white teeth cutting brilliance through his tan skin, his S brand wrinkling under his eye. But Ceridwen gets to his introduction before he can.
“Lekan.” She taps him in the chest. “He’s been helping with raids longer than I have, plus his husband runs the camp where we send our freed slaves. He’s trustworthy.”
Lekan bows. “My princess trusts you, so I do as well.”
One edge of my mouth starts to rise but cuts off when a realization flares through me. “You’re Summerian, though,” I state. “Aren’t you affected by Simon’s magic?”
I angle the question at Ceridwen too, because in all the chaos since I met her, I never thought to ask how she’s able to think clearly when her brother pumps dazed joy into everyone else in their kingdom. My question makes Lekan’s smile vanish, but Ceridwen laughs.
“Took you this long to ask me that?” She clucks her tongue. “You’re not the brightest flame in the fire, are you?”
“Don’t make me hit you in a library.”
She laughs again. “Years of practice, learning how to distinguish our own feelings from magic-induced ones. It also helps that Summer’s magic is, shall we say, weak, what with how much of it my ancestors have used on bliss. But most people are so accustomed to it that they don’t need much help to remain happy anymore.”
She says it all with no more pomp than if she had just told me it’s hot in Summer. Lekan shuffles, slanting away from us, his reaction breaking Ceridwen’s apparent lack of concern.
It’s hard, what they do, resisting their king’s magic. Harder than Ceridwen lets on.
Summer would certainly benefit from a lack of magic too, if their ruler was forced to govern simply by strength and will.
A throat clears behind me and I glance back, hand going to the dagger in my bodice.
The servant who led us to Giselle, who drove our carriage through Putnam. Those black eyes lock on me again, the studious way I’m more than a little sick of.
“May I help you find something, Your Highness?” he asks after a beat. He sweeps over Ceridwen and Lekan, decides they’re not nearly as fascinating as I am, and focuses back on me.
I squint at him. “Who are you?”
The man folds into an elaborate bow. “Rares, the librarian in residence. You seem lost, dear heart—can I help?”
“You’re the librarian in residence.”
“Yes.”
“And the carriage driver?”
Rares’s smile doesn’t even flicker. “I offered to accompany you to visit the queen—you’re quite the specimen here in Putnam. A teenager who single-handedly freed her kingdom! I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see you for myself.”
“I’m glad I could provide some entertainment for you.”
“And I can provide some assistance for you,” Rares says. “What brings you to the great Library of Evangeline the Second?”
Ceridwen leans forward at that, just as eager to hear, while Lekan falls back to being uninterested, scoping the library like a guard.
I wanted help, didn’t I? And now I have it from two sources. Neither of them could do any harm, unless I tell them straight out that the magic chasm entrance has been discovered—or they know about the Order of the Lustrate, which is a risk I’ll have to take; neither of them will shatter at any information we find about Angra or the Decay.
What do I have left to lose?
I turn to Rares. “What information do you have on something called the Order of the Lustrate?”
Ceridwen frowns. “The what? Lustrate?”
“They’re the ones I need help from. I just have no idea where to search for them.” I pause, watching both her and Rares for any reaction. If either of them knows what the Order is, they’ll know now what I’m after.
Ceridwen’s face doesn’t change, her eyes drifting as she thinks. But Rares needs no time to absorb my question—his smile widens in delighted curiosity and he heads down the row, beckoning us to follow him. “Nothing in Evangeline the Second comes to mind, but this library is rather dull, and something like the ‘Order of the Lustrate’ sounds right mystical. The Library of Clarisse is just down from here, and that might be more suited to your research.”
Neither of them knows what the Order is.
I hurry after Rares and tilt my head when he glances back at me. “What books are in this library?”
“Books of law and edict.”
I roll my eyes. The servant took me to the law library? What about me says I want to spend time perusing books about rules?
Rares reads the annoyance on my face and laughs. “I do apologize, dear heart. Not what you were expecting?”
“No.” I keep pace beside him as we duck down another row of books, angling toward the back wall. “You aren’t what I was expecting either. Are you Yakimian?”
“No, dear heart. From outside Yakim, actually.”
“Ventralli?” Ceridwen asks, her eyes analyzing his features. “You don’t look Ventrallan.”
He bobs his head in something like a nod. “You’re familiar with Ventrallans, yes? It’s odd that I’d be here, but someone should care for these books. Because, honestly, this is shameful. So I’m mending what I can, providing fodder for a kingdom that right adores studying unusual folks.” He winks at me. “No manners, Yakimians. I’m afraid I’ve picked up a plethora of unseemly behaviors from them. Ah, here we are—the Library of Clarisse, home to books of history and records.”
Rares pushes open a door at the back of the law library, revealing another room that stretches just as large beyond. An identical layout too, with balconies and chairs and orbs of light, the same mirrors marking each row with numbers. This library is far less crowded; the only other person here is a servant sweeping a carpet to our left.
Rares saunters in as if he knows exactly where he’s going, stopping only to yank a book from a shelf and plop it into my arms. “A census record, but just for Yakim, and only through the last proper spring. The rest are in this row and around. They list people, businesses, even the occasional horse—if anything named the ‘Order of the Lustrate’ exists in Yakim, it’ll pop up here.” He turns to a row behind him. “And this row starts census records for Ventralli, that one for Cordell. They tried to do censuses in the Seasons, but you know how their relationship with you lot goes. Over here are a few for Paisly—old ones, and mostly inaccurate. Journey up there is a nightmare, I hear—even more imposing mountains than your Klaryns.”
Rares whisks off to the next row, tugging me along. I throw a questioning look at Ceridwen, who stifles a laugh and shrugs as if to say, You asked for it.
“Now, this is good—Bisset’s Analysis of Secret Societies.” Rares whips a book out of a shelf and stacks it in my arms. “It’ll chill you to your veins! Though I’d imagine chilling isn’t as uncomfortable for you as for the rest of us. Ah, now, this one should help—A Study of the Unknown. Oh, and you must have Forgotten Worlds—Richelieu clearly adored the sound of his pen scratching on parchment, but every few dozen pages he provides good information. Oh, and—”
By the time Rares is done, Ceridwen, Lekan, and I all have our arms stacked with books and more recommendations waiting on shelves. I gawk at Rares, my arms threatening to buckle. Though if I drop these books, I can spend time cleaning up the loose pages instead of reading all this.
Seeking information about the Order of the Lustrate might not have been one of my better ideas. How easily I forgot the misery of trying to read Magic of Primoria—but my brain remembers it well, already lurching with pain as I look down at the cover for The Reign of Queen Eveline the First and Societal Cultures During Her Time.
Merciful snow above.
Rares claps his hands. “When you’re finished, dear heart, feel free to leave the books on the table, as disorganized as you possibly can.” He motions to a table behind me, situated in a break in the rows of books. “The librarian in residence in charge of the Library of Clarisse is an offensively irritable man, and I would like nothing better than to make unnecessary work for him. Do let me know if any of these books help, or if you need more!”
“Wait.” Ceridwen dumps her burdens on the table after Lekan and pauses, cheek caught between her teeth. “Lustrate,” she says again, rolling the word around her tongue. “That sounds like a word Ventrallans would favor.”
Rares’s eternal smile cracks wider, like he can see what she’s getting at, but I’m lost.
“Why?” I ask.
Ceridwen presses her hand just below her collarbone, eyes averted, and I can’t help but think she’s looking away more to avoid revealing something than to think. “Because of what it means—to purify by sacrifice. Ventrallan culture is full of words like that—luscious words for dark acts, dark words for luscious acts. Artistic, extravagant meanings.” She turns to Rares. “Where are your books on Ventralli? And not censuses.” Her nose curls and I smile. At least I’m not the only one who cringes at the thought of reading all this. If Theron were here, he’d dive in without hesitation.
My gut twists, but I brace myself against thoughts of him.
Books on Ventralli might be a good place to look, actually—the final clue in the chasm entrance was a mask, pointing to the Ventrallan culture of wearing elaborate ones. Maybe Ceridwen is on the right path.
Rares taps a finger to his lips. “Quite deductive of you, Princess. We’ll make a Yakimian out of you yet.”
Ceridwen’s lips twitch in a snarl. “Don’t insult me.”
Lekan grunts and slaps her in the shoulder. Ceridwen glares at him, and he unabashedly returns her glare, an exchange that makes little sense to me. But after half a breath Ceridwen relents.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, but while it would seem like the apology should be directed at Rares, Lekan is the one who nods and accepts it.
Rares overlooks this interaction and points to the back left corner of the library. “Last row, shelves labeled 273 through 492. You no doubt noticed the markers on the ends of the rows? Lovely, aren’t they? Mighty helpful, you’ll find. Anything else?”
“Not if life is at all kind,” I groan, realize how ungrateful that sounded, and straighten. “I mean, thank you.”
Rares winks at me. “Enjoy Yakim, Your Highness.”
He leaves, angling back through the library in the opposite direction Ceridwen and Lekan head, toward the Ventrallan books. Since my only options are to stay and start sorting through Rares’s choices or follow them, I unload the books from my arms and dart off into the rows without hesitation.
The orbs of light flash off the mirrored plates, the numbers dancing in the reflective surfaces until Ceridwen stops before a row labeled with an oval that proclaims “273–492.”
“Order of the Lustrate, you said?” she asks as she starts surveying book spines.
“Yes—”
My attention sticks on the marker at the end of this row.
Did it . . . change?
I step closer to it, head angling. The light from the nearest orb catches on it and—
I chirp surprise and hop up onto the chair that stands guard over this row, providing an easy lift to get close to the marker. Ceridwen turns to me while Lekan shrugs and goes back to watching the empty rows.
“What is it?” she asks, voice low in the stillness of the library.
I brace my hands on the bookshelf and tip my head to the side. Normal, just the oval with the numbers etched, nothing of importance. But as I ease to the other side, the light shifts, and a luminescent picture reveals itself. A beam of light hitting a mountain.
The Order of the Lustrate’s seal, hidden in the reflective surface of the metal oval.
“It’s here,” I say, though I still don’t know what it is. Something is here, though, in this shelf, or in a book on this shelf.
My pulse accelerates as I run my hand over the oval. My fingers glide down the edge and I spit unexpected laughter.
The oval moved.
I do it again, the mirrored plate spinning, crank by crank, under my fingers.
Ceridwen’s attention returns to the shelf and she springs away in surprise. “Flame and heat! Keep doing that—there’s a compartment opening behind one of these shelves.”
I jerk to the side, eyes scanning the library’s floor beside the shelf. “Watch out for—”
But Ceridwen is way ahead of me, testing the floor with her feet and holding on to the shelves should a surprise pit open up here too. She shoots a cocked eyebrow up at me. “Just keep cranking.”
Books smack into the floor as she tears them off the shelf. I keep easing the oval, gear by gear, until it locks into place, the numbers upright again. Skirt flurrying around me, I leap off the chair and step into the row, careful to avoid the mess of books Ceridwen removed to make room.
The back of one of the shelves has swung out, revealing a hidden compartment.
Ceridwen, holding a cluster of books against her chest, turns to me. Her shock eases into smug amusement and she tips her head, curls bouncing.
“See?” she says, triumphant. “You do need me, Winter queen.”
My surprise evaporates into the slightest tingle of unease as I wrap my fingers into the door and pry it the rest of the way open, the wood crying out with age and more than a few bursts of dust that spray into my face. I cough but open the door wider, allowing a nearby orb of light to shine into the narrow compartment. My fingers twitch to reach inside, but memories of my last encounter with the Lustrate’s key make me hesitate. Is this one a conduit too?
In the back corner sits a smashed cloth. I ease my hand around it, waiting for the hard bite of metal to warn me of a key, but the thick weave of the cloth curves around something lumpy.
I pull it out and guide it open in my hands, my stomach knotted up with two different emotions. Hope that it will be the key—and dread that it will be the key.
The cloth unrolls and reveals a key within, identical to the one I found in Summer—iron, ancient, with the Lustrate’s seal at its head.
So easy. Again.
Warning hums in my throat, the instinctual rearing of danger coming. But I should be relieved. I’m that much closer to finding the Order, or at the very least, having leverage over Noam. This is good. Not threatening—good. Maybe the Order wanted the keys to be found. Maybe they separated them only so they wouldn’t be easily accessible.
But I only have two keys—no answers. No information about the Order itself, or anything that could help me with my magic. Yes, I’m a step closer to being able to keep the chasm closed, but I need more than that. And it’s only luck that I found these two first—it could have been Theron with just as little effort. It makes no sense that the Order would bother to hide these keys with so little protection, unless they wanted them found. But why? And further—why Yakim? Summer, Yakim, Ventralli . . . what do these three kingdoms have in common?
No—calm down, Meira. Right now, it’s just two keys, nothing dangerous. I won’t let myself worry until a viable threat materializes. I certainly have enough other things to worry about.
The cloth around this key shows a scene much like the tapestry the Ventrallan queen sent with Finn and Greer. Mountains circle a valley filled with beams of light and, in the center, a tight ball of even more brilliant light woven in yellow and white and blue threads, all of it swirling around.
Magic.
I exhale, hands shaking. The placement of the key in a tapestry depicting the Klaryns and magic, hidden in a row of books about Ventralli—it’s purposeful. The final key is definitely there.
I look up at Ceridwen. “Now we—”
She winces before I even talk. I glance at Lekan, who eyes her with a lingering sympathy.
Ceridwen bobs her head. “Ventralli next. That was the plan, anyway.”
“Yes,” I say slowly. “But . . . you don’t have to come with us.”
Ceridwen sets the books in her arms on the floor. “Thanks, but I know someone in Ventralli who can help with that.” She nods at the tapestry, her expression void of emotion. “It’ll lead you to something, right? Admit it—you’re helpless without me.”
I start to smile, warring with pressing her discomfort regarding Ventralli. But I flinch when the stillness of the library shatters around the sudden chiming of music.