Cyrene shielded herself from the harshness of the blazing summer sun and hurried toward the shade of the booths in the Laelish Market. Many of the foreign merchants were missing from their shops, and she worried that Basille Selby might have already come back from Levin and then gone on his way. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found the tent still up. The flap draped over the entrance, indicating that it was closed but not empty.
As Cyrene drew closer, she heard raised voices inside, and she sighed in relief. Someone is here.
“Excuse me,” she called. “I’m trying to find Master Basille Selby.”
The voices suddenly broke off, and then she heard rustling, followed by a crash and cursing. The flap flew open, and a man’s huge form filled up the space.
“Who’s askin’ fer Master Selby?” He fixed her with a sharp look.
She recognized the man from the day she and Maelia had come down to the market all those weeks ago. She had just forgotten how big he was.
“So nice to see you again,” Cyrene said.
“We met?”
“I was here several weeks ago, trying to locate Master Selby about a book he sold me.” She shot him a charming smile.
“I thin’ I do ’member ya now.” He scratched under his stubbly chin with one scarred leathery hand.
“Wonderful. Has Master Selby returned from Levin?”
“I ’aven’t seen ’im.”
“I heard you arguing with someone before I arrived. If that was not Master Selby, then who was it?”
“It wa’ nobody. Now, clear out. I gots work ta do.” He shooed her away.
“I can’t leave. I have to speak with Master Selby about a book. I’m leaving on the procession in a week, and I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to speak with him again,” she desperately told him.
Gather’s eyes bulged. “Youse one of dem-dem people? An Affiliate?”
“Yes. I’m an Affiliate, so I won’t have another time to get down here.”
His jaw set, and he spit off to the left. Cyrene reflexively stepped back at the fire in his eyes.
“Basille don’ deal with youse kind,” he growled. His already daunting figure reached an additional height.
She gaped at the fierceness of his scowl. No one had ever reacted so negatively to her title.
“I’ve no idea why you despise Affiliates, but I don’t mean you or Master Selby any harm. I merely want to ask about a book.” She reached inside the small bag she was carrying and pulled forth the book. “This book. Please, if you could, take this to him and tell him I have questions about it. That’s all I’m asking. I swear by the Creator, I’ll never bother you again.”
He seemed to be weighing his mistrust of the situation with what she was saying and the book in her hand. “Youse people ’ave broke promises before.”
“I don’t.” She looked him dead in the eyes as she shoved the book into his burly chest.
“I’m ’a regret this,” he mumbled, taking the book from her and closing the flap in her face.
She huffed irritably as she baked in the afternoon heat. His reaction worried her. Every other time she had uttered her position, she had been shown much respect and deference. Her parents were always shown similar esteem. In fact, she had become accustomed to it. But this man had not only been angry with her, something in his face had shown that he was actually scared of her.
What could an Affiliate have done to that man to make him scared of me?
Cyrene mopped her forehead with a handkerchief and waited.
A short while later, he returned, looking none too pleased. He suspiciously eyed her up and down. “I dunno why he’s lettin’ ya in, but if ya cause any trouble, I be throwin’ ya out,” he warned her. “Here’s ya book.”
After tossing her cloak off her head, she grabbed the book out of his hand and followed him inside the tent. Under the confines of the tent, the drop in temperature was startling. She gazed around and saw that more than half of the books were missing from the tables, and a large portion of the remaining knickknacks was gone, but a few Levin-made products were on display.
“He’s in da back.” He pointed to a back room covered by a magenta curtain.
“Thank you,” she responded politely. She braced herself and walked through the curtained wall.
The back room hosted a mountain of half-empty boxes on top of a surprisingly clean brown rug. A small desk stood off to the side, covered in rolls of parchment, a few pouches—one that had toppled over and spilled a handful of gold Byern pences—and two large maps Cyrene couldn’t make out. The back flap of the tent opened to reveal a covered wagon hitched to a pair of brown steeds.
In the corner, rifling through one of the boxes, stood the man she had been looking for. He was exceptionally tall with an almost stringy, lean body.
“Excuse me, Master Selby.”
He swung around to face her with a flourish. He wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. Some might have considered him handsome with his slicked back dark hair, manicured beard and mustache, skilled long fingers, and general fluency of his movements.
“I did not mean to interrupt,” she said.
“Not at all, Affiliate. Not at all,” he said with a beautiful flowing Eleysian accent. He swept her a deep bow that would have befitted the Queen. “It’s always a pleasure.”
How interesting, considering the other man’s revulsion at the title.
“The pleasure is all mine. Please, do call me Cyrene.”
“Cyrene it is then, and I am Basille Selby, a humble Eleysian merchant,” he said with a crooked smile. “At your service. Now, how can I be of assistance?”
“It’s a matter of this book.” She showed him the cover. “My sister purchased it from you as a birthday gift for me.”
“Fine gift there. Fine gift,” he amiably told her.
“Yes, yes, it is. She said that when she purchased it from you, you said the book was for the Children of the Dawn. I was curious. Who are the Children of the Dawn?”
Basille, until that moment, had seemed every bit the cool, composed businessman, but at the utterance of the name, he intently stared at her with his sharp chocolate-brown eyes. He reached his hand out to take the book from her. He skimmed through the blank pages, his muscles tensing at the movement, and then he quickly returned it to her.
“Why are you interested in the Children of the Dawn, Affiliate?”
“Please, call me Cyrene,” she reminded him. “You were the one who told my sister about these Children, and I don’t know who they are, nor can I find any information in the libraries about them.”
Basille snorted. “Of course you can’t, Affiliate. Not in Byern libraries at least. The Children of the Dawn are no longer spoken of in this world…or many other worlds either.”
Cyrene had a sudden flashback to the Ring of Gardens. The royalty present at her ceremony had said that they had held back the histories of their lands for protection. Could this be part of that history?
“What do you mean?”
“No…nothing. You shouldn’t even be here, asking about the Children. Forget I ever mentioned it to your sister.” He began ushering her out.
“But I cannot, Master Selby! This has something to do with me.” Cyrene ducked under his long arms and moved deeper into the back room, clutching the book to her chest. “You don’t understand. I have to know.”
He wheeled around to stare at her. “Why do you have to know?”
Cyrene ground her teeth in frustration. The last time she had revealed what she knew about the book, Elea hadn’t been able to see the text. Cyrene had thought that she was crazy for it, and she didn’t know if she was ready to feel like that again.
“I…I can’t explain,” Cyrene murmured, turning away from the peddler.
“You’re going to have to try, Affiliate. I have quite a bit of work to complete before I leave the city.”
Cyrene turned to face him. “Where are you going?”
His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Either he noticed her sidestep, or he did not like her questioning his whereabouts. Likely, it was both.
“It does not concern you. I am Basille Selby. I travel to the farthest reaches of our land and beyond.”
“Where have you been? To Lake Mische, the Barren Mountains, the haunted Drop Pass? All the way to Bienco and the far reaches of the Lakonia Ocean?” she asked in a rambling tone.
Basille chuckled softly at her enthusiasm. “I have been to all those places and more that you should never know of. Have a seat, Affiliate. With all these questions floating in the air, it seems I won’t be getting much more done at the moment.”
Cyrene plopped into the nearest seat by the desk as he gracefully folded himself into one adjacent from her.
He crossed a leg over the other at the knee and interlaced his long fingers. He stared a moment before asking, “What are you really doing here? You have one of the best positions in your land. You seem to have the world at your feet. What are you doing down in the dregs of the Laelish, carrying on a conversation with a peddler? Even if I am the best.”
Cyrene warred with herself about opening up to the man. After all, it was why she had come down to meet with him. He would soon be out of Byern. Who knew the next time they would meet—if ever?
She opened the book to the center of the supposedly blank pages. The shimmery gold font mockingly stared back at her. It teased at the back of her mind, as if she should know what the words said, but she couldn’t understand them. It made even less sense than her Presenting letter, and out of fear of the unknown, she hadn’t spent any more time studying the book.
She placed her finger on the page. “Is this page blank to you?”
Basille visibly shook as he looked at the page. “Yes.” His voice wavered, yet he was rapt with attention.
“And this one?” She turned to the next page.
He nodded.
“All of them?” She ran her hand along the pages and flipped through them.
“Yes, they are all blank.”
“They’re not to me,” she whispered as her eyes rose to stare into his face.
Basille’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and he rubbed his palms against his linen pants, leaving sweat marks behind. He gulped hard, his whole body moving with the effort. His eyes rapidly moved back and forth, but he stared off into the distance, not meeting her gaze.
As if possessed, he jumped up from his seat and began shoving books, knickknacks, and loose ends into random boxes with seemingly no order. “Time for you to go, Affiliate.” He rushed past her and tossed a handful of books into a box.
“What?” She jumped to her feet in surprise. “I don’t understand.”
“Go. Go on. Get out of here.” He grabbed more books and repeated the movements.
“Where are you going? And aren’t you going to help me and answer my questions?”
Basille frantically shook his head. “No, no, no. I can’t get mixed up. I’m sorry. I like you, but I can’t.”
“You can’t answer my questions, or you can’t help me?”
She reached out to try to still him. He flinched away and collided into a towering bookshelf that came toppling down on his head.
The man from the front appeared immediately through the curtain. “Everythin’ okay back ther’?”
“Yes, Gather. Thank you.” Basille hauled himself out of the pile of books. “If you would, please escort Affiliate Cyrene out.”
“Master Selby, you didn’t tell me anything. Who are the Children of the Dawn? What is this book? Why can I see the writing?”
Gather forcefully grabbed her elbow. “Come on. Don’ botha ’im no more.”
“Please.” She pushed against Gather’s meaty arm. “Tell me something, anything!”
Basille suddenly turned to her. “You’ll never find answers here. Go to Eleysia. You must go to the Eleysian capital city and ask for Matilde and Vera. I cannot help you, Cyrene, but they can.”
Cyrene’s breathing was ragged as Gather all but threw her out of the tent with garbled swear words. She stared, starry-eyed, at the closed curtain for a moment, trying to grasp what had happened. Basille had quaked in terror at the mention that she could see the gold lettering, but he had been afraid before she had said anything. Something had been off about him from the beginning.
Did he know someone else who could see the lettering? Could these Matilde and Vera see it? Is that why I must go to Eleysia?
The number of new questions piling up infuriated her enough to almost return and demand answers from him.
Almost.
She couldn’t muscle her way past Gather, and there was no guarantee Basille would be free with information. She should feel lucky she’d gotten as much as she did out of him. He could have already left Byern, and she would have never known that she needed to go to Eleysia or seek out Matilde and Vera.
Perhaps this was the thing she was supposed to find, as described in her Presenting letter. After all, she was searching for something she didn’t know about. Not that having a destination helped her any because her Presenting letter riddle had said that what she was looking for couldn’t be found.
Cyrene retrieved Ceffy and swung up into the saddle. Resigned to the idea that she wasn’t going to get any more answers today, she kicked Ceffy into a trot as she began to formulate a plan.
Cyrene returned to chaos.
Affiliates were rushing around the grounds, clustered in small groups and holding on to each other. One girl was crying into a friend’s shoulder. A group of High Order talked in mournful whispers. The Queen’s DIA, Catalin, was going from group to group with a piece of parchment in her hand.
Cyrene trotted Ceffy to the stables, threw the reins to a man on duty, and then went in search of answers. She hadn’t been gone from court for more than an hour or two. She wondered what she had missed.
As she rounded the corner, Maelia came running straight for her. Maelia threw her arms around her and hugged her tight. “Oh, Cyrene! You’re all right. When you couldn’t be located, we thought…”
Cyrene pulled back and held Maelia at arm’s length. “You thought what? I just went down to the market.”
Maelia’s face paled. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Affiliate Leslin was found dead in the same spot as Zorian. Her face had the same mutilation,” she whispered.
Cyrene’s hands flew to her mouth. Not Leslin! She had gone to look for the librarian today. Leslin had been on holiday, visiting her daughter, and now…she would never return.