Page 45

Once inside, we stood opposite each other and neither of us sat.

“What did you wish to speak about?” Ana asked.

I wonder if she could sense my anxiety and eagerness.

I took a breath. “I had a vision this morning,” I said. “From…when I was Yesenia. I saw you, the way you looked two hundred years ago. You knew I was writingThe Book of Dis. I entrusted you to hide it.”

Her brows rose and she blinked, as if she were surprised by what I had told her.

“I…you did ask me to hide the book,” she said.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

“Well, no. You had spelled it. It was blank.”

“So you tried,” I said.

Ana’s mouth hardened. “I feel as though I am being accused.”

“That’s not my intent—”

“What is your intent?”

I sighed, frustrated. “I don’t know,” I said. “I thought perhaps…I had told you more.”

“You never told me why you were writing it, only that it was for you.”

We were silent, and I was frustrated that I had no other lead. Why had I been so intent on writingThe Book of Dis? Of creating a book I had to have known Ravena would eventually steal?

“I feel responsible for this,” I said. “For the damage Ravena has done and will do.”

“You cannot take on this burden, Isolde.”

“I can. I do. I had to haveknown,” I said.

As Yesenia, I had been a seer. I had known enough to predict my own death and leave behind a book of spells that could raise the dead.

Ana was shaking her head. “You once told me there were few truths in the world. I cannot pretend to know what you saw in the future, but I know what guided your decisions, and it was truth, Isolde. You should find Adrian. It is time for court.”

***

I found Adrian waiting for me in the great hall. The doors were still closed, and we were alone. He held out his hand when he saw me but frowned.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said and smiled, though I could tell by Adrian’s expression he did not believe me, so I let my eyes wander to our thrones. I had always assumed they were the same since they were equal in size and dark in color, but now I stared with a far more critical eye. Bones lined the base of his throne, the careful arrangement of ribs looking like intricate woodwork, lacquered in shining black. Longer bones lined the arm supports on either side, and each was topped with a skull.

“You see it now,” Adrian said.

“There are two skulls,” I said. “If one is Dragos, who is the other?”

Adrian’s fingers threaded through mine, and he spoke near my ear.

“His name was Branimir,” he said. “He was my commander.”

I did not remember him.

“Was he horrible to you?”