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“Tobyas.”

He let out a dramatic sigh. “I don’t know,maybe,” he answered, his response entirely unhelpful. His eyes remained on the street as he pointed to the woman with the feathered collar. “That woman isrich.”

I narrowed my eyes in the woman’s direction. “How do you know?”

“Those are ciakoo feathers. Do you know how rare a ciakoo is?”

“No.”

He shimmied off the bench, disappearing through the doorway for only a moment before returning with a monstrous book,The Fauna of Astran. “Look,” he urged, placing the book in my lap and pointing at a page.

There was a sketch of a ciakoo mid-flight, its outstretched wings as pitch black as the rest of its body. “Its feathers look black until you see them in the light. Then they’re blue and violet and green,” he explained, climbing back into the seat next to me. Tobyas leaned over the book, his finger trailing beneath the words on the page. “Ciakoos are very rare on the continent of Astran. The bird is said to be a good omen. Overhunting by people in pursuit of good fortune has reduced the ciakoo’s numbers dr…dra–”

“Drastically,” I offered.

“I would’ve gotten it!” Tobyas whined. I knew he would have. He always did. Even though we learned later than most, Tobyas and I were good at reading. Aunt Berna had made sure of it. I didn’t like to read very much, but Tobyas burned through books like wildfire. Fables, geography, history, the lore of the Saints… He loved it all. Aunt Berna was always bringing home new books for him to read. His room was like a library.

Tobyas turned his eyes back to the page. “The lore of the Saints says that the ciakoo is actually Rhedros, Keeper of the Blood Saints, taking the form of a bird to search the land for his great lost love.” Tobyas wrinkled his nose.

“His great lost love?”

He let out a heave of a sigh, gathering the book into his arms before slipping through the doorway again. A moment later, he reappeared with another massive book cradled to his chest.The Complete Lore of the Saints: Legends, Myths, & Truths.

The book fell open and he pawed through the pages. I had no idea how he remembered what information was in what book, but I stared as he flipped to the exact page he was searching for.The Great Lost Love of Rhedros.

Tobyas let his finger hit the page. “It is said that the reason behind the fury of Rhedros is the loss of his life’s greatest love. Rhedros was born to two of the Forgotten Saints and was placed in this realm as a force of good.”

I narrowed my eyes. Rhedros was the Keeper of all things evil — death, storms, Hell, war, and pain. It made no sense that he would be good.

Tobyas let out another heavy sigh at my confused expression, as if my ignorance greatly inconvenienced him. “If you actually read it, you’d understand.” He gripped the book and shook it for emphasis.

“Give me a summary.”

He rolled his eyes before flipping to a section closer to the front of the book. “The Forgotten Saints were the world’s first governing force. They ruled over everything the way the Benevolent and Blood Saints do now. All forces in the Old World were balanced, but when the Occulti grew too numerous, the Forgotten Saints were forced to burn the Old World to ash to start anew, themselves included, but not before planting a seed of good in the New World.

“They placed a child called Rhedros among the ruins of the Old World, hoping to set the New World on a path to righteousness. Rhedros matured and began making plans for more forces of good, but he quickly sensed that a balance remained in the world that could only be caused by an evil pr…propor…proportionate to his benevolence.” I felt Tobyas’ satisfaction through my daze. “He quickly found that forces of evil had slipped past the defenses of the Forgotten Saints to leave a child born of fury and hatred, a child called Katia.”

“The Occulti? What’s that? And Katia was evil? So why–”

“I don’t know, Cal.” His eyes flipped back to the page as he gave a shrug.

“There’s nothingin there that explains why?”

Tobyas slammed the book closed. “Read it and find out.”

I huffed in frustration, but I wanted to know more. “Can I borrow the book?”

“Under one condition.”

“You want my dessert.”

I was met by a cheeky grin. “You saw he brought chocolate pastries. My favorite.”

I let out a sigh. “You can have one bite.”

“Two.”

“Deal. And normal-sized bites, not giant bites.” He plopped the book in my lap, the weight daunting but promising.