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“He’s a... ah... He came with me.” I kiss her cheek. “I’ll visit again soon.”

She has tears in her eyes as the wagon moves away; I wave until she’s out of sight and when I turn back, Akilah has disappeared and Quin is watching me. The closer I come, the more his eyes glint. “A what? Afriend?”

I scowl and flick my finger at him. “You were not acting your part.”

“You take after her—the blond hair, your eyes, your smile.”

“She has Iskaldir allure.”

“She called me beautiful.”

“I’m sure she was drawn in by your godlike jawline.”

Lucetta flings herself against my side, Akilah chasing after her once again. “Can you come camping with us?”

Akilah catches her breath. “We’ve been planning the trip for weeks.”

I kiss the top of Lucetta’s head. “That sounds like so much fun. I’ll come next time, alright?”

She nods and makes me promise to visit again soon before she dashes off. Akilah embraces me hard. “By the way, how’s our Florentius?”

Florentius! I stiffen. “I may have left him in a canal full of toads.”

She laughs and disappears after Lucetta, and I’m left with Quin and an entire day before us.

Quin, possibly reading the apprehension on my face, raises a brow. “I have people to see at the dance academy. You can explore the market.”

“Cael!”

I twist to see my father crossing the courtyard with three thick books and a sack that smells of sacredbloom. He stops and hesitates before thrusting the sack my way. “You and your aklo can drop this off at the luminarium.”

I groan inside, and nod. “I’ll be on my way.”

I pivot to leave and he clears his throat, halting me. He deposits the books in my arms and I almost drop the purifying sacredbloom. “They’re your grandfather’s. His research.”

I feel the thump of my heart through the books I clutch, like they’re pulsing with life. He kept them?

He steps back abruptly, watching me without so much as a glance in Quin’s direction. After a long moment, he turns and goes back into the house.

I drop my face for a few long breaths against the top of Grandfather’s research.Thank you, Father.

I toss the sacredbloom to Quin, who catches the sack without a word, and wrap the books carefully in cloth so I can carry them on my back when we set off shortly after.

My feet drag as we near the luminarium and after a reluctant bow before it I stop moving. Quin shakes his head with a smirk and barks at me to hurry inside. His borrowed cane snaps behind me, forcing me up the seven steps to the arched entrance. When I cower at the threshold, looking into the empty circular nave, the cane meets my buttocks, pushing me inside.

I rub the offended area and scowl at Quin, who is clearly enjoying himself.

Instinctively, I reach out to tug his hair and pull back sharply, grabbing the sack of sacredbloom from him instead. “Let’s hand this over and head out.”

The snick of his cane on the polished floor echoes as he ventures towards the timber columns holding up the dome. It might not be as impressive as the one in the royal city, but there is plenty of beauty in here. Frescoed walls in good repair, and on a plinth under the dome, where the violet oak stands in the royal luminarium, a tithiscar. Only two luminariums in the kingdom are lucky enough to grow a violet oak; the rest have a coffer carved of the sacred wood—a tithiscar—a spiritual vessel into which the local linea gift magic when paying homage.

Our luminist kneels before that vessel and is summoning magics into it, as he does every morning.

Quin and I respect his space, waiting in a niche across the room. The space holds a bench on which Quin sits with obvious relief. “You’re not happy with your local luminarium?”

“We won’t see eye to eye on this.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before.”