Page 69

“He’s the highest born linea. He must have lived an exceptionally virtuous previous life. He can do no wrong.”

I turn my head to Quin, raising both my brows.

Quin clears his throat. My body lurches trying to hold in a laugh and I hurriedly bow my leave and race out.

Quin follows a minute later, after I’ve let out my belly laugh to bewildered passersby. He looks at me warningly, and my lip quivers. “Let’s go.”

There’s a spring in my step as we move away from the luminarium and into the market. Quin lets me steer him wherever whim takes me. I flash shiny things in front of his face, curious which will capture his interest. He seems to like the wind chimes, and the puzzle cubes. When I get distracted by some newly published vitalian books, he spends considerable time conversing with the owner at a jewellery stall. I peek over my book as he hands over a gold nugget in return for a silky pouch. Something pretty for Veronica, perhaps?

He looks up and I lower my gaze to the neatly inked pages in front of me. I clap the book shut and set it aside, scanning the others on the stand as he nears.

“I’m heading into the academy,” he says.

“Can I visit Skriniaris Evander?”

He hesitates, then hands me his coin purse. “Straight there and straight back. One hour.”

Not three minutes later, I spy Quin at the open window of his room at the academy, overlooking the market. He’s speaking to someone but I can’t see... I look away and refocus.

I find Skriniaris Evander stroking his cat in the sunlight that stretches onto my favourite desk. “Cael! What brings you here?” He looks behind me, as if expecting other company. “You didn’t escape, did you?”

“Would you turn me away if I did?”

He laughs. “Sit. I keep experiencing pins and needles in my feet. What could be causing that?”

I lean in. “Have you given up sweets?”

“Gah!” He wags his finger at me. “You never tell me what I want to hear.”

I grin. “You never listen to what I say.”

I untie Grandfather’s books from my back and peel open the fabric.

Evander scoops Taffy from the table into his arms. “What have you got there?”

“Grandfather’s research.” I look up from the leather-bound books. “You may not agree with it.”

He peers at the title inked onto the outside of the first book. “Wards?”

I nod, swallowing.

He rises and settles Taffy in my arms—the first time he’s ever let me hold her. He reaches behind a plank of wood on a shelf in the far corner and pulls a book out of its dusty cave. “When a large donation came to the library last year, I got this and a few others secretly. No book should ever be banned.”

His words spark a warmth in my chest that reminds me of the moments my grandfather patted my shoulder and told me stories of simple herbs making lives better... saving lives...

I stroke a purring Taffy, each pass of my fingers through her white fluff like the strengthening of an unspoken bond between the three of us.

My fingers pause at a knobble at the base of Taffy’s tail and my voice comes out croaky. “Taffy has an old wound here.”

“Mmm, his majesty found her with a broken tail.”

“His majesty?”

“When he was a young prince.” He grows quiet for a moment, then gives me a wobbly smile. “Constantinos found her, but his father would not let him keep a cat, especially a broken cat. He asked me to take her. That way, he could spend time with her after our lessons.”

I rub behind her ears and smile softly. That’s why he has Generalus for his son. Secretly, he’s a cat person. “Was his father so strict?”

“A complicated man. Perhaps the reason his sons are suffering under their uncle.”