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Suddenly, I understood why I put up with Gideon’s antics and ended up not entirely hating him after months of it. I was used to the same energy. It took me a long while to draw the parallel, given that they otherwise looked, dressed, and talked nothing alike, but Gideon had a general energy similar to Ronan’s. I was already immune to his brand of insanity.

Oh hell, if these two ever met, I’d need to be on the other side of the planet.

“One, I was equally tired,” I lied. “And two, you still acted like a bunny on crack on day three. You didn’t need it.”

“I can’t believe you can do that. Fuck, Kleos, you’re all awake.” He turned to me. “Some dark wizard you are. You should rebrand yourself as a godsdamned fairy godmother.”

I wordlessly shot him my middle finger.

“Ugh, I am dying of curiosity. And jealousy. Can you do it to me?” Eagerly, Gideon leapt to his feet, offering me his hand, as naively hopeful as a puppy. “I want to know what it feels like!”

I smiled pleasantly. “No.”

8

KLEOS

He was funny. Who in all the realm had allowed someone like that to be funny on top of everything else?

It didn’t seem fair that someone as gorgeous, powerful, talented, wealthy, poised, could top it all off with charm. I blamed Aphrodite. Only she would have seen fit to allow the existence of Lucian Regis.

Watching him bicker with my cousin, putting up with Gideon’s shameless antics, and enjoying pulling his leg as I drank the best tea I’d ever tasted, feeling more awake than I had been for month, was just too much.

During my entire tea break, I itched to close the distance between us once again, put my hands on his skin again. It was a familiar compulsion, one I usually felt around someone unwell. I knew better than to trust it. Lucian was perfectly fine. My perverted, half-obsessed self just wanted to check if his skin really felt as smooth and warm as it seemed. A few brushes of his fingers had not in any way sated my curiosity.

“Get a grip,” I muttered to myself on my way out.

I was not going to allow myself to think about him calling meloveearlier. Or the way he quite simply erased all myexhaustion, my anxiety, my worries, my dark thoughts, in the space of five seconds.

Of course, the worry came back eventually, but for one blissful moment? I was just…good.Great. I would have compared being on the receiving end of his energy to an orgasm if it was sexual at all. The sheer pleasure was innocent, but no less overwhelming.

Back in the archives, it was hard to hold on to the sliver of happiness as I yet again hit a dead end in my research.

“Out late again?” Deborah asked as she passed in front of my cubicle.

“Oh, hi. Yes—” I cleared my throat.

I only was in the archives for four hours a day—the rest of my time were spent in trainee business up on the ground floor of the Guard. I had the exact same training regimen as Silver, and our aptitudes in each field would determine our final placements.

In the archives, there were tons of options. I could end up in the armory, or the research department, which assessed each case’s findings, the less-than-glamorous but certainly useful cataloging department, the library, or the museum, located on the ground floor of the Hall of Truce, but no less a part of the archives system.

I was hoping for the library, and that was Deb’s current position. She’d caught my interest, and was helping where she could.

I wondered if I could get a hand with this after all. I had no intention to share the details about my runes to anyone, but there was something Deb could tell me.

“It’s for a personal project, actually. I have a question, if I’m not bothering you?”

“Always.” She smiled kindly. “I was just heading out, so perfect timing for personal projects. Shoot.”

I struggled to find how to word my problem. I had too many questions, and they couldn’t be asked without some confessions first. “When I was young, I used to come to the Hall of Truce with my father sometimes. When he had to pick up a file from work, or be at a meeting.”

She nodded, unsurprised. Leander Valesco had been high magister for almost fifteen years, elected three times in a row. It was expected that his kid would have spent a fair bit of time in the building housing offices of the council, magister, and senate.

“I used to head down to the library, and I remember an old man,” I said quietly.

I had to take a moment, as the memory of the kindly old man always reading in the same corner, his worn yet handsome face pensive, never failed to bring back the horrific stench of burning flesh, the terrible sensation of being set ablaze from the inside out.

The only time I’d truly been in pain, until last week.