Page 53

“Do you know when the ritual started last time?”

“Midnight.” I was glad to be able to confirmsomething. Conversations with this man made me feel particularly dimwitted. “I looked at the time as soon as it was over—it was ten past. The whole thing can’t have lasted more than ten minutes.”

“Well, I say, you will go to the ball, Cinderella. Do nothing unusual at all before. Spend the rest of the week pretending all is well in your world.”

“That’s too dangerous,” Gideon protested. “We can’t use her asbait.”

“No one is going to use Kleos in any way shape or form,” Lucian assured him. “I said, go to the celebration. The actual ball starts at eight, doesn’t it? We’ll leave around eleven. A little early to turn into a pumpkin, but it will give us plenty of time to return here by midnight.”

I lifted my eyes away from Zazel’s fur and back into the depth of those gray eyes. “To your place?”

“Yes, love.” Lucian grinned wickedly. “Specifically, to my dungeons.”

21

LUCIAN

Iexpected protests to follow my suggestion of locking a woman up in my dungeon. Instead, Kleos merely tilted her head while Gideon grinned knowingly, buffoon that he was.

“It’s not as unpleasant as it sounds,” I assured them. “I can give you a tour. But it’s completely shielded from outside interference.”

Putting his teacup back on its saucer, Gideon stood. “Well, I’m glad we have an immediate game plan, as well as an idea of what’s going on. But pass on the tour. Mom’s breathing down my neck about this one—and she doesn’t even know Kleos is involved. I’d better give her an update.”

I wasn’t surprised the Guard was upset. Not that crime was unusual in Highvale; but it generally happened to unders. Two of the three victims had been valers. That wouldn’t do.

“We won’t like your bill, but we need you on this. Can you find us the books, and err—lend them to us once you’ve narrowed it down?” Gideon asked.

I snorted. Yeah, right. My books, delivered to the Guard. “Yes to the first, absolutely no to the second. I’ll copy relevant passages,” I offered.

“Good enough.”

“Hang on,” Kleos said. “I want to help. If you have to look through tons of books to find the relevant one, I want to give you a hand. It’ll be much faster that way, right?”

I shook my head. “They’re in runic, love. Pages and pages of elder and younger futhark, futhorc, the occasional Dalecarlian runes, and some in more obscure witchmarks?—”

She reached from the book I put down when my bridge alerted me to the approach of intruders, and the witch just read. Starting at the top of the page, without a single second of hesitation. She wasn’t translating, or interpreting; there was no pause to show her brain was trying to interpret it.

Each line took me minutes—hours, sometimes.

“Vindsual is the name of him, who begat the winter’s god. Summer from Suasuthur sprang: both shall walk the way of years, till the twilight of the gods.” She flipped through the pages, and continued with another passage. “Hrae-svelger is the name of him who sits beyond the end of heaven, and winnows wide his eagle wings, whence the sweeping blasts have birth.Is that the ‘Lay of Vafthrudni?’”

I blinked several times as she set the book back down.

All right. Enough was enough. “What are you?”

She flushed, but crossed her arms across her front. “Can I help with the research?”

“Help?” I snorted. “Love, you’re going to read it all. I’ll make you snacks.”

It didn’t escape my notice that she had completely ignored my question, so I asked again. “That’s not normal. So, tell me what I’m working with here.”

My general wave in her direction encompassed everything, from her strange presence and her magic, so very different to everyone else, to those strong shields, and now, the ability to read ancient dead languages like they were a simple book of fairy tales.

She shrugged. “A bit of an idiot, actually. I read the wrong book as a kid. It changed me.”

Here it was, an answer to the many questions I’d asked myself since the moment I first saw her at a distance. I should have been contented. She was marked by arcane magic. That was a known occurrence. Instead, I had a billion questions.

Which book? When? What else could she do?