Page 9 of A City of Hearts and Feathers (The Order of Anubis #1)

CHAPTER NINE

H alf an hour later, Zoe and Kahil were on the street and wandering back to the bookstore. She decided she needed to find an empty notebook to start writing down all the questions she had in it. Arslan had told her to return to the Order at any time, and Kerem promised to be checking in.

"I told you they would act like overprotective, old aunties once you met them properly," Kahil said.

"It's kind of nice to be honest. My mom did her best, but I've never had any adults in my life that actually acted like I needed to be protected," Zoe replied.

"That's kind of sad. What about friends?" he asked.

Zoe didn't know why he wanted to know, but she still shrugged. "I have people and colleagues in academia that I know and occasionally catch up with. After I broke up with my last boyfriend, I lost most of my friends."

"Why? Were they his friends?"

Zoe swallowed hard. "A lot of them thought I was in the wrong for wanting to leave him. They didn't see what an emotionally manipulative prick he was behind closed doors. When he came home one day and declared we had to get married, I broke up with him. He was furious and did as much damage as he could before he left."

"And what was his name?" Kahil asked. It was innocent enough, but there was an edge to his voice that he hadn't had a moment before.

"What does it matter?"

"I'm practically immortal. I have the time to make him a special project," he replied, completely serious.

Zoe rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Thanks, but he's been taken care of. I am a big girl. He's already got another fiancée, who he believes could love him the way he wanted. According to him, I loved books more than people, and he was probably right."

Kahil clicked his tongue. "Sounds to me like you've been around the wrong people."

"I don't know about that. I've never had that 'I love you so much, I would die for you' feeling. I think it's only in books," she replied with a small sigh.

"Ah, my sweet, naive Zoe. It exists."

"In fairytales perhaps…" Zoe stopped walking as a lightning bolt of memory struck her. Oman sitting in his office with a book of fairytales open and reading them aloud to her.

"Zoe? What's wrong?" Kahil asked, moving her gently out of the way of the pedestrians.

"The message from my father, 'Princess or prince, which was more lovely?'" she said, rubbing at the back of her neck. "I think it was part of a fairytale he was reading to me in his office."

"Okay, so let's go check it out and see if the book is still there," Kahil replied.

Zoe followed him, only half paying attention to her surroundings. Oman had always been reading her stories, and many of them had princes and princesses. Something niggled at her, a story about a competition and arguing djinn?

Zoe looked up, and they were once again standing in front of the shop. She opened the door and walked in. Kahil followed her, and it wasn't until she was halfway through the shop that she turned and realized he was still with her.

"Hey! I thought you couldn't get in," she said, taking an extra step back from him.

"Oh, no." Kahil smiled wickedly. "You should have had a closer look at that contract, balim. I swore to be your bodyguard, which means protecting you with my life. The wards let me through because they know I'm magically bound to protect you."

Zoe rubbed at her temples. "I did read the contract. I just didn't realize it was also magical."

"Don't look so worried. It means I couldn't harm you even if I wanted to. Think of it as…forced trust? You know I can't hurt or betray you."

A cheeky thought occurred to Zoe, so she looked up at him and asked, "So what you are saying is that I'm your boss?"

"You wish," Kahil said and flicked her nose playfully. She batted his hand away. "The office is through here, yes?"

Zoe nodded and let him take the lead. She hadn't been into the office since she had returned. She hadn't had a chance to study the titles on the shelves either.

Kahil opened the door to the office and went in, leaving Zoe outside of it. She peered in at the carved wooden desk, the pictures on the walls, the bust of Plato on the bookshelf. The air smelled of Oman's spicy aftershave, ink, and book dust. There was no sign of his body or the pool of blood she had found him in, but she could suddenly smell the iron and death again. The confusion and fear that had washed over her that night hit like an invisible slap.

Zoe's hand clutched the doorframe, all her breath knocked out of her lungs. Kahil turned and caught her as she began to topple.

"I got you. Breathe, Zoe. You're okay," he said, pulling her back to his chest as they sank to the carpet. He placed a tattooed hand on her chest, the other around her waist to steady her. Her heart was pounding in her ears, vision going blurry. "Shhh, you're okay. Feel my heartbeat. Focus on it for me."

Zoe fought the panic attack to focus on his warmth and found the heart pounding against her back.

"There we go. Breathe with me now," Kahil said, taking a deep breath. Zoe forced herself to follow his instructions, matching the long inhales and exhales. "You're safe. You're safe. There's nothing in here that will harm you."

Zoe's vision began to clear, and she kept breathing slow and deep. There was no blood on the carpets or the body of her father. The man with the tattooed hands was now comforting her instead of starring in her nightmares.

"I'm… I'm okay," she said as her heart rate evened out and the dizziness passed.

Kahil brushed his fingers over her cheek. "You haven't been in here since that night, have you?"

Zoe shook her head. "I couldn't bring myself to do it yesterday. I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing? I should have known better. You want to wait outside? I can look for fairytale books. It won't take me long," he offered.

Zoe nodded, and he slowly helped her up. Kahil made sure she was sitting on one of the couches in the shop's front before he disappeared back into the office.

Zoe put her head in her hands, her face burning. She was embarrassed and felt like crying. She had to get over the memories, find some way to move through them, if she was going to have any luck finding the missing codex.

Kahil appeared ten minutes later. "I didn't find any fairytale books, but I did find his organizer. There might be some clues as to who he was meeting with in the weeks before his death."

"You guys didn't investigate that?" Zoe asked, taking the thick leather journal from him. It was so stuffed that it barely shut. How many times had she watched her father jotting down notes into it? It had been his bible.

"We were thrown out of the shop as soon as the wards activated, Zoe. We did look into who could have killed him, but your mother wouldn't let us back inside. She said there was no point because Oman was already dead and it didn't change anything," Kahil replied. He dragged the top part of his hair back and tied it into a knot. "It doesn't matter. We can investigate it now while we hunt for the codex because I can guarantee whoever killed him would've been someone trying to force him to sell it. Let's look upstairs. Maybe the fairytales book is in your bedroom?"

Zoe clutched the organizer to her chest and followed him up the stairs to the apartment.

"You want me to look? Or will you be okay?" Kahil asked, pausing by her bedroom door.

"I will come with you. It hurts, but I need… I need to face this," she replied, straightening her shoulders.

Kahil nodded, wise enough to not argue with her about it. "Let me know if it becomes too much."

Zoe softened a little at that. Unlike her ex, he wasn't telling her to suck it up or act like it didn't still hurt. It made her like Kahil that little bit more.

"Okay, no making fun of ten-year-old Zoe's bedroom," she said, trying to lighten the mood.

"I'm not going to promise that," he replied and opened the door.

Zoe's eyes burned, but she forced herself to walk into the bedroom. "As you can tell, I had a thing for moon and stars." Not only was the bedspread covered in dark blue and yellow constellations, but Oman had painted them on the roof for her as well.

"I don't know why I expected rainbows and dollies," Kahil said, looking about.

Zoe laughed. "I was more of a books kid than a dolls one." She went over to the bookshelf and looked at the titles. Memories were bombarding her as she ran her fingers over the pictures on the book spines.

"I've been trying to remember the story about the prince and the princess. I'm positive there were djinn in it too," she said, staring up at the higher volumes. They were the ones that only her parents would get down for her. A thick brown spine caught her attention. It was a children's copy of A Thousand and One Nights.

"I think that's it! I remember now. There's a story in there about a Chinese princess and an Arabian prince, and there are djinn that are obsessed with them. They get into a competition about which ones are more beautiful," Zoe said and went up on tiptoes to try and pull it out.

"Let me get it. I don't need you braining yourself with a book this heavy falling on your head." Kahil came up behind her and got it down for her. Her pulse jumped as he brushed against her before handing the volume over.

"Thanks," she said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She opened the book and let out a small squeak of surprise. The middle of the pages had been cut out, and inside the hole was something wrapped in silk.

"Oman, you sneaky bastard," Kahil whistled and sat down beside her.

Zoe unwrapped the silk to reveal part of a burgundy leather cover. She stared at the papyrus pages inside of it.

Dazed, she said to Kahil, "I'm going to need to wash my hands."