Page 16

THE DIVINATION OF INTANGIBLES

G isele was unwillingly impressed by the size of the man’s catalogue as Malediction stood next to the library’s stained-glass window and opened a filing cabinet. Boxes of index cards slotted into the drawers with all the neatness of a beehive.

She craned her neck to see past his shoulder. “What classification system do you use? The palace still uses Nauday’s, though it’s considered rather old-fashioned now.”

“The Golden Archives’, of course,” he said haughtily, but then his ears drooped and sadness swept over her, the wave ebbing as quickly as it had come.

“Or at least, an approximation of it. They use magic in their catalogues, and I didn’t have enough for that.

Mine is wholly mundane and not as complete as it ought to be.

I, ah, am somewhat behind.” He hurried on as if she might criticise this laxness.

“But we’re looking for one of my earliest acquisitions, which definitely have been catalogued, so it should be in here somewhere.

” He flipped through cards, murmuring labels under his breath.

“I don’t know the Golden Archives’ system,” she admitted.

“You know, gryphons,” he said absently, and her start of surprise clearly transferred itself to him, because his head came up sharply. “Oh. They don’t have those in Mortal?”

“No, they do not,” she said drily. “Are gryphons particularly known for their libraries?”

“Yes?” he said in the tone of someone being asked to confirm whether the sky was blue. “Famous guardians of treasure and secrets? The Shadow Accords on standardisation of cataloguing systems with the bookwyrms? Is this truly not known in Mortal?”

She shook her head in wonder. Gryphons! “We just have crotchety old men as librarians, generally.”

He smiled. “So not too dissimilar.” The smile faded, and again there came that faint echo of sadness not her own.

“You’ve spent a lot of time with them?”

He subtly hunched in on himself. “They raised me.”

She considered her host’s lion-ish tail and cat ears. “Are you a gryphon?”

The question seemed to amuse him. “No, though it’s likely there is a portion of gryph blood in me somewhere.”

“Am I imagining them correctly? Great beasts with the bodies of lions and the wings of an eagle?”

That earned her a dry eyebrow raise. “I recommend you do not refer to any gryphon as a beast within its hearing.”

How, then, did part -gryphon conception work? The mind boggled in terrible ways. It wasn’t a question she could figure out how to ask, so instead she asked how he’d come to live with them.

Again, that aftertaste of sadness not her own. “People give treasures to the gryphon clans sometimes, both to curry favour and for safekeeping. I was given to them as an egg.”

An egg? Of course, she knew Malediction wasn’t human, but still—an egg ? “Your parents?—”

“Were the ones who gave me up, as far as I know.” He didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. “No need for pity—the gryphons loved me as their own. They would have fought to keep me, even if my parents had returned and tried to take me back.”

She sucked in a breath at the unexpected dart.

His eyes widened. “Ah. I meant no offence. Your situation was of course different.”

She crossed her arms. Why had she let her guard down again, given him the ability to hurt her? Had she forgotten who he was, lulled into relaxing by impressive libraries? “Where is your gryphon family now, then?”

“Safe,” he said shortly, turning back to the index cards. The fur of his tail and ears gave him away, refusing to lie flat even though he’d shielded his emotions. She might have felt bad except that it was good to put distance back between them.

Speaking of…She uncrossed her arms. “Look, how do I stop my emotions from crossing to you? It seems unfair if you can block your feelings from this bond but I can’t do the same.”

He cocked his head, his fur slowly settling. “Imagine a door in your mind, leading between us, and then imagine it closing.”

Gisele obediently did so, her imaginary door slamming with great relish. She opened her eyes. “Did it work?”

He blinked. “Perhaps? Try feeling some strong emotion.”

She laughed at the command and then said, “Did you get my amusement?”

He frowned. “I don’t think so. Perhaps it wasn’t strong enough?

But it hasn’t been a constant connection in any case; I’m not sure what counts as a rigorous test. I might have something on psychic bonds.

” He began to shut the cabinet drawer as if to go in search of it, but she put a hand on his wrist to stop him.

A jerk of…of something went through her, and she quickly let go, trying to cover her reaction. “If we find the spell to use on the comb and it works, the psychic connection will presumably resolve itself.”

He blinked, touching two fingers to his wrist where she’d so briefly made contact, his eyes wide.

“Mal?”

He returned to present company with a twitch of his tail. “ Mal ?” he repeated incredulously.

She hadn’t even realised she’d done it. “It’s too much of a mouthful to shout Malediction at you all the time,” she groused. “Don’t take it to mean I’ve softened in any way towards you.”

His mouth curved. “Noted.” Re-focusing himself, he finger-walked his way through index cards. “Divination, right, yes. It’ll be one of these.” He pulled out a box.

“Divination? Like fortune-telling?

Malediction shook his head. “Foresight is only one branch of divination and the least precise. Divination, more generally, is concerned with discovery, the finding of things both physical and intangible.” He handed her half the cards in the box.

“Look for divination of intangibles tagged as a subcategory and also for any keywords involving rituals.”

They spent several hours searching the library, because despite Malediction’s catalogue, it turned out that he owned a lot of books on the divination of intangibles, and he couldn’t remember which one the ritual he’d remembered came from.

For added complexity, half the library wasn’t catalogued at all, which explained his earlier embarrassment.

The uncatalogued books interrupted the system in ways that only Malediction understood, and the whole thing had clearly grown more chaotic over time, the rigid perfection of his initial efforts succumbing to idiosyncrasy and convenience.

It strongly reminded her of how one always began a fresh new notebook with good intentions and one’s neatest handwriting but inevitably lapsed into indecipherable shorthand and absent-minded doodles by the time one was halfway through.

Gisele liked books and libraries well enough, but the glimpses of sunlit garden as she went back and forth in search of titles filled her with increasing restlessness.

It wasn’t the sort of weather conducive to burying oneself in book research.

You can garden as much as you like just as soon as you get this business done with.

Not in this garden, of course, but back at the palace.

It ought not to be such a struggle to focus when the stakes were clear, and yet, it was.

Perhaps it was merely that the library was full of Malediction.

Despite continually visualising locked doors, she couldn’t help but be aware of him, as if she’d grown an entirely new set of senses designed specifically to locate him without using her eyeballs.

He moved among the stacks with—sigh—feline grace.

It had clearly not occurred to him that not everybody had claws or cat-like flexibility, as there were no stepladders to reach the highest shelves and more than once she had to ask his help to retrieve one of the indexed books.

She got up and stretched for a bit before picking her next volume to read, more than an inch thick and bound in red leather.

It was titled Divination in Practice , and what began as only tepid interest turned to excitement as she scanned the first chapter.

She only emerged from her fascination when she felt Malediction draw closer, her skin suddenly sensitive to every stray air current.

The faint scent of his magic curled around her. This damned bond was going to kill her.

“Mal,” she said, ignoring her body’s reaction and pushing the book towards him.

“Why are we looking for a divination ritual rather than a diviner? This book says they’re specialists in finding things, including information, and much more reliable than divination spells.

Then we wouldn’t need more power from either of us. ”

He frowned. “Firstly, diviners are very rare. Secondly, they are usually only gifted in one specific type of divination magic. A name is a specific and powerful thing. It isn’t like losing your keys, which is the sort of tangible object-finding most diviners do.”

“But there are diviners who could find a lost name?”

“Perhaps. Such a diviner would be very powerful and could consequently demand a high price for their services. And…” He trailed off, his tail switching. “I would have to tell them I had lost my name, and if they couldn’t find it, that information could spread. But?—”

Gisele put the book down. “But it’s possible.”

His ears flattened against his skull. “The risk would be very great. If word gets out and I am found here without my name, I cannot protect Skymallow. The wards won’t hold against a focused strike. They rely on no one knowing exactly where I am or what they’re looking for. In any case?—”

“What if the ritual doesn’t work, though, or we can’t find it?

You only suggested it to humour me; you don’t actually think it will work even if we do find it.

” His frozen expression confirmed her suspicion.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to try that first, but I don’t think we should be discarding other options just because you can’t bring yourself to trust anyone out there in the big bad world. ”

His tail lashed. “It’s not a matter of trusting?—”