Page 16 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Eliza determined to stay silent for the day. She had no reason to make small talk with a shapeshifter. Yet they hadn’t even reached their destination before she found herself saying, “I’ve never seen a building like this.”

She and Silas had climbed several flights of stairs in the Yamakaz, and she looked up from the landing at a dome, sunlight sparkling through the windows. The inside curve of the ceiling displayed colored murals with physical depth—sculpting and painting hand in hand.

Silas flicked his gaze toward the dome but kept walking, following a curved line of doors. “That’s because it was built by Stone Casters.”

Of course it was.

He went on, unprompted, like a tutor in lecture mode.

“Most of the advancements in Pravusat are courtesy of its freedom for magic. The few scholars who bother dedicating any interest toward Loegria theorize that the island is a full age behind the rest of the world, trapped in a state without enlightenment. Unless we see a major revolution, the schism will only grow.”

“I experienced the attempted Caster revolution,” Eliza returned hotly. “All it did was hurt.”

It hurt still. The cursed sliver in her soul that never quite faded from her awareness, the quiet fear that, at any moment, she’d realize she wasn’t acting as she should. Wasn’t acting as herself.

“Change always hurts, Highness. It’s growing pains.”

He waved her to a halt in front of a door, then pulled a set of metal picks from his belt and crouched to begin working them in the lock.

Eliza gasped. “Your livelihood is thievery?”

He gave a quiet laugh, never lifting his eyes. “I have a key. But being able to enter a door without one is a good skill, and, deprived of practice, good skills fade.”

With a twist of the knob, the door swung inward, and he smirked up at her.

It was charming, in a roguish way, but she would have died before telling him as much. She stepped past him into the opened room.

Only to immediately retreat, pressing one hand to her nose.

“Ugh.” She made a dry retch, eyes watering. “Are you sure this is an office? It’s not an uncleaned washroom?”

Even Silas wrinkled his nose. “That’s snake musk. Hold on.”

He entered the room, head cocked as if listening to something. After a moment, he lowered himself to his stomach in front of a set of shelves, extending his hand into the shadows beneath.

Eliza tensed, expecting him to be bitten by an unseen viper. She should have remembered who he was.

What he was.

He withdrew his hand, and a thin white snake had threaded itself through his fingers and around his wrist. It flicked its tongue rapidly, head swinging back and forth, looking for something to bite.

Eliza inched backward.

“You’re safe,” Silas cooed, not to her but to the snake, as if the creature were something innocent and cuddly.

He turned his hand, evaluating the reptile, not seeming to care how close its swinging head came to his eyes.

“An albino—and a young one. No wonder he’s helping you.

Get into some trouble?” After a moment’s pause, he nodded. “Well, you’re lucky you weren’t eaten.”

He was talking to a snake.

She remembered witnessing him in the library, talking to the python. She’d ignored the sign of a shapeshifter, attributing it instead to Pravusat’s love of snakes.

How dearly she’d paid for that mistake.

Eliza backed up until she reached the end of her invisible tether, which, unfortunately, tugged on the bracelet. Silas’s arm rose in her direction, the snake along with it, and both of them fixed their cold eyes on her.

“Relax, apta. If Tulip can’t swallow you, this one definitely can’t.”

“It could poison me,” Eliza rasped.

“Most snakes aren’t venomous.” Silas raised his eyebrows. “Even Tulip.”

“It has fangs!”

“You have teeth as well, Highness, and somehow, I think you’re more inclined to bite me than she is. Should I be concerned about your venom?”

As if Eliza were the danger here.

All the same, heat rose in her neck, and she folded her arms across her chest, ignoring his smug expression.

He took the snake to a back corner of the office, forcing Eliza to follow him, pulled by her bracelet.

Then he cleaned whatever had caused the assaultive odor, opened a window, and lit a stick of incense on the room’s desk.

Under the calming fragrance of sandalwood, and with both snakes on the other side of the room, Eliza finally had a chance to survey the office.

The two windows let in a good amount of natural light, and the desk held an oil lamp for evenings.

There were more shelves than she’d seen in Yvette’s office but with fewer books and more creepy bottles of substances she wasn’t sure she wanted to evaluate closely.

When Silas moved, she kept him in the corner of her eye while pretending to study some kind of hooked stick hanging between shelves.

He picked up a sheet of parchment from the desk, lips pursed as he read, and when he turned it briefly to look at the empty back, she could see the front looked like a written list.

Curiosity tickled her throat. She cleared it.

“Settle in, apta,” he said without looking up. “These’ll take me a while.”

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“Not bother me,” he shot back. “Otherwise, it’ll take longer.”

Easier said than done. Eliza had never been a skilled manager of boredom, and it was more dangerous now than ever.

If she didn’t keep moving, she might drown.

“Maybe I could help,” she offered begrudgingly.

He squinted at her. “You want to handle snake bones?”

When she blanched, he snorted. Setting the list down, he came over to a nearby shelf.

“Here.” He plucked a book, extending it. “Pravish dictionary. I saw you writing words this morning.”

With a sigh, she took the dictionary and seated herself on a cushion in the corner opposite from the white snake, who’d settled into a little area of branches and rocks clearly meant for vacationing such creatures.

Silas gathered materials from the shelves, and she shivered, picturing bones and everything else. With effort, she forced herself to focus on the pages before her.

Only to realize she couldn’t read them.

“Useless Cast.” Eliza glared down at her bracelet. “If it makes me understand Pravish, why can’t I read it?”

“People can understand a spoken language and still be illiterate,” Silas said offhandedly. He spread his chosen materials across the desk and took a seat. “Sound it out. Pravish uses the same alphabet Loegrian does, minus a few letters, like x.”

Tipping a bottle, he emptied a collection of what looked like small rib bones into his hand, carefully counting out a dozen at a time, which he then bound with thread, as if preparing a bundle of kindling for a fire.

His side glance made Eliza’s cheeks burn, and she looked down at the dictionary’s first page.

“Abajur,” she said slowly, feeling silly. It meant nothing to her.

“Softer j sound,” said Silas. “Abajur.”

As soon as he said it, she understood. Lantern.

She glared down at her bracelet once more. For all the things magic could do, it certainly didn’t like to be straightforward in them.

“Abakar,” she tried next.

“The tip of your tongue should flick your palate on the r.”

Eliza glared at him. “Are you going to do this with every word?”

“Depends.” His side glance was now decidedly taunting. “Are you going to get every word wrong?”

“Ha!” She smacked her finger into the page. “This one’s the same as Loegrian. Abide.”

He winced as if she’d caused him physical pain. “Same letters. Different pronunciation and meaning. Abide. Ah-bee-day.”

As soon as he said it, she understood. Memorial.

“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So obvious.” She huffed. “They should have different letters so it’s not confusing.”

He mimicked her sarcastic tone. “Of course. How thoughtless of Pravish not to consider the Loegrian princess’s confusion when developing its language.”

Despite herself, she laughed, noticing the way Silas flashed a quick smile when she did.

“Give me your magic writing thing,” she said, extending her hand.

He pursed his lips. Then, after a moment, he rifled through his bag, extracting the writing instrument. He brought it over but pulled back as she reached for it. “Be careful. If it breaks, it’ll ruin books and clothing alike.”

“I know the dangers of an inkpot,” she said, stretching for it again.

He held it just out of reach. “It’s a palem.”

Eliza frowned, because for the first time, the word didn’t come with an understanding of what it meant.

Silas grinned, as if she’d given the exact reaction he’d hoped for.

“I was curious about that one. There’s no Loegrian equivalent, since we haven’t embraced this advancement.

I wondered if the Cast communicated in ideas and images, like an Affiliate bond, or in words, like a translator. Seems it truly is a translation Cast.”

“Are you actually enjoying the magic that’s stuck us together?”

“What I enjoy is any opportunity to learn something new.” He handed her the instrument at last. “I call it a pen. ‘Quill’ has no verb form, so we sometimes say we ‘pen’ a letter. ‘Pen’ derives from the archaic ‘penna,’ or feather. It seems only right it gets to be a noun again.”

Eliza stared at him in a way that seemed to drain his enjoyment. As the smile left his face and he slid his hands into his pockets, she felt a pang of guilt, which was foolish. Why should she care about killing a shapeshifter’s mood?

Unless he killed her in return.

“Say it again. The Pravish.”

He’d turned away, but he glanced back. “Palem.”

And she understood: pen.

There was a little wonder in that.

“I hear it now,” she said. “So I guess we both learned something new.”

He didn’t say anything in response, just tilted his head like he was evaluating her in a new way. A few strands of hair fell into his eyes, giving him that roguish look again. Eliza shifted.

Before she could tell him to go back to his snake bones, a figure appeared in the doorway. The newcomer was a well-dressed man in his late thirties, and by the confidence with which he entered, this was clearly his office.

“Good, you’re here,” he said, sparing Silas a quick glance before setting his bag on the desk and unpacking a few books. “Any trouble with the Artifacts? Some of my snakeskin might be too aged to hold the magic.”

Eliza clutched the dictionary to her chest, unsure if she should rise or not. The professor hadn’t noticed her yet.

“I haven’t finished the bones.” Silas rubbed the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed.

He’d told her not to distract him. Of course, he’d also told her to read a dictionary out loud and then insisted on correcting every word.

The professor waved him off as if it didn’t matter. He left his bag and moved to the snake den in the corner, bending slightly to evaluate the white snake. The serpent lifted its head and flicked its tongue once.

“Ether’s calmed down, I see.” Wrapping one finger around the snake’s tail, the man lifted his wire spectacles to peer closely at the scales. “She’s a ribbon snake—can you believe that? Can’t even see her stripes. I’ve never found a true albino before.”

“She told me about some trouble with a hawk,” Silas said.

“Yes, excellent luck on this one. By rights, she should have been dead before I found her.” The professor suddenly looked over, locking eyes with Eliza as if he’d been tracking her gaze the entire time. “Would your friend like to hold her? Ether might abide it with two Affiliates here.”

At the professor’s sudden attention and offer, Eliza blushed, jaw flapping uselessly.

“She’s terrified of snakes,” Silas deadpanned.

He was right, and yet, hearing it from him set her teeth on edge.

Silas Bennett didn’t get to speak for her.

With clenched fists, she climbed to her feet, nearly tripping as the cushion slid beneath her.

Out of habit, she dipped a curtsy, remembering too late that she wasn’t in Loegria anymore, and Pravish people only bowed.

“I’m Eliza,” she said.

The professor looked at Silas with a raised eyebrow, but when Silas responded, it was directed at Eliza. “He only speaks Pravish, so now’s your chance to practice.”

With feigned confidence, she repeated her introduction in Pravish.

“Kerem Aytac,” the man said in return, bowing slightly. He adjusted his round spectacles. “A fear of snakes raises questions about your choice of company.”

If it hadn’t already been obvious that he knew about Silas’s condition, it was now.

How could he be so calm? Yvette had been the same way, lecturing a shapeshifter like he was just another student, even threatening him.

As if she wasn’t at all scared about what kind of dark magic she might receive in return.

“There are, after all, three snakes in this office.” Kerem pointed at Silas, Ether, and himself.

Even though the Cast provided a translation of every word, Eliza’s comprehension lagged. By the time she understood, the professor had already moved back to his desk.

She gaped at Silas. “He’s a . . . you’re both . . .”

His return expression was hard, nothing like the relaxed enjoyment he’d shown while inventing new words.

“Get used to it, Highness. Out here, we’re allowed to exist.”

He joined Kerem at the desk, and Eliza found herself with no better option than to return to her cushion. Since she still had Silas’s pen, she attempted to write the new words she’d learned on the parchment tucked in her sonnet book, but her hands were trembling.

She set the pen aside and read. Her mind tried to bring up issues of shapeshifters—or even her morning conversation with Silas, when he’d claimed the author of her sonnets had called love “unstable”—but she forced all concerns aside, burying them beneath familiar, comforting words.

Even if the author himself denounced what he’d written, Eliza never would. She felt the truth of it every time she read her favorite sonnet.

Love, my crown, most precious gems within its settings gold;

Patience abiding, unceasing hope, and mine endurance bold.

Love, my armor, gleaming steel, the guard above mine heart;

To pointed axe and hardened falchion, ne’er will it part.

Love, my sword, a sharper blade will ne’erwhere be found;

Which severs lies, defends the truth, and holds me honor bound.

Love, my cup, and to it raised;

Drink deeply now and all my days.

For with thy love, a king I’ll be;

And with my love, all’s well with me.

Somewhere in the city, Henry was struggling just as she was, surrounded by magic and unfamiliar customs.

She could only hope he’d encountered fewer snakes.