Page 21 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

After enduring a second day of Silas’s work and projects, the searched again.

Only to discover nothing.

Have faith, Eliza ordered herself. Hope. Endurance. Every motivating word and sonnet she could think of.

But no inn claimed any Loegrian guests, not even one who had stayed for a night and moved on. No alehouse could remember a foreigner of his description coming in to seek a meal. It seemed no one in Izili had seen Henry.

It seemed he’d walked off the face of the world.

She hated being out in the city, because it wasn’t just Henry in need.

There were beggars in the street she couldn’t feed and thieving children dragged off by the kuveti to some unknown, terrible fate.

Everyone turned a blind eye, just as they had when Eliza had been cornered by snakes.

Aria’s heart would have shattered to see such a lack of compassion, and Eliza could at least take comfort knowing Loegria’s queen would never allow such things.

Eliza wrote her sister a letter, but it only made her feel worse. Because instead of saying, I’m with Henry, she could only say, I’m determined to find him.

And her determination felt less adequate each day.

She never got to claim her own belongings from the inn. Silas informed her that abandoned possessions in Pravish inns were bartered away. Because everything was rotten in this rotten country.

He suggested she buy new clothes in the market, but Eliza had neither money nor time for that.

With each search, she pushed their pace faster and faster and made more outlandish demands of who to interrogate. She ignored Silas’s protests. If he so much as breathed the words slow down, she glared daggers at him.

And she still slept with her real dagger, although she did sleep. The exhaustion was too severe not to.

On Silas’s days, if Kerem didn’t need his help, he spent most of his time in the library, doing research of his own. In the first week, he’d already filled half a journal with notes—though, based on his frustration, they weren’t very successful notes.

“What are you hoping to find?” Eliza finally asked.

“Hoping to prove,” he corrected, then said, “The unprovable.”

She almost made a quip about how he’d called her quest impossible, but it died in her throat. Because she still hadn’t found Henry.

She was starting to fear—truly fear—that she never would.

The storm inside was growing, and Eliza was fighting desperately to hold her ship together. Silas suggested that Henry might have gone to another city in Pravusat or left the country entirely, and Eliza’s frustration snapped at him to mind his own business.

“You don’t care about Henry anyway,” she snarled.

He didn’t argue, just returned to his never-ending stacks of books.

She found she couldn’t watch another minute of him seated calmly at a table, taking notes with all the leisure in the world while her legs physically ached to start the next search.

So she dove into the shelves, searching for a book of her own.

It was foolish; she couldn’t hope for a book titled Exact Directions on Solving Your Problems. Had it existed, it would have already been checked out, with a waiting list made up of everyone else in the world.

Her body halted as if an invisible hand had grabbed her wrist. She glared down at her bracelet.

“Forgot, didn’t you?” Silas called out from the table, sounding entirely too smug. He was certainly a snake, because only a creature with an eye in the side of his head could have been watching her while keeping his nose in his book.

“No,” she said stubbornly. “I found what I was looking for.”

She snatched a book off the shelf and brought it to his table. She examined the blue linen cover before carefully opening the pages. The illustrations were breathtaking, but, of course, she couldn’t read a word.

This had been a stupid idea. Just like all her others.

With a curious gleam in his eyes, Silas shifted in his chair, peering over the table at her chosen book. Then he laughed.

“What’s funny?” Eliza asked crossly.

“You’re not missing anything.”

“You’ve read every book in the library, have you?”

“Nearly.”

Half of her wanted to throw the book at his head. The other half went ahead and recklessly said, “Well, I don’t need an interpretation. I can tell this story just from the pictures.”

“Oh, do tell.”

She couldn’t discern if he was mocking or challenging. Either way, she snapped the book open to the first illustration and threw herself into the story with dedication.

“In a far distant land”—all her favorite stories began “In a far distant land”—“a group of pixies danced beneath the moon.”

“Well, you have the beginning correct,” Silas said, writing as he spoke.

“Don’t interrupt me. I’m reading.” Eliza turned to the next illustration. “A pair of humans stumbled into the pixies’ revelry. ‘Terribly sorry!’ they said. The pixies, of course, forgave the honest mistake and invited the beautiful couple to dance along with them.”

Silas scoffed, but Eliza ignored him, flipping to the next vivid painting.

“The revelry was so great that they danced all night and fell asleep by morning. The woman woke alone, and she panicked, unable to find her beloved. She begged every pixie for help, asking if they’d seen him.”

Eliza swallowed heavily, regretting the direction her mind had taken the story, although there wasn’t much else she could have said for the illustration of the lonely, crying woman. She almost closed the book.

But if she stopped now, the lovers would remain separated, so she continued. “Together, they all scoured the forest.”

After glancing at the next illustration, she swept past it, but Silas’s voice halted her.

“You skipped one.”

Since she’d been caught, she forced herself to incorporate the strange donkey on the page. “Then the woman met . . . an enchanted donkey? He said he knew where to find her beloved. She was so overwhelmed by gratitude, she cried, thanking the kind donkey.”

Smiling, Eliza turned to the next illustration. “She ran with haste to the meadow he’d told her about, where she found her beloved, wandering in a daze. The lovers were reunited once more, never to be parted again.”

Just as a story should end, she thought. Her fingers trembled slightly at the edge of the page.

Then Silas said, “There’s one more.” He didn’t even glance up as he spoke, too busy reading lines in his own book and making notes.

“How do you know this?” she grumbled.

Eliza turned to the final illustration, and stared.

“Um . . . the donkey watched from afar,” she finally said. “He was overwhelmed with joyful tears for the couple’s reunion and pleased he was able to help it happen.”

She closed the book decisively, and before she could think better of it, she said, “See? Even an enchanted donkey wants to help other people reunite with their loves. And he’s more helpful in the search than you’ve been.”

Silas chuckled, but it was a dark, low sound, hardly amused. He made a final, decisive note, the scratch of his pen sharp. Then he reached out and flipped her book over, beginning again at the first illustration.

“In a far distant land,” he said, “a group of pixies danced beneath the moon. It was the advent of the lunar year, the most precious and sacred holiday in their tradition, and every pixie in the forest came to celebrate together, from the oldest whose wings no longer fluttered to the newest-born, barely the size of sunflower seeds nestled in their mothers’ arms.”

Eliza meant to cut him off, but she couldn’t—not when his words flowed like a river, sweeping her along despite her resistance.

He turned to the next painting, his voice unfolding the story with it.

“Yet before the moon even crested, a pair of intruders disrupted the celebration.

The human couple had been married just that evening, and they demanded the pixies bless their new union.

Though the humans were rude and arrogant, they were met with gracious hosts, and in the spirit of the sacred occasion, the pixies welcomed the invaders to their celebration, with only one stipulation.

“‘You may dance with us beneath the advent moon, and we will bestow upon you a blessing of fortune. But you must not drink any of our wine.’

“The couple scoffed about how anyone could drink from such tiny acorn-shell cups, and they gave their word to abide this rule. However, the man found himself drawn to the wine. The heady and floral scent permeated the air, intoxicating even in fragrance. While his new wife wasn’t looking, he drank a single acorn-cup of it, rationalizing that such a small amount could not hurt anyone. ”

Eliza fixed her eyes on the fair-haired man in the illustration, scowling and wishing she could shout at him through the ink.

Silas turned to the next illustration. “The bride woke alone in the forest, and no matter how she searched, she could not find her husband.

She blamed the pixies for hiding him and demanded they return him at once, but the pixies only shook their heads.

In silence, they mourned tragedy on a sacred day.

“The woman ran through the forest, shouting her husband’s name, until, at last, she collapsed beside a hideous donkey.

To her shock, the donkey spoke to her in her husband’s voice.

He wept his regret and sorrow, confessing, ‘I drank the wine after I was warned. I brought this tragedy on myself. But the pixies have told me that a kiss from my beloved will free me once more. I am deeply sorry for my mistake, and I will never break another vow. Only give me the chance to prove it.’

“But the wife fled, screaming at the hideous creature to be gone. She would neither kiss nor be married to such a beast. She wished only for the handsome man she had married.”

“She left?” Eliza gasped.

Silas continued without pause. “Barreling into a meadow, the wife found the image of her husband.

It was only a ghost, unable to even speak, and an elder pixie warned her it was a trick of magic.

If she returned to the donkey, she could save her beloved, but if she chose the illusion, her husband would be forever cursed.

“‘My husband is here,’ said the woman, embracing the illusion.

“From a distance, the donkey watched, and he wept.”

Silas closed the book.

Eliza glared at him.

“What?” he finally asked. “That’s the real story. The Advent Moon.”

“Mine was better,” she said.

“Yours was senseless. Everyone helped each other, and everyone ended up happy. When have you ever known that to happen in real life?”

“It could,” insisted Eliza, but her heart ached. More quietly, she said, “It should.”

“Besides, your version was as inconsiderate as the couple’s intrusion on the pixies.”

She gaped. “How do you mean?”

“Your version ignored the husband’s suffering. The real story honors it.”

“I think he would have preferred not to suffer!”

“But he did.” Silas tapped the book. “It’s right there on the page. The least we can do is not look away.”

Seizing the book, Eliza held it to her chest, as if she could protect fictional characters from a real threat. “How dare you. You ignored my plight and Henry’s. Every time we’re in the city, you walk past the beggars and the starving people along with everyone else. You don’t care about suffering!”

Silas shot back, too quickly to be anything but defensive. “The real question isn’t about caring. It’s about whether you’re holding to an illusion at the expense of reality.”

Eliza stood with such force she overturned her chair. She fumbled and righted it, still clutching the book.

“We’re searching again tomorrow,” she snapped, “and we’re finding him. Then you’ll see what’s real.”

But the search the next day ended just as all the others had.

With nothing.