Page 28 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

The evening came to an inevitable end, no matter how Eliza wished otherwise.

It had been so long since she’d laughed freely, relishing the company of other people.

It was also surprising to see how Yvette and Baris both doted on Silas—they really loved him.

She’d never seen Silas as happy as he was around them.

Smiling easily, listening without lecturing. Like he was a different person.

Or maybe, a little voice within her said, he’s finally himself.

But even in this setting, he was still the academic, and as soon as the balimav had been eaten and the drinks drained, he had questions for Yvette.

The two of them stood next to her desk, discussing scholarly whatsits, while Eliza fiddled with her sonnet book and wished she could have made the dinner conversation last forever.

“Good book?” Baris asked in a booming voice.

He dropped heavily onto the cushion beside her and plucked her red book from her hands, turning the pages with his eyes sparkling. “Ha! All Loegrian. I cannot read a word.” He squinted closer. “No, this is Pravish here. You write Pravish in your books?”

Eliza had started keeping a list of Pravish words on folded parchment, but she’d gotten tired of the sheet slipping out whenever she opened her book, so she’d been writing new vocabulary words directly on the pages. Wherever possible, she matched them to a Loegrian counterpart in a sonnet.

“I’m learning,” she stammered out in Pravish.

“Very good!” Baris thumped her on the back with his three-fingered hand, and what it was missing in digits, it certainly made up for in power.

Eliza had to catch herself before she overbalanced on her cushion.

“Learning is very good. That is why I married a university professor. Here, practice your Pravish with me.”

Haltingly, she asked, “How you . . . meet your . . . Iyl Yvette?”

“Wife,” he supplied for her. Hana. Eliza repeated it a few times in her mind to write down later. Then he went on, “The best story! Even better than The Advent Moon.”

He launched into a tale about a beautiful Stone Caster who loved papayas, and before long, Eliza found herself smiling and laughing along with him—though she was certain it had not actually taken ten years of asking before Yvette agreed to meet his parents.

A corner of her heart ached, because she’d always imagined telling her own story like this. The story of meeting Henry.

“Do you know . . . about . . . kuveti?”

Baris waited patiently for her to piece the question. When she finished, his expression turned grim.

“Know what of them?” he asked. “Beyond their greedy, brutal ways.”

“My friend . . . maybe prison . . . person.”

He gave her the word for prisoner, then nodded toward Yvette. “My wife helped build their prison. Ask. If she can find out, she will.”

Hope lifted Eliza’s chest, and just then, Yvette spoke from behind her.

“Highness, you’ll want to hear this.”

Eliza scurried over to the desk, only to be met with Yvette’s grin.

“Silas was just telling me about your very romantic kiss.”

Flushing red, Eliza glared at Silas, but he was busy glaring at his professor.

“This is your fault,” he said. “The only reason I kissed her was to break the Cast, but it accomplished nothing.”

Yvette waved a hand. “You know as well as I that magic is as much about emotion and intention as it is about action. If you aren’t both in love with each other, then the kiss won’t strike the right chord for the Cast.”

“You could have told me that to begin with,” he griped.

“You didn’t seem interested in the details. As I recall, you were adamantly against any relationship with Her Highness, even one as simple as translator.”

Before she could talk any more about relationships, Eliza cut in. “You had something for me to hear?”

Sobering, Yvette touched Eliza’s bracelet, leaving a faint glow, a moment of light capturing a fingerprint.

“I examined Silas’s bracelet again, at his request. There has been a change in the Cast.” After Eliza’s panicked gasp, she hurried to say, “Nothing wrong with it, only a sad reality—the Caster behind it is gone.”

It took Eliza a moment to sort that out. “You mean she’s . . . Are you saying she’s dead?”

“Casts remain upon death, but there is a ripple in the magic, as if it mourns the creator.” Yvette shook her head. “It means you can’t seek her out to end the Cast, and she would’ve had the easiest time doing so.”

“But you can do it,” Silas pressed.

“With a great deal of effort, and I have expended too much today.” Yvette’s faint smile betrayed her words. “Besides, I believe I made my own terms clear when you first sought my help.”

“I think the kuveti took Henry!” Eliza burst out. “We’ve searched, but . . . Is there any way you can find out if he’s in the prison? Baris said you have connections there.”

Yvette squinted at her husband, who whistled innocently.

“Connections . . . is not what I would call it.” The professor sighed. “Finding out if there’s a Loegrian prisoner shouldn’t be impossible. I’ll look into it. Give me a few days.”

Impulsively, Eliza hugged Yvette, regretting her boldness for only a moment before the Stone Caster gave her a return squeeze that may have bruised a rib.

“Thank you,” Eliza whispered, glancing up to include Baris in the gratitude as he approached.

When Yvette stepped back, Baris slung an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple before pointing at Silas. “If you are grateful, soft-bellied snake, then you buy papayas!”

“Maybe,” said Silas.

“And you!”

Eliza jumped as Baris’s thick finger pointed close to her face. The merchant grinned.

“When you need more Pravish words, you come to my stall.” He lowered his voice and leaned in like a conspirator. “And make him buy more papayas.”

Eliza laughed.

They walked back to the earthquake dorm in a gray dusk. Silas’s posture was relaxed, his hands in his pockets, his hair ruffling in the gentle evening breeze. Eliza breathed in the salt from the ocean and smiled.

When they reached the dorm hallway, she found herself reluctant to go in her room. She paused, playing with a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a birthday gift for you,” she said. “I’d get you a book, but odds are you’ve already read it.”

Silas leaned on the wall beside his door, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter.” He tilted his head. “When I was growing up, my sister, Maggie, would always try to make a fuss. She’d drag me out on horseback to some little clearing for a picnic.”

Eliza raised her eyebrows. “Don’t horses hate snakes?”

“I’m not actually a snake, you know.” After a moment, he admitted, begrudgingly, “They are skittish. It takes a mild-tempered gelding to tolerate me as a rider.”

Eliza laughed.

“Anyway, Maggie would lay out a feast of whatever she’d smuggled from the kitchen, and she’d force me to play hacky sack with her, and she’d give me a new book.

She always got me a book, but she only picked the ones that looked interesting to her.

She’s the reason I’ve read half the pastoral poetry I have, or that author you carry around in your pocket. ”

He’d been smiling, but it faded slowly, leaving behind something that looked like aching pain. Eliza’s heart twisted.

“You miss her?” she asked.

He nodded, and since she couldn’t let him be gloomy on his birthday, she launched into speech without thinking.

“Aria never made a fuss on her birthdays. She went along with whatever our parents planned. The thing is, I think she was actually happy with that. I think she just appreciated that people cared, however they showed it.” Eliza winced, leaning against the wall to mirror his pose.

“It always made me feel selfish when I had specific plans—when I didn’t want Father’s falconry exhibition or Mother’s recital. ”

“That’s not selfish,” he said. “Just honest.”

“You seem to value honesty.”

He frowned. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Eliza ducked her head in another laugh, shifting slightly.

He’d clearly never been to court. Or spent time in her home.

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d upset her family by being too honest. Her parents were both masters of stepping around distasteful truths, and while Aria preferred honesty, if that honesty revealed any problems, she usually blamed herself for them.

Silas didn’t deflect Eliza’s opinions or internalize them; he met them head-on with his own.

While that made him frustrating, it also made her feel like she could tell him anything without worrying about how it might affect him.

Like she could be herself without apology.

He’d already seen her at her worst, both insult-flinging anger and racking-sob despair, and he’d taken both without flinching.

Hesitantly, Eliza smiled. They were both leaning against the wall, facing each other. She’d shifted closer to him without meaning to.

He brushed his hair back, but it almost immediately fell into his eyes again.

His dark, captivating eyes. The sensations of their kiss came flooding back—the tingle of his fingers through her hair, the dizzying pressure of his lips against hers.

The way he’d responded to her touch, pulling her closer, wrapping her in his embrace.

Was she blushing? She was certainly blushing.

Yet she couldn’t pull her gaze from his.

In the interest of honesty, she admitted the truth to herself: I want him to kiss me again.

But the moment she had the thought, she heard her father’s accusing voice: Another of your romantic whims?

Her momentary flush of desire sank in the depths of shame, and she shoved away from the wall.

“Good night,” she said abruptly, fleeing into the safety of her room. She pressed her back to the closed door and dropped her burning face in her hands.

She’d crossed an ocean for Henry, and now she was acting like this? Flirting with another boy? Hoping to be kissed? She was proving her father right.

She prayed Yvette came back with news about Henry soon. In the meantime, Eliza would work with Silas because she had to, but she would not think of kissing him again.