Page 47 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Silas found there was only one person he could face, so he took an automatic, familiar path, returning through the Yamakaz and climbing the stairs to the third floor. He knocked woodenly at Kerem’s office door, remembering too late that the professor would be with the dean, examining the Artifact.

But just as he started to leave, the door opened.

“Silas!” Kerem peered into the hallway, clearly looking for a girl-shaped shadow.

“Just me,” Silas said quietly.

“You’re always welcome.”

The open door and greeting didn’t heal anything, but it offered a comfort, one Silas didn’t deserve but needed. His leg throbbed after all the stairs, so he lowered himself onto one of the stools beside the desk.

“You’re not with Afshin?” he asked.

Kerem waved a hand. “It’s not my place to overstep, and I don’t envy the dean’s job in circumstances like this.”

“I thought you’d want to evaluate the Artifact at least. When I ran my own tests, I discovered it’s composition warlockry.

” Usually, he could drown any emotion in research, and he turned to the tactic once again, opening his journal to his Artifact notes.

“I need to turn these over to Afshin, but I was hoping to translate them to an actual essay first.”

“May I?” Kerem extended his hand, and Silas surrendered his journal. The professor pushed his spectacles into his black hair, peering closely at the detailed but chaotic notes. He flipped the pages slowly.

Silas found himself holding his breath, waiting for a grade. Though he was no longer a student, the old habits and mindset came easily. Would that change once he was a professor?

Then again, did he have any hope of becoming one?

The discovery of composition warlockry between three magic types was certainly groundbreaking, but it wasn’t as if he’d created the Artifact himself, and the person who had was also on trial for murder.

Silas had become nothing but a fringe figure in a complicated situation.

Maybe if he could get Gill to work with him, he could present research on his venom interacting with Fluid Casting. But Gill had only come to convince him to return home—and to escort Eliza. He wouldn’t want an extended stay away from his brothers and fiancée.

“Have you ever been in love?” Silas didn’t mean to ask the question, and his neck heated. But it wasn’t as if he could ask advice from his parents. Yvette and Kerem were the closest he had, and Yvette was . . .

“Hmm?” Kerem asked without looking up. He flipped a page. “You mean marriage? No, I never saw the benefit. I imagine my work habits would be a problem for a spouse, and I prefer the freedom to do as I please.”

That answer should have placated Silas. It would have a few weeks ago.

Yet the itch remained.

“I always thought a relationship was just an opportunity for betrayal,” he whispered.

“Considering I was sold into slavery by a friend,” Kerem said bitterly, “I can’t argue.”

How could Silas feel more miserable to be agreed with?

He fell silent, trying and failing to direct his mind toward research while it wanted to chase a girl who was already gone.

“This is spectacular,” said Kerem, resting his hand on the open journal.

“Working from the outside, given the barest information, and you’ve still managed to deduce so much.

I always said you were the brightest mind on campus.

” He met Silas’s eyes, and he smiled, though it held a touch of regret, a contradiction to his words.

“Thank you.” Silas’s neck heated again, and he wasn’t sure what else to say. He should have been thrilled at the praise, but his emotions felt dulled, slow to engage. He’d left at least half of himself behind in the library, kissing a princess.

“It’s lucky for me,” Kerem went on, “that you’ve been distracted of late. But I can’t count on that forever. Eventually, your mind will catch up, so it’s better that we navigate this crossroads now.”

Silas frowned, sitting more stiffly on his stool. His skin prickled with awareness, and he tried to force himself to be fully present in the moment, ignoring the ache in his calf and the pull of a princess.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Wrong question—her voice came back to him as an accusation. Tell me what this means!

He flinched.

“I would much rather have you on my side, Silas. It’s one thing to work with your venom, but to work with your mind . . . I’m sure we could revolutionize everything. Not to mention I’ve always enjoyed working with you more than with either Havva or Mazhar.”

Something’s wrong, Silas thought, unable to form anything more coherent than that. He should have gone to the healing hall. Should have . . .

Kerem’s voice remained even, as if this were any normal day, any one of the hundred times Silas had come to his office to work. “You would just have to convince me you can be objective about the sacrifices required for advancement. After all, the Artifact I created did not come at low cost.”

Silas found his focus at last, and it sent his heart plummeting through the floor.

He really was the worst judge of people.

Eventually, Eliza dragged herself to the healing hall. Part of her wanted to slink away without telling anyone, to return home the same way she’d left it, but she’d done enough intentional hurting, and if Henry really wasn’t returning home, she wanted a proper goodbye.

With Silas, she . . .

She didn’t know. But she owed herself a chance to decide while calm.

Unlike the Sarazan tabernacle, the healing hall had permanent beds and rooms separated by doors rather than curtains. Mint permeated the air, perhaps used for calming patients or to cover any unpleasant smells.

After asking directions to Ceyda’s room, she found Gill and Henry already there. No Silas.

But Ceyda was awake.

She looked dreadful, all the warmth leached from her dark skin, her dry lips pale and her face thin, but she still had both legs—judging by the shape of the blanket across them—and she didn’t seem to be ringing the bell for death.

“You were unconscious!” Eliza blurted.

Ceyda watched her suspiciously with crystal-blue eyes before giving a shallow nod toward Gill. “I believe he fixed that.”

“It’s relieving to have a translator,” Gill said mildly, pulling on a set of white gloves and adjusting them across his hands. He rubbed his head as if it ached. “I managed the magic but nothing since.”

Eliza blinked, then realized she’d spoken Pravish to Ceyda. It had just . . . come naturally.

She rubbed her bare wrist.

“Where is Silas?”

The question could have come from anyone, but it came from Ceyda, and since the answer could only be understood by her, Eliza indulged herself in a raw truth.

“Bikmayak kalamak,” she said. My sword breaks here.

The severing of a relationship.

Ceyda sagged against the pillow, as if relieved. Eliza wished her own emotions could follow a similar track, but deep inside, she felt a gaping hollow. It was all that was left after she’d cried the rest out.

Henry caught her eyes, but neither of them spoke.

One of the female physicians entered, and Eliza did her best to translate for Gill. Apparently, the Casters at the healing hall had tried both drawing out the venom and spreading an antivenom to counter it but hadn’t felt confident about either treatment since their lead healer was missing.

“I’m aware how difficult working with blood is,” said Gill. “Luckily, I’ve had some recent practice. I drew out what remained of the venom, which stopped her fever, but I can’t reverse any of the damage already done.”

“I’ve never learned the word for ‘fever,’” Eliza muttered. She squared her shoulders and tried her best, calling the fever “head hot” and touching her own forehead.

The physician smiled and seemed to understand well enough. Then she spoke to Ceyda briefly, the girl’s face growing more frightened with every word. She couldn’t have been older than Eliza.

“They’re going to evaluate her leg again,” Eliza translated. “See if . . . if they have to remove it.”

As the physician left, Eliza seated herself firmly on the edge of Ceyda’s bed. She took the other girl’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Ceyda didn’t pull away. When she muttered a curse about snakes, Eliza’s sympathy reached all the way to her soul.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ceyda rasped, her thin voice high and frightened. She clenched her other hand in the blanket. “Even if they heal me, he’ll just come after me again.”

“Who?”

“Shedskin,” Ceyda spat.

Eliza pursed her lips. Of all the terrible things Silas Bennett was, he wasn’t a killer.

“He never meant to hurt you,” she said. Pointing at Gill, she added, “He sent a Caster so you wouldn’t die.”

Ceyda shook her head, clearly swallowed in panic. “The cobra was too gentle for him. He’d rather kill me with his Sarazan.”

“Sarazan?” Eliza frowned. “What do you mean?”

The girl glanced at Henry, who looked back with cluelessness.

“The Sarazan tabernacle?” Eliza asked. “Did something happen there?”

“I . . . made a wave.” Ceyda swallowed, gripping Eliza’s hand tightly enough to leave grooves from her fingernails. “The Artifact felt wrong to use, like—” She said something Eliza couldn’t parse. Heart painting? Perhaps an idiom. “I made a wave to sink the ship.”

She started speaking in longer, rushed sentences, and Eliza snatched translations from any of the words she could scrape together. “A monster from the ocean. Snake as big as Sarazan. Drowned the sailors.”

Ceyda’s eyes darted toward Henry again. “I used magic to get us to shore. No one else.”

“She keeps looking at me,” Henry said softly, the question clear.

Eliza offered him a quick summary. Then, to Ceyda, she said, “Silas didn’t send Sarazan. It’s just a monster in the ocean.”

Ceyda yanked her hand back, shaking her head and then seeming to regret it. She pressed her palms to her temples, squeezing her eyes closed.

“It was after me,” she insisted, her voice cracking. “Everywhere I go—snakes. Hunting me. I hid underground, and even then, he still found me.”

Eliza frowned. Silas had sent out snakes, yes, but he’d said they could never find any trace of Ceyda. She made it sound like she’d been dodging them on every street corner, not to mention in the ocean itself.

“Are you certain . . .” Eliza’s voice trailed into silence as she realized one awful possibility. Silas isn’t the only Snake Affiliate here.

She stood, shying from the thought.

But once it presented itself, she couldn’t shake it.

She remembered standing in the alley with Kerem and Silas, remembered the ease with which Kerem banished the cobra. His exasperated voice: You should have let it bite her the second time.

Silas had felt so guilty over Ceyda’s condition.

But he’d never ordered the cobra to bite in the first place.

Henry moved to stand next to Eliza, his hand hovering above her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“No,” she murmured. “Why would he save her then?”

He could have told Silas he was too late. Clearly the threat of death had been real enough from her injury. Why bring her to the healers?

Unless he needed people to see he had a witness. A witness who, conveniently, fell unconscious before speaking to anyone else. Who would likely not last the night.

Eliza leaned over the bed again, speaking urgently. “The man who found you after the cobra. What did you tell him?”

Ceyda kept her eyes closed, hands pressed to her head.

“Please! Did you tell him about Yvette?”

“Who?” Ceyda looked up at last, her blue eyes cloudy.

“The Stone Caster your father built the prison with.”

“I don’t know anyone from his work except Silas Bennett.”

Eliza stumbled back, feeling sick. She had focused on trying to prove Yvette innocent, but she’d never considered what it meant if she was. She’d never looked for who was actually guilty.

Silas worked with Kerem. Trusted him more than anyone else.

She had to warn him, before it was too late.