Page 18

Chapter 18

Avery

A very and Elliot were soon following the record keeper through a long hall and into a spacious room at the back of the house. It was far larger than an ordinary sitting room, and most of the space had been turned into a library with rows of shelving running down the middle of the room.

The ordinary city home wasn’t the sort of house that would usually include a library, but the record keeper’s residence had been owned by the roving merchants for generations. Some distant ancestor had transformed the inside of the building, turning most of the bottom floor into a record room.

“Wow!” Elliot’s eyes widened as he took in the volume of books. “Are all of these roving merchant records?”

“Not all,” Matilda said with a pleased smile, “but a good portion. I have an extensive collection of other relevant texts as well. Plus some just for fun, of course.”

“I wasn’t expecting anything half as impressive,” Elliot admitted.

Matilda looked pleased. “They originally chose to set up the record keeper’s hall here in Glandore because the Glandore Legacy loves libraries. Sometimes new volumes appear on the shelves despite my never having acquired them.”

“That’s funny because it looks smaller than I remember,” Avery said with a grin, knowing full well that it was she who had grown bigger.

“Thank you for allowing me to see it, Matilda,” Elliot said gravely, running his hand along a row of books.

“Please, call me Mattie.” She gestured for them to gather in a section of the room that had been equipped with the sort of furniture usually found in a sitting room.

“As well as providing new books, the library is very resilient,” Mattie said as they both sat down. “I once knocked a candle over onto a pile of parchments. I thought the whole place was going to go up in flames. But it went out without even a puff.”

“That is a very handy feature,” Elliot said. “Well worth putting the library in Glandore just for that.”

“The Legacy can be wonderfully protective if your circumstances are right,” Mattie said.

Avery shifted uncomfortably. Her cousin’s words were true, but that aspect of the Legacy sometimes went awry.

Elliot looked over at her, clearly catching her discomfort, and she straightened, stilling. He already saw too much.

An insistent tapping at the door made Mattie heave herself back to her feet. “Another visitor?” she exclaimed. “That’s unusual. Is there a family gathering I’m unaware of?”

She hurried off, leaving Avery to exchange a worried look with Elliot. It was going to be hard to share their story with Mattie if other family members showed up.

A loud cawing made them both start, and a bolt of blue, red, yellow, and green shot into the room. Frank circled overhead cawing indignantly.

“And here I was, hoping you’d managed to shake that thing off,” Mattie said, reappearing in the room with a scowl.

“You even remember Frank?” Avery asked.

“He’s a hard creature to forget.” Mattie watched his flight with narrowed eyes. “Just make sure he knows that if he destroys one of my books again, I’ll start plucking his feathers.”

“Bitter old woman!” Frank cried. “Nasty nincompoop.”

“I see the years have made you even more pleasant.” Mattie propped her hands on her hips.

“And I see they’ve made you gray,” Frank rasped back, in a voice that still startled Avery with how human it sounded, despite the subtle tone that set it apart.

Mattie’s arms dropped, and she laughed. “How does a bird know how to hit you where it hurts?” She resumed her seat and looked at Avery. “I feel compelled to remind you that traveling with that bird hurts the dignity of all roving merchants. The creature is a menace.”

“What do you want me to do?” Avery asked innocently. “I can’t stop him flying where he wishes.”

Mattie regarded her balefully. “I did an even better innocent expression when I was your age, Avery, daughter of Magnolia. You might be fooling this handsome young man here, but you aren’t fooling me.”

“What handsome young man?” Frank scoffed. “Are you far-sighted? He looks like a bad egg that will rot the barrel.”

Mattie stood up, her expression completely calm, and threw a well-aimed cushion at Frank. He barely swerved in time to miss it, immediately flapping down to the far end of the library to perch on the top of a bookshelf and mutter angrily to himself.

“Excellent,” Mattie said matter-of-factly. “Now that creature is taken care of, it’s time for tea. I assume you both drink tea?” She looked at them with an expression that dared them to say no. Neither of them were so foolhardy.

“Would you like tea that calms you down, tea that wakes you up, tea that helps your hair grow, tea that makes you chatty, or tea that improves your hearing?” she asked.

Elliot stared at her, so Avery answered for both of them.

“I think we’ll go with tea that wakes us up.” It seemed the safest in the circumstances. She glanced at Elliot who still looked taken aback. “Mattie may not do the roving part herself, but don’t forget she’s a roving merchant. She has access to every enchanted herb that grows anywhere in six kingdoms.”

“She’s nothing like I expected,” Elliot said in a slightly awed voice the moment Mattie left the room.

“Let me guess,” Avery said with a smile. “You were expecting a dusty, white-haired scholar, peering at us through his glasses?”

“I don’t think a speck of dust would dare settle in here.” Elliot stood and wandered along one of the shelves, staring at some of the more peculiar titles.

Mattie reappeared bearing an enormous tea tray. It carried a huge teapot with several chips, a tray of assorted cakes and slices, and three large mugs, each wrapped in a knitted jacket, complete with a fluffy white collar and bright buttons. There wasn’t much chill in the air of the capital, despite the arrival of Autumn, and yet even so, Avery still itched to snuggle her hands around one of the mugs.

“Don’t even bother trying to find anything on your own,” Mattie told Elliot. “I’ve been informed by reliable sources that my organizational system is unique .”

“Like these?” Elliot gestured at the books in front of him.

Mattie didn’t need to approach closer to read the titles. With only a glance in his direction, she reeled off a list.

“The Unique Effect of the Auldana Legacy on Snow and Ice, An Examination of Albino Mice, The State of Sea Foam and What It Tells Us About Ocean Health, How to Cultivate Daises…” She started unloading the tea tray onto a low table, a feat she could only perform after ruthlessly ejecting several piles of books. “But surely you don’t need an explanation for why those are grouped together? That section, at least, is obvious.”

“Is it?” Elliot looked helplessly at Avery.

For a moment Avery felt as blank as he looked. But Lorne had told her to think creatively, so maybe she needed to see it from a different angle.

“It’s about color?” she guessed, despite how ridiculous it sounded. “They’re all related to things that are white?”

“Precisely!” Mattie beamed at her. “I don’t know why so many of the family complain about my system.”

“Things that are white?” Elliot protested. “But—” He cut himself off, clearly realizing how pointless it would be to protest.

Returning to the table, he accepted his cup of tea from Mattie, even allowing her to stir in a spoon of sugar.

“Don’t worry,” Mattie assured Elliot comfortingly once they all had their drinks, “you’ve always got your looks.”

He choked, only just avoiding spraying tea across the closest pile of books.

“Traveling with you is doing wonders for my ego,” he murmured to Avery when he finally finished coughing.

Avery felt a pang of guilt, although she was fairly certain he was joking. Wanting to do something to ease the day’s shocks, she suggested he go and deliver Nutmeg’s afternoon feed.

“I can fill Mattie in on our problem,” she told him with a significant look. “And then, when you get back, we can discuss potential solutions.”

Elliot still found relating his story difficult, and saving him the stress of telling it himself was a small thing she could do for him.

“That sounds like the most efficient plan,” he said with gratitude in his voice. “I won’t take long.”

As soon as he disappeared from the room, Mattie leaned forward with an interested air.

“Got a problem of a sensitive nature, has he?”

Avery grimaced. “It’s hard to overcome a lifetime of secrecy.”

“I’ve always thought it was a cruel thing to ask a child to keep a secret,” Mattie said with a nod.

Avery hid a grin at the thought that it must certainly have seemed so to the sort of blunt child that Matilda must have been. But her smile fell away as she remembered the tale she had to tell. At least she was full of energy to tell it. The tea had worked better than she had expected, sending a jolt of alertness through her.

“It’s really Elliot’s problem,” she admitted, “but I’ve managed to get embroiled in it, and I can’t turn my back on him now. So that means it’s a family problem now, too.”

She quickly related what she knew of Elliot’s history and his tie to the lamp, finishing by saying how Lorne had sent them on to Mattie.

“Lorne?” Mattie scoffed. “Of course that old sweet talker would send you here. I can’t tell you how many times he’s come sniffing around our records.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I suppose he wants Elliot to transfer his bond to his own body—like us.”

“So you know about that?” Avery asked. “I had no idea.”

Mattie shrugged. “Most people don’t question something so central to their existence. But I’ve spent decades studying our family. Believe me, there’s nothing Lorne knows about us that I don’t!”

“Then do you think it can be done?” Avery asked eagerly, too impatient to wait for Elliot’s return before posing the question.

“As to that…” Mattie heaved herself to her feet, heading toward a bookshelf near the library door.

Avery also stood, too excited to remain stationary when they might be so near to answers. But she hadn’t taken any steps toward Mattie when the door of the library burst open.

Three men poured inside, and for half a second she thought they must be roving merchants, although Mattie hadn’t mentioned any others currently staying with her.

But the first of the newcomers, a rough-looking man with a stern expression, seized Mattie, twisting both her arms behind her before she realized what was happening.

“Is she the one?” a second man asked, looking from Mattie to Avery with a frown. “Or is it that one?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the one holding Mattie snapped. “Take them both.”

For another half second, Avery was frozen in shock. They were being abducted? From the record hall of the roving merchants? If only the Glandore Legacy protected the librarian as well as the library.

Her mind sped up, leaping from her predicament to Elliot, presumably still out the back with Nutmeg. Her hands tightened around the satchel that was strapped to her as always, and she leaped into motion.

There was no hope of going for the door—all three men stood between her and it—so she fled between two tall bookshelves instead. Within a second she was out of sight, although it wouldn’t last for long. There was nowhere in the room that would allow her to truly hide, but she didn’t need to keep out of sight for long.

She darted between bookshelves, finally choosing one near the back of the room to stop. Crouching down, she frantically started pulling books from shelves. She could hear the men talking as they methodically searched between shelves, clearly aware she had nowhere to run.

As soon as she had cleared enough space, she pulled the wrapped lamp from the satchel and thrust it to the back of the shelf. There wasn’t time to put the books back properly, so she shoved them in front of the lamp in a pile, hoping it would be enough.

The soft rustle of feathers alerted her as Frank glided over to join her.

“Get back out of sight,” she whispered urgently to him. “And as soon as you can, go find Elliot. He’ll come after us.”

Being a bird, Frank didn’t always show a lot of sense, but he knew enough to stay quiet, merely bobbing his head in acknowledgment of her words, his wings twitching.

“And tell Elliot this is here!” she added, pointing at the hidden lamp. “It’s very important that you tell him about it!”

Frank took off, flapping out of sight just as one of the men rounded her row of shelves. Avery stood and took several steps toward him, distancing herself from the hidden lamp.

The man gave a shout and broke into a run. She had just enough time to seize a book from the closest shelf and smash it over his head. The man staggered but managed to keep his feet. She tried to use the opportunity to retrieve the herbalist’s dagger from her boot, but her attacker seized her wrist before she could reach it, wrenching her arm behind her back. She cried out in pain, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

“Don’t be trying any more silly tricks,” he growled, dragging her back toward the library door.

Avery didn’t struggle, knowing it would do little good. If she wanted to escape, she needed to wait for a more opportune moment. Her earlier resistance had only been to distract from her true purpose among the shelves—and to vent some of her fury.

When she reached Mattie, the two women’s eyes met, both assessing the other for injuries.

“I’m afraid I hit him with one of your books,” Avery said apologetically.

“Good girl,” Mattie said approvingly.

“Shut it, both of you,” the first man warned. He had handed Mattie over to the third man and was peering down the corridor outside. “Try anything or start yelling, and you’ll regret it.”

Avery had every intention of trying something the second they were out in public, but the man holding her arms behind her back suddenly seized her and threw her over his shoulder. Startled, she instinctively tried to kick at him, but it did little good.

Mattie and Avery were carried together down the long hallway and out the open front door. A covered cart waited on the street outside, making Avery suck in her breath. It would be a lot harder to attract attention from inside a cart.

Mattie was pushed into the cart first, her captor climbing in with her. Avery heard the hiss of drawn steel and winced. It wasn’t going to be as easy to escape on the street as she had hoped.

The man carrying her dumped her on the back of the cart. When he stepped away, she felt a surge of hope, but the man deeper inside the cart’s tray spoke menacingly.

“Try anything, and I’ll slice her.”

Avery gulped, staring into the darkness inside the cart to make out the outline of the man and the knife he was holding against Mattie’s skin.

The man who had been carrying Avery closed the back of the cart, leaving only a small gap to see through. Avery felt the dip as he climbed onto the front with the leader.

For the first time, the shock ebbed enough to allow true fear to rear its head, making her tremble uncontrollably. She peered out the back as the cart’s wheels began to roll across the cobblestones, her eyes trained on the side of Mattie’s house.

Finally she caught movement as Elliot emerged from down the side. His eyes flicked idly toward the cart, catching on her face. He stopped, his mouth dropping open and his expression hardening.

“Stop!” he shouted loudly, sprinting toward her. “Stop!” His boots pounded against the stone as he drew nearer.

But the driver cursed, and the cart lurched into faster motion. Already underway, its momentum quickly increased, the gap between Elliot and Avery lengthening again.

The two horses harnessed in front of the cart couldn’t keep up the pace indefinitely, but Elliot would tire before they did. Already he was flagging.

Avery’s eyes widened as she realized it wasn’t exhaustion causing him to stumble. The further he followed them, the further from the lamp he got. He had no hope of catching them, so he needed to stop before he was completely incapacitated.

Avery leaned out the back of the cart, gesturing wildly. “Stop!” she cried. “Go back! Go back!”

She was trying to wave him off, but at first he only looked more determined. But when he stumbled again, his feet appearing to give way beneath him, he finally slowed.

He sank to the road, his anguished gaze still locked onto Avery.

Find me! she mouthed at him. And again, Find me .

As they turned a corner, she pulled back away from the rear of the cart. She couldn’t risk Mattie by leaning out again. Elliot had seen them go, and Frank would tell him the rest of the story, nonsensical as it was. She would trust in Elliot’s ability to track them down.

She certainly didn’t doubt that he would try. That thought never even crossed her mind.