Page 15 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER NINE

Very quickly, Kian discovered the joy of walking without the need to watch where he was going.

He thumbed through the book so eagerly it nearly pitched from his hands.

He caught it with an embarrassed, “Heh,” and tried again.

He found the page he was looking for and held it out at an angle, encouraging me to look.

“I don’t read Faerish,” I apologized.

“I anticipated that. This lorgnette translates anything into the reader’s native language. Remarkable, yes?” He flashed me a grin. “Oh, and please don’t smudge them. It requires opossum urine to clean any smudges off, and Fiachna hates it when I have to hover under his rump with a bowl.”

Carefully pinching the handle between thumb and forefinger, I extracted the lorgnette from the opossum’s mouth. Out of habit, I murmured a soft, “Thank you,” which set the opossum to grinning. It was a ghastly sight, and I quickly turned my attention to the open page.

The lines of Faerish text twisted like tendrils of smoke lifting from a chimney and settled a moment later in English.

I’d only read a few words before Kian began paraphrasing, rendering the spectacles moot.

Something told me he couldn’t help himself; from what I’d witnessed at the masquerade, I suspected the other junior scholars and his master preferred to ignore him.

“The Twilight Court—formerly the Court of Shoals—has a fascinating history,” he gushed.

“It is the only court to have been consistently plagued by a muirdris, a sea dragon. Not much is known about them, as they have a tendency to petrify any who look them in the eye. Scholars believe the females come back to the same beaches to spawn the next generation, which is so infrequent that the Court of Shoals had no idea it was establishing itself upon ancient nesting ground.”

He left the theory dangling there until curiosity had me truly abandoning the text to look up into his face. A boyish delight lit him from within. Confidence and passion had replaced his previous meekness, and by the Green Mother, was he standing up straight now? Bet his spine appreciated that.

I fought to keep the smile from my face, lest he think I was poking fun at him, and quipped, “Aaand from your tone and that sparkle in your eye, you believe differently?”

“I do!”

He shoved the book into my hands, which almost caused me to drop the lorgnette, so he could root around in his coat again.

With unflappable ease, Fiachna held on to the padded shoulder despite the jostling.

Kian extracted a scroll and untied the string that kept it furled.

Fiachna dutifully held the string between his teeth so his fae wouldn’t lose it.

Kian smoothed the scroll out over the book I held to reveal a sketched copy of a mural.

“This is artistic rendering of Ardgal’s Bestiary, particularly his studies on draig. Did you know he used to be a draig slayer? Legend says?—”

“It’s probably best if you stay on topic, dear,” Daphne called back at him.

The junior scholar’s hunch returned. “O-of course.” He cleared his throat, a little less sure of himself as he had been before. “Th-this is Ardgal’s History of Draig. As you can see here, the draig and the muirdris are a lot closer related than people think.”

From the sketch, draig represented land-dwelling dragons, mostly of a red variety, while the muirdris were depicted as wingless sea monsters of blue-green scales with barbed purple fins.

There were many other dragons flying or prowling across the scroll: smaller, winged browns and fat, grub-like oranges.

And dozens of tiny teals no larger than dragonflies.

“ I think the scholars only got it half right,” Kian proposed.

“The females return to their generational nesting grounds and they’re treasure-hoarders, just like the draig.

Except no one has been able to confirm it because no one has found their underwater grottos. And lived to tell the tale, of course.”

“So if there’s no evidence, how can you assume it?” I asked.

He gave me a smug look. “Two reasons, and one is the history of the Court of Shoals itself.” He shifted the scroll and flipped to a different page in the massive tome I balanced in both hands.

“Centuries ago, the former lord and lady of what would be this lesser court broke from the Court of Tides to establish their own—I think in your realm, the closest term would be fiefdom .”

Kian offered a Faerish word to Flora, who considered a moment, then nodded in agreement.

Grinning, the Junior scholar continued, “They searched for a territory suitable to their magic and found this.” He flipped to a map and pressed his finger to a spot by the sea.

Depicted in the surrounding water were dozens of sandbars and reefs.

“Now, these fae were poor, mind you, not established yet. Then, in a matter of a few months of erecting their castle and the seat of the Court of Shoals, they were entering trade negotiations. They were building ships. They were installing infrastructure. All without loans or aid of any kind. They’d seemingly become wildly wealthy overnight. ”

“They’d discovered a treasure horde,” I said.

“But draig—the only treasure-hoarders we knew of then—never settle so close to the sea because of the muirdris, so obviously it just had to be luck or a blessing from the gods, right? But look at this.” Kian flipped to another page with another drawing.

“This is a picture of the coast when the lord and lady first discovered it. And this one”—he thumbed to another page—“is after they built their castle.”

The rocky coastline had changed dramatically.

The sheer cliff overlooking a thin stretch of sand separating the sea seemed to have fallen prey to a rockslide.

Or a keg of dynamite. A castle perched on what remained of the cliff and the sea threw itself upon the new coastline, bashing against the rocks.

The artist had even captured a blowhole launching a jet of water dozens of feet into the air.

Spray glittered white and gold upon the page, and I wondered if that was truly water the artist had captured, or the twinkling of diamonds and gold coins launched loose.

“They sealed off the muirdris’ access to her grotto,” I murmured.

“So it appears. And they never admitted it, as then they would be forced to tithe half to the Court of Tides, but enough evidence is there.” The Junior scholar turned to his opossum assistant. “Fiachna, the captain’s logs of the Ouzel .”

The opossum disappeared into the scholar’s overcoat and rooted around, producing one oilskin-bound logbook after another until Kian held half a dozen in his hands.

By the Green Mother, just how many inner pockets did that coat have?

And maybe it was the weight of what they carried that made him hunch instead of his low self-confidence.

As Kian stacked the logbooks into a pile on one wide palm, something bright and shiny winked in the strengthening sunlight. I leaned to the side for a closer look: each logbook had a blackbird in flight embossed in gold leaf upon its cover with the appropriate numeral beneath its belly.

He gave me an expectant grin that made my stomach drop.

Thistle thorns, he didn’t expect me to hold all these too, did he? The history book was already the size and weight of an all-in-one encyclopedia. And then there was the fire opal lorgnette I wasn’t supposed to smudge.

The Green Mother hadn’t heard my plea, but at least Kian removed the scroll before opening and stacking the logbooks one on top of the other upon the Court of Shoal’s history.

My magic oak tree flashed, sending strength down my limbs to carry all this weight and trek through the tall grass of the prairie.

“ Ouzel was the Court of Shoal’s flagship,” Kian said. He swept a glance around as if his master or maybe even a former lady of the River Court might pop out of the tall grass and box his ears for what he was about to say next. “It was also a pirate ship.”

“How scandalous,” I teased with a smile.

“I-indeed,” he agreed. The tips of his ears turned rosy as he flushed.

“I shouldn’t have said that. That is an assumption on my part, and ‘scholars record facts, not assumptions.’” He cleared his throat.

“ Ouzel , um, repossessed goods previously stolen by the brigands of the Bitter Isles Archipelago when it wasn’t protecting the fleet.

The other ships in Lord Derrien’s fleet only transported common goods, such as textiles and marsh wine.

And these ships were never attacked. Look here. ”

He tapped various entries, adding pressure to the weight already in my arms. With an exasperated huff at my own stupidity for not realizing it sooner, I called upon the various seeds scattered in the nearby stalks.

Grassland helpers, much like the saplings and flowers that had helped me capture Wystan, sprouted to life. Easy green magic.

Kian gave a delighted “Ha!” and unbuttoned more of his overcoat.

He extracted a sketchbook and a willow charcoal stylus and immediately got to work capturing these stalky scarecrows.

My helpers relieved me of my bookish burden, matched our marching stride, and formed a crescent in front of us.

Then, lifting their burdens to eye level, they created an array to better view the books en masse.

“Marvelous,” the junior scholar praised, snapping his sketchbook shut.

He replaced it and retrieved a collapsable pointer.

It opened with a snick from a flick of his wrist. Without missing a beat, Kian continued his lecture.

“See these cargo entries? Why would a warship have cargo other than its usual cannons and rations and such? These are Ouzel ’s travels to and from the archipelago on its, um, retrieval missions . See the code?”

I squinted, unsure the fire opal lorgnette was translating the text correctly. “‘Headband?’”