But I had no right to touch him, not when he was an innocent captive and I had looked at his captor and wanted—
And Shade couldn’t want me anyway.
He had kissed me twice, my lips and my hand. One of those times had to mean something, didn’t it?
Several times I opened my mouth to speak but failed. When I finally said, “Shade,” the word came out breathless. Then he turned to me, and for a moment my breath stopped entirely. I clenched my hands and forced the words out. “Why . . . why did you kiss my hand?”
It was the only kiss I could bear to ask him about.
He ducked his head. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not angry,” I blurted. “I’m not.” No matter what his reasons, I couldn’t hate those solemn eyes that did not pretend anything was all right. “But I wondered why.”
“You are my champion.” He said the words as if I had asked for the reason that water was wet. “Our champion. For all Arcadia.”
I knew it, I thought, and, I didn’t have time to want him anyway.
It still felt like I was tied into cold, aching knots. There really was only one reason that anyone would ever want me.
“And you think I can save you?” I demanded.
“I’ve been here for—” His lips stopped; he shook his head and started again. “I have watched all his other wives die. I had given up hope. But you . . . you brought a knife. You have a plan. I believe you will save us all.”
“I don’t,” I whispered, my throat tight. “And even if I defeat him—you don’t know my plan, do you? It’s—”
Shade’s hand covered my mouth. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “I still have to obey him.”
I pulled his hand down and couldn’t let go. My fingers clenched around his, and again it unnerved me how cool his skin was, how solid the bones underneath, but I held on.
“You’ll die along with him,” I said. Or be captive with him forever, I nearly added, but he was right: I couldn’t breathe a word of the plan, lest Ignifex order him to speak of it.
He looked right back into my eyes. “I don’t need to live. I just need to see him defeated. No matter the price for that, I’m willing to pay it.”
“You—you shouldn’t—” My voice cracked and I couldn’t go on. Nobody had ever offered to bear a price along with me before.
He touched my cheek with his free hand. “Rest.”
So I did.
8
The next morning, I opened a red-painted door and saw a little room with bookshelves lining its whitewashed walls. In the center of the room sat a round lion-footed table, on which a fat old codex lay open; on the far wall, between a gap in the bookcases, a life-sized bas-relief of the Muse Clio stared at me, her scrolls clasped to her chest, her blind white eyes all-knowing.
It was a library. At first I thought it was very small, but when I stepped inside I saw a doorway leading to another little room of books, which itself opened on two more. It was a honeycomb of rooms, their walls covered in bookshelves, reliefs of the Muses peering from occasional alcoves.
I didn’t mean to spend long when I marched in—just enough time to make sure one of the hearts wasn’t hiding there—but as I wandered the rooms, the familiar scent of leather and dusty paper leeched the tension from my spine. Father’s library had always been my refuge as a child. Maybe this one would be my ally. Surely in one of the Gentle Lord’s books there must be a clue about his house.
I pulled the nearest book off the shelf and flipped it open. The words at the top of the page read, “In the fifth,” and then I was looking at the shelf.
I blinked and looked back at the page. “Of his reign,” and I was looking at my hand.
I shook my head. I had learnt to read when I was five; a few days away from home could not have changed that. Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to read the whole page.
In the fifth of his reign tower Upon the most ancient but
Imperial to the When Romana-Graecia and other Children
If not for the Perhaps.
Try as I might, those were all the words I could read, and when I got to the bottom of the page, pain throbbed behind my eyes. Rubbing at my forehead, I dropped the book onto a nearby table—and instantly the pain was gone.
So the book was cursed. I pulled another book off the shelf. And another. But every book was the same. I could read no more than a phrase before my gaze slid away; if I tried to read for a page—and I could barely decipher more than one word in three-pain built behind my eyes until I had to give up.
My back prickled. I looked at the shelves, a few minutes ago so comforting. Now they felt like enemies. I wanted to edge away yet at the same time felt a mad impulse to stare the room down.
That was when I heard the bell. It wasn’t loud, but it had a clear, sweet tone that rang right though my head. I shivered and decided that since the library was useless to me, I might as well investigate.
The bell rang again and again as I followed its sound out of the library, down a hallway carpeted in red velvet, and up an ivory staircase. Then I pulled open a door and stepped into a drawing room papered in red and gold. The windows were hung with purple velvet curtains and flanked with potted aspidistras; in one corner of the room sat a marble statue of Leda entwined with the swan, while in another was a gold statue of the child Hercules strangling the serpents. Next to me, Ignifex sprawled in a plush, crimson chair with bulbous golden feet.
On the opposite side of the room stood a young man.