“Let me finish proofing this chapter and then I’ll see what I can discover.”

Nesta offered a tight smile. “Thank you.”

Gwyn waved a hand. “Finding objects to help our court protect the world is rather exciting. About as exciting as I’m willing to get these days, but it shall be an adventure.”

“You could come to training if you want another sort of adventure,” Nesta said carefully.

Gwyn offered her a tight smile. “That’s not for me, I’m afraid.”

“Why not?”

Gwyn gestured to Nesta’s fighting leathers, the overlapping scales. “I’m not a warrior.”

“Neither am I. But you could be.”

Gwyn shook her head. “I don’t think so. If I wished to be a warrior, I would have gone that route as a child. Instead I offered myself as an acolyte—and that is what I am.”

“You don’t have to give up one thing to be the other. Training is exercise. Learning to breathe and stretch and fight. Aren’t you researching Valkyries for Merrill? That might even give you further insight.” Nesta patted a thigh. “And I already have muscle building up. Two weeks, and I can tell the difference.”

“Why would a priestess need muscular thighs?”

Nesta narrowed her eyes as Gwyn went back to her work. “Is it Cassian?”

“Cassian is a good and honorable male.”

“I know he is.” She’d always known it. She pressed, “But is it Cassian’s presence that makes you hesitate?”

There had been no hint this morning as to what had gone on between them last night. As if the debt between them had been paid, and he had no further interest in touching her. Like she was an itch scratched, and that was it. Or perhaps he had not enjoyed it as she had.

It unsettled her, that she spent so much time thinking about it.

Gwyn didn’t answer, and Nesta knew she had no right to push, not when color stole over Gwyn’s cheeks and her head bowed slightly. Shame—it was shame and fear.

Something in Nesta’s chest tightened as she began to walk away. “All right. Let me know if you learn anything regarding the Trove.”

Nesta mulled the conversation over during the hours she worked. When she checked the sign-up sheet as she left the library at sundown, no names had been added.

She felt Clotho’s eyes on her as she surveyed the empty page. Nesta at last turned toward the priestess, seated at her desk with her hands folded before her. Silence stretched between them, but Nesta said nothing as she left.

She went to the stairwell rather than to her room or the dining room, and stared down into the curving redness of the steps.

Nesta began the descent, slower this time, contemplating each placement of her foot. Let each step downward be a thought, a piece of one of Amren’s puzzles, that she sifted through.

Down and down she went, turning over each word and glance from Gwyn during the time Nesta had worked in the library. Step to step, she told herself with each burning, trembling movement of her legs. Step to step to step.

Again, she replayed the conversation. Each step was a different word, or motion, or scent.

Nesta was on step two thousand when she halted.

She knew what she had to do.

CHAPTER

24

Five days later, Cassian sat before the desk of the library’s high priestess and watched her enchanted pen move. He’d met Clotho a few times over the centuries—found she had a dry, wicked sense of humor and a soothing presence. He’d made a point not to stare at her hands, or at the face he’d only seen once, when Mor had brought her in so long ago. It had been so battered and bloody it hadn’t looked like a face at all.

He had no idea how it had healed beneath the hood. If Madja had been able to save it in a way she hadn’t been able to save Clotho’s hands. He supposed it didn’t matter what she looked like, not when she had accomplished and built so much with Rhys and Mor within this library. A sanctuary for females who’d endured such unspeakable horrors that he was always happy to carry out justice on their behalf.

His mother had needed a place like this. But Rhys had established it long after she’d left this world. He wondered if Azriel’s mother had ever considered coming here, or if he’d ever pushed her to.

“Well, Clotho,” he said, leaning back in the chair, surrounded by the sounds of rustling parchment and the robes of the priestesses like fluttering wings, “you asked for an audience?”

Her pen made a flourish as it finished what she’d been writing.

I have asked Nesta twice now not to practice in the library, and she has disregarded my request. For five days, she has blatantly ignored my commands to stop.

Cassian’s brows rose. “She’s practicing down here?”

Again, the pen scraped over the paper. He glanced to the open pit to his left, as if he’d spot Nesta down there. A week had passed since that madness in her bedroom, and they had not spoken of it, done nothing further. He wasn’t entirely sure it would be wise to continue.

In addition to the grueling set of exercises to hone her body, Cassian had walked her through the minutiae of hand-to-hand combat, individual steps and movements that could be assembled in endless combinations. Learning each of those steps required not just strength but focus—to remember which movement correlated with the numbered step, to let her body start to remember all on its own: a jab, a hook, a high kick … He’d lost count of how many times he’d caught her muttering at her body to remember so she didn’t need to think so hard.

But he knew she liked the punches. The kicks. A light shone in her face as her body flowed through the motions, a slingshot of strength all narrowing to a point of impact. He’d always felt that way when he did the movements correctly, like his body and mind and soul had lined up and begun singing.

Clotho wrote, Nesta has practiced constantly of late.

“Has she done any damage?”

No. But I asked her to stop, and she has not.

He suppressed his smile. Perhaps the morning lessons weren’t demanding enough. “Is her work suffering for it?”

No. That’s beside the point.

His mouth twisted to the side.

Clotho wrote, I need you to put a stop to this.

“Does it bother the others?”

It distracts them, to see someone kicking and punching at shadows.

Cassian had to duck his head so she wouldn’t read the amusement in his eyes. “I’ll talk to her. Is she down there now?” He nodded to the sloping ramp. “With your permission, of course.”

This was their safe harbor. It didn’t matter if he was a member of Rhys’s court, or that he’d come here before. Every time, he asked permission. He’d only ever failed to do so once: when Hybern’s Ravens had attacked.

Yes. I give you permission to enter. Nesta is on Level Five. Perhaps you shall manage to get through to her.

Taking that as his cue, Cassian rose. “You do know this is Nesta Archeron we’re talking about? She does nothing unless she wishes to. And she’s the least likely to listen to me.”

Clotho huffed a laugh. She has a will of iron.

“Of steel.” He smiled. “Good seeing you, Clotho.”

You as well, Lord Cassian.