anyone else alive in the whole place. Besides, Kevin thought wearily, all the servants were probably under Carlotta’s control, anyhow.
All too soon, they reached the library.
Kevin tried the handle. “The door seems to be locked,” he said, stalling desperately for time.
“No, it’s not It’s never locked. Here, let me see.”
Carlotta tried the handle, which turned with treacherous ease. She glanced sharply at Kevin, and the bardling gave her a weak smile.
“Must have been stuck.”
‘‘Well, it isn’t stuck now. Come on.”
But Kevin stopped short in the doorway, hunting frantically for some other excuse.
“Ca-Charina.” Gods, he’d almost called her by her real name! “Charina, I... uh ... I chink I’m getting a headache. Maybe tomorrow really would be a better rime to—”
“Don’t be silly! The sooner we take care of the manuscript—Oh, don’t look at me with such horror, Kevin! I meant to a scribe!” She smiled teasingly. “What did you think 1 meant?”
“I...uh ...”
“Anyhow, the sooner we get rid of the manuscript, the sooner we can do what we want. Whatever we want. Like this.”
Without warning, Carlotta threw her arms around his neck, her lips all at once temptingly close to his.
Temptingly? the bardling thought in panic. Her body pressed against his, the sweet scent other perfume filled his nose. At any other time he would have done almost anything to be embraced like this by a lovely young woman, but now—Powers, I'd be safer fussing a spider! But if I don’t fuss her, she'll know something’s wrong ....
Just before he forced himself to choose the lesser peril, Charina pushed him away, giggling. “You haven’t got a headache. Or if you do, it will go away now that we’re out of the garden. It’s just the result of breathing in the smells of all those herbs.” Her smile was a marvel of fake innocence. “Some of them make me sneeze every time I go near them! If the cook didn’t need them for his recipes ... Never mind. Let’s find that silly old manuscript and get out of here.”
Oh please, Kevin told the manuscript, hide from me the way you did before!
He couldn’t pretend not to search, not with Carlotta watching his every move. Oh no, even chough Kevin realized she didn’t really know what the manuscript looked like, she certainly could tell what it didn’t look like; he couldn’t try to fool her with the wrong tide. And so the bardling did the only thing he could, and examined each and every item in the library as slowly and carefully as possible.
Delaying like this was a dangerous game. Kevin was all too well aware that Carlotta’s sweet expression hid barely restrained impatience. If he pushed her too far ...
An age passed, or so it seemed, while he searched the library, then a second age, this one surely long enough to wear away rock. But at last, to Kevin’s despair, he realized he had gone through every manuscript in the library save one.
As though his hand had a life all its own, the bardling watched with fascinated horror as it pulled the manuscript from the shelf, feeling the strange, magical tingling that told him what he held even before he read the title:
The Study of Ancient Magic.
Of course. You pick a wonderful time to come out of hiding, he told the manuscript with bitter sarcasm.
“Kevin!” Carlotta snapped, “What do you chink you’re doing? Why are you staring like that at an empty shelf?”
“But it’s not—”
“Oh, stop clowning!” There was very little of the innocent young girl in that sharp command. “I don’t want to spend all day here. Get on with your search!”
Bewildered, Kevin turned to face her, the manuscript in his hands.
