one by one until their pale gold glow filled the tower. An extravagant sort of magic, and one that required renewing every month, but it meant that no candle or oil lamp ever endangered the library’s collection.
Savedra was familiar with the royal palace’s library, and had seen the one in the Arcanost, and knew that both collections dwarfed this one. But the sight of the shelves lining the walls never failed to impress her. A wide marble stair spiraled around the room, its landings positioned under the windows where tables and chairs might catch the best light. Pointed arches led to the smaller domes that budded from the sides of the tower-the bindery, secure vaults, and the librarian’s rooms. The last librarian had retired over a year ago, half-blind and rheumatic, and the family had yet to appoint another. Iancu had taken up the duties, as he did with any left lying unfulfilled.
Savedra turned back to Iancu, who lingered by the door, obviously preparing to excuse himself. “Can you tell me this, at least? Varis was researching the vrykoloi, wasn’t he? Demons and blood magic and their history in Erisin? The sorts of thing an eastern witch might be interested in.”
The last was a blind strike, hastily cobbled together from Iancu’s old bedtime stories; she didn’t expect it to hit home. But he flinched, left hand rising in a warding gesture before he clenched it at his side again.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” he said. “And you should be careful what you speak aloud, especially so near the mountains. But if you wish to research such things, the index is all you need.” He bowed shallowly. “If you’ll excuse me, I must see to your men, and to dinner. It should be ready within the hour.” He hesitated for a heartbeat as he turned, then squared his shoulders and stepped into the gathering dusk. The door echoed shut behind him.
The books were missing.
Savedra and Ashlin searched for an hour before they were certain of it-not misshelved, or set aside, but gone from the building. Demonologies, treatises on blood magic, certain family histories, and those were only the most obvious. Checking the entire catalog was a task for more than two people and one evening.
Iancu returned just after the hour to call them to dinner, but when Savedra explained the problem he immediately joined the search. Books were not removed from the library, not even by archons, and none had been stolen in living memory. Another hour passed, revealing at least two more missing volumes, and night had settled thick and heavy against the windows. Finally Iancu collapsed in a chair, slumping with a despair Savedra had never seen in him before.
“I can’t believe it,” he muttered against his hands. “Not of Lord Varis.”
Savedra could hardly believe it herself. Varis respected little, certainly, but of the things he did, she would have ranked knowledge and her mother among the very highest.
“I understand this is an unpleasant situation,” Savedra said, kneeling beside him, “and I have no desire to make it worse. But please, will you tell me everything you know about Varis’s visit? It’s important.”
He gave her a wan smile and brushed her hair lightly as he had when she was a child. “I shouldn’t, but I will. After dinner, though, or the cooks will be even more annoyed with us.”
Dinner was duck in pomegranate sauce with tabouli, delicious even cold, but they ate in frowning silence. Even a good bottle of Ombrian siyah did nothing to lighten the mood, though Savedra was enamored enough of the vintage that she took another bottle with them when they retired to Iancu’s private study.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much I can tell you,” the steward said, after activating the room’s silence. “Lord Varis came, as I said, in Janus. He was quieter than usual, perhaps, more withdrawn. I thought that had to do with his companion, since she took such care to hide her face.”
“Do you have any idea who she was?”
“None, though of course everyone speculated. Some thought she was just a melodramatic actress, while others decided she must be a member of a great house, one who couldn’t be seen associating with a Severos. The kitchen staff had a wager going as to whose wife she might be.”
“Did you speak with her?”
“Hardly at all. She was never rude, but she rarely spoke, and even more rarely to anyone but Varis. He was… solicitous of her privacy.”
“But you didn’t like her.”
“No.” He shook his head, pinching the long arch of his nose. “I knew it was foolish even then, but something about her made me uneasy. You think me superstitious, and perhaps that’s so, but between her accent and the nature of her studies I thought her a witch from the mountains. Not all magic is as civilized as it is in Erisin.”
“And you never heard a name?”
Iancu pinched his nose again, as if against a headache. “He called her
It was Savedra’s turn to frown, turning her wine glass between her palms and searching for answers in the dark ripple. “I’ve heard that name recently.” It was a perfectly normal Selafain name, though not one that had been in fashion lately, so where… “Phaedra Severos. She wrote an essay on blood magic. I saw it mentioned in the Phoenix Codex.”
“I don’t know of any Phaedra Severos,” Iancu said. From the steward of Evharis, it was practically a denial of her existence. “When was this essay published?”
She shrugged. “Four sixty something. Before I was born.”
“No sense of history,” he muttered with a fleeting smile. He set aside his glass and rose, unfolding long limbs from his chair. He removed a copy of the Codex from his great oaken desk and handed it to Savedra. “Where did you see the reference?”
After several moments of flipping and squinting and muttering imprecations, she finally found the footnote she remembered. “ ‘On The Transfer of Magic and Consciousness via the Sanguine Humor,’ by Phaedra Severos. Published by the Arcanost in 463.”
Iancu frowned and took the book from her. “How odd. I’ve never heard of this woman.”
“Neither have I,” Savedra said, “but I don’t know all my cousins. Perhaps she died.”
“Death is no reason not to exist,” he said. “Certainly not to Evharis.”
“She might have married in, or out.” Which was still no excuse, as Iancu’s glower told her. “There must be records.”
“Unless those are missing too.”
And so of course they were.
The library’s great clepsydra dripped past midnight before Iancu finally located an intact record-the book had been taken to the bindery to be restitched, and that may have saved it. Phaedra Severos was the daughter of Ilisavet and Leonidas Severos, born in Medea in 441. Which meant that her family was a distant and apolitical branch of the Severoi and it was no wonder Savedra had never heard of them, and also that Phaedra had probably been a very talented mage to be publishing articles for the Arcanost at twenty-two. In 464 she married a minor Sarken margrave named Ferenz Darvulesti. Beyond that, she didn’t appear to exist.
Could she have been here four months ago, helping Varis steal books? If that were the case, she appeared to have stolen all traces of herself.
CHAPTER 9
Isyllt’s bruised skull healed, and the ringing in her ears faded in the next few days-all the better for Kiril and the Arcanost physicians to harangue her about the poor care she took with herself. She reported to Nikos and saw the stolen goods returned quietly to the Alexios crypt. The prince praised her speed and discretion, and rewarded her from his personal coffers. The silver griffins lay in a warded box beside her bed, winking whenever she lifted the
