Shivers trickle down my spine, and I may have just moaned out loud.
Yep – definitely making sounds of pure pleasure right now.
He chuckles softly, pulling me deeper into his arms, then picking up the book and flipping it to the handwritten notes at the back.
“I found this in Eydis’ cellar –”
“What is it?” I cut in, partly because he’s making me think the contents of the book are less comfortable than eating rotten chicken. Which leaves me with memories of food poisoning – do Sabers even get food poisoning?
“Just, I’m sorry, but it’s a journal of notes she took about you. Pax wants me to read it.”
My heart stutters, and his hand stills in my hair.
“I can read it to myself, or I can read it out loud, but I wanted you to have the choice. She might have left clues about the Spring or your father. There’s a reason she locked it in the cellar.”
I shuffle back a little further, rolling a little to one side and leaning into him a lot. My head settles against his shoulder. One of his hands begins to tease through my hair again, trailing over my skin, while the other opens the book.
He flicks over pages too quickly for me to see anything but a blur, stopping at the back of the book.
“What’s this mark?” I ask, running my fingers over the almost invisible markings on some of the pages.
“The Page Wiping Potion leaves a mark. Paper is precious, and obviously Eydis thought this book was the perfect candidate for keeping notes in.” His words are simple enough, but there’s something hidden in his tone. He flicks quickly through the pages again and scans down a list at the front before returning to the back. “Might have something to do with the original content.”
“What original content?”
“Not important,” he says, tapping the first gray page. “Eydis would have dropped the potion onto a cloth and wiped the words away, but it leaves a kind of watermark. Are you ready?”
I nod. His finger settles on the top left of the page, and he begins to read.
My eyes trace the scrawling scribbles for all of two heartbeats, then they drift closed – sinking into the sound of his voice. It’s different when he’s reading, silky like ink itself. Scrawling through my consciousness.
“Child orphaned,” he reads.
Me, I was orphaned – that’s nothing new or raw.
I settle in to listen.
“Tried to reach her family in time – died of the mortal flu. Now in the care of the Manor Lord. Being raised by her own kind will be better than bringing her here. Who knows the damage? Bringing her back through the border after whatever the Origin Spring did to put her into stasis has no logical reason for success. I never thought she would come out.
I wish Raefiya was still living to help me navigate this. Leave the child to the suffering of mortals or bring her back into Silva and destroy her mortal soul? Without some kind of a buffer between her and the magic of this place, surely she wouldn’t last ‘til adulthood? Even in my domain. Haryk-Larsan lived outside the border for a reason… but the girl isn’t just mortal. I will have to sleep on it… ~ Eydis.”
“Haryk-Larsan was a person, is a person?” I ask.
“Looks likely.”
“Like a my-father type person?”
“Also likely.”
“Okay, keep reading,” I say, waving him on.
“Um,” for a second he sounds like he’s lost his place, or maybe like he’s shocked by my reaction. “I have decided to employ tradesmen and build a new cottage with a direct line of sight to the Manor. It will take time, and the flow of water will need to be redirected, but in the end it will be closer to the Origin Spring.”
“Right,” I interrupt again. “So the Spring is close, is that all?”
“No, Kitten. There are pages and pages.”
“But what else is there to know? Or to write about? I’m pretty sure my life consisted of waking, cleaning, and then sleeping.”
His heel taps a little rhythm out on the floorboards, but the sound is drowned out by someone else climbing the staircase.
Seth. He’s not in my bubble yet, but I can feel his confidence seeping out ahead of him.
He reaches the top step and leans casually against the banister. “Pax told me you were up here,” he says, giving me a warm smile. Then he pulls his hand from behind his back, two blocks of chocolate in his grip. “Thought maybe you might need these.”
I moan, stretching my arm toward them. Chuckling, he ambles into the room. With gentle fingers, Roarke tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear and then shifts his weight like he’s expecting me to get up.
“Chocolate is in close competition to most things in life, but not you,” I say, snuggling into Roarke so he can’t escape me.
Seth holds the blocks out, and I snatch them up.
“Can I stay?” he asks.
I grip the hem of his shirt and give it a tug. The guy doesn’t argue, sitting on the ground then spinning around, stretching out, and making himself very comfortable with his head on my stomach. We relax into each other, Roarke’s fingers in my hair and mine naturally running through Seth’s. His golden strands glint in the direct light; there’s almost no filter between the early afternoon sun and us.
I rip the brown paper packaging with one hand and break the chocolate into haphazard portions, holding one over my head for Roarke to lean forward and claim with his teeth before I lower another onto Seth’s tongue.
Seth moans softly.
“No sigils?” Roarke asks.
“No sigils,” Seth echoes.
“We’ll find it,” I tell them, not that I have any actual reason to believe it myself. “Do you need to read more, or can we just have a nap?”
“Nap?” Seth chuckles. “It’ll be dark soon. Your nap will turn into a full mortal sleep.”
I shrug, “You want a nap too
