Page 146 of Blade of the Nightking

Before I could think better of it, I dropped into the empty chair opposite Rìan. He didn’t object.

I reached across the table and tugged the book from his hands before setting it back down between us. I turned the page, revealing the strange two-page illustration, colored ink slashing wildly across the parchment. I pointed to the three downward-pointing arrows.

“These marks…” I said, flipping back to the drawing of the well. I pointed at the star. “I think they have something to do with this.”

Rìan said nothing, though his mouth pursed slightly as he leaned closer.

I tapped the bottom point of the star. “There’s an extra point here where there shouldn’t be.”

He still hadn’t moved, but he followed my hand across the page, intent now.

“I think the wells are marked.”

“So you’re saying…” he said slowly.

I thumbed back to the picture one last time. “I think this is some sort of map.” I grinned, barely able to contain myself.

When I looked up again, Rìan was watching me.

The look on his face made something inside me falter. There was something unnervingly searching in his gaze, as though he were seeing me properly for the first time. Heat climbed unexpectedly up my neck, and I looked away first.

“Veylan,” Rìan said quietly, though there was something different beneath the calm of his voice now, an energy I’d never heard there before. “Go wake Segolayne.”

Veylan inclined his head and dissolved, the shadows thinning where he stood.

Silence settled between us. Alone with him like this, simply sitting together, I found I didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat and bent back over the book, his hair falling forward to obscure his eyes. My gaze drifted past him to a narrow cot pressed against the far wall, the blankets atop it rumpled and carelessly thrown aside.

So I’d been right.

He did sleep down here. In the ruined belly of the library.

Suddenly, I was painfully aware of my slippers, my nightdress, and the fact that I was sitting half-dressed and breathless in the very chamber where Rìan slept. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest.

His chair creaked as he straightened.

“You’re reading now,” he said finally, breaking the silence. He was looking at me again.

“I’m not stupid,” I snapped. “I just needed to be taught.”

He hummed quietly in the back of his throat, neither agreement nor disagreement, though he lingered on me a moment longer before returning to the book.

“Have you heard of the Gates of Othyr?” I asked.

“No.”

“Any magic wells?”

“Also, no.”

Disappointment sank heavily in my chest.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t find them.” He tilted his head slightly, studying the currents of ink before turning back to the sketch of the well.

“Do you know what it is?” I asked, as he peered at the symbol more closely. “Have you ever seen an eight-pointed star before?”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, without a word, he reached for the knife at his belt. Leather whispered softly as he unsheathed it and laid it across the table between us, the bone hilt catching the glow of the fae light. My knife.

He didn’t look remotely apologetic for taking it from me. If anything, the look he gave me suggested he expected an explanation.