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Kora was nowhere to be found, the blackguard.
Jael should have stayed to help, but he closed the door on the tumult and stalked back to his room.
He didn’t like being made to feel as if he were in the wrong when all he was doing was trying to save everyone. He just wanted to solve this problem: save the Bifrost, save Agmon, save her. And she blamed him for it. Sure, he hadn’t told her everything, but who told other people everything, anyway? She acted as if he was doing something disreputable by not spilling all his dirty little secrets.
At the other end of the hall, he found the door to his personal chambers ajar. He must have left it open when he somehow made his way to Anrid while he was asleep. He pushed it open so he could slip inside and let it slam behind him. The sight of the familiar comforted him: his stone nook in the corner, piled high with blankets and a pile of clean clothes he hadn’t gotten around to putting away yet. They kept his feet warm during the night, anyway, so he rarely bothered unless Trap caused a fuss.
He took a stabilizing breath as he lit the runestone on the wall and extinguished the one he carried. Silence enveloped him, the familiar sort of emptiness that welcomed after a hectic day. Once he had calmed his breathing and shuffled to his bed to sink onto his blankets, he realized he felt lighter somehow. It was as if a weight didn’t press down on him so heavily.
And that seemed wrong. It took his exhausted brain a moment to understand what he was feeling, why this absence of weight shouldn’t be acceptable. He wanted to embrace it and collapse back onto his bunk. But that inner voice whispered that he mustn’t.
He roamed his eyes over his room and noticed his robes from the day before lying in a rumpled heap on the ground. That wouldn’t have been so odd, except he usually hung them on the wall.
A sinking emotion tugged at his stomach as he rose to retrieve his robes. They, too, felt lighter than they should. Jael’s heart began to beat faster as he searched the inner pocket for what he knew was missing.
His fingers found nothing but fabric.
The book was gone.
Chapter 25
Anrid didn’t dare sleep, not after what had happened. Jael might think he was protecting her and the children by keeping his mysteries, but she had never been one to trust in the power of secrets.
They were dangerous, volatile things. More often than not, a withheld truth only created more drama. It didn’t alleviate anything, but rather exasperated it.
Jael wasn’t sleeping either. She could feel his anxiety pulsing through the steady presence of the Bifrost.
She rubbed her weary eyes that burned behind her eyelids from lack of sleep. The children snoozed around her, the room filled with gentle snores and whistles. Medda curled into Anrid’s side, her white hair splayed across Anrid’s lap. She lowered her hand to stroke the child’s tangled locks.
She hated secrets.
Clearly, Jael’s mother had never taught him about such things. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Any group of people who secluded themselves away in tunnels, far away from prying eyes, must value privacy.
Or—her heart hammered at the thought, her fingers stilling over Medda’s curls—was it less about protecting and more about hiding? What didn’t they want her and the world above to know?
The bed shifted as a shadowy form crawled onto the lumpy mattress. Rig waited for permission. She lifted her arm to allow him to crawl up against her other side. He sighed as he rested his cheek against her ribs, huddled into a ball with her arm draped over him.
“Are you all right?” She spoke in a hushed whisper so she wouldn’t wake the others. She stroked his back.
He sniffed but nodded, his sharp cheekbones rubbing against her side. “I feel...bad,” he whispered, the words muffled against her nightgown.
She hugged him a little tighter. “You’re safe now, Rig. I’m watching over you all. Nothing is going to happen to any of you, I promise.”
He shuddered but did not respond. “Not that kind of bad,” he muttered.
He shifted, to make himself more comfortable and rested his cheek on her lap. His fingers moved to entangle in his little sister’s hair. She watched as he rubbed Medda’s locks between the pads of his fingers in a rhythmic motion that must be soothing.
“Can you explain what you mean?” she asked at last. “Is this about the books in the library?”
He flinched as if she’d struck a chord. “No,” he said, sounding tired. “No, not about that.”
He didn’t elaborate, and she wondered if she should press him harder, but she imagined he didn’t want to dwell on the library fiasco any more than she did.
The things that happened in the library yesterday had not brought out the best in any of them. Herself included. She flushed with shame when she recalled how she’d dashed into the storage room to help where help was not wanted or needed.
She’d made such a mess of things.
Jael must think her an idiot. No wonder he didn’t want to trust her with his secrets. Her stomach twisted when she remembered how sharply she’d spoken to him in the greenhouse, how disapproving and superior she must have sounded.
