“What do you think ‘defense’ means?”
“I don’t know. Luna might have a better sense than me. It could be an Aetheric weapon, but why would Carethia need that? That’s not the part that worries me.” He pointed to a single word: “Cataloging. He was tracking practitioners. He wouldn’t need to know who’s working magic unless he intended to do something about it.”
And would the Emperor Eternal be interested in a girl who could see ghosts…and a little more? “Does it still happen?” I wondered if he could hear my trepidation, even though I worked to keep the words steady. Fear wouldn’t help.
“No,” he said, and the certainty in his voice made me feelbetter. “I would know. I didn’t have connections when I was younger, but I do now. And the Emperor Eternal wouldn’t waste resources on tracking something that doesn’t exist.”
Hadn’t existed. Things were changing.
“Is there a connection you trust enough to ask about the curate? Maybe the Northern Prince or your uncle? You said he wasn’t political, but he was an adult, at least, when this was going on. Maybe he remembers it.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m not sure I’d get the truth from my uncle, assuming he was even aware of it. Asking Laeith means sending a message halfway across the country. It would take weeks to get a response, and it wouldn’t be secure.”
“You mean the emperor might intercept it?”
“I presume he is aware of every communication sent from the stronghold.”
“So much power,” I said. “And so little power.”
“I’m only the son of an emperor. As he likes to remind us, he is the one with the power.”
And, it seemed, entirely too much of it.
“Come with me,” he said, and picked up a candelabra. “I want to show you something.”
We walked back into the corridor, then into a narrow stone stairwell that led to an underground level. We reached an imposing set of double doors with iron strapping and hinges, and an enormous lock with two keyholes.
Doors this sturdy were only necessary when important things needed guarding.
My heart fluttered. “Treasury?”
“Treasury,” he confirmed, then pulled from his pocket two keys tied with a green ribbon.
A thief dreams of treasure chests and hidden caches andsecret vaults. And I knew I’d walk through those doors to find a lifetime’s worth of treasure. I blew out a breath, fully prepared to meet my destiny.
He twisted the keys, pushed open the doors, and walked inside, the flickering candles lighting the way.
The room was nearly as spacious as the library, with a ceiling of vaulted stone and wooden shelves for a palace’s collection of coin, bullion, paintings, artifacts, tapestries.
And it held exactly none of those things.
I walked from front to back, trailing fingers across shelves grimy with dust and disuse. I found a single copper coin, a sliver of broken blue ceramic, and nothing else.
It was so disappointing. “I don’t understand. The treasury was robbed?” Righteous fury joined the disappointment. If anyone was going to strip this palace of its excesses,it should have been me.
“Not in the way you mean. It was empty when I arrived, and apparently had been for some time.”
“The former prince’s servants?”
“Or the prince himself. Or princes.”
I wondered what my father would have thought of his scrawny daughter standing in an empty treasure room—and not being the one who’d ransacked it. Maybe relieved. Maybe disappointed.
“What do you think they did with it?”
“Sold it, most likely, to pay for their lifestyles. The Western Gate isn’t the most prestigious.”
“I’ve heard it’s where the troublemakers are sent. And that you punched the tutor.”
