“I’m happy to help.”
“Well, you’ve worked enough. C’mere to me.” Rowan reeled him in close and wiped the corner of Briar’s mouth with his thumb. “Gravy,” he said, by way of explanation.
“Your mam seems famous for it.”
“Ah, sure.” He looked askance at the potatoes, a furrow in his brow. “Look, I asked Mam about Da’s work. She says she’s kept his office right like the day he left it. If you wanted to have a look and see what we can find about…” He gestured to his scar. “All this.”
“Of course. If you’re okay with me seeing it.”
“It’s fine for me. Just don’t want you working on your holiday.”
“Rowan.” Briar nudged him. “Let’s go look.”
They went upstairs through a door at the end of the hall. Inside, something half office, half bomb site awaited. Sandwiched between towers of books and papers was a desk. A curious number of instruments, both for potion making and aesthetics, decorated it. Some moved, whirring and spinning in an eternal loop, powered by invisible magic that had endured since the caster’s death. Framed botany samples and scientific illustrations covered the walls, and the dust of a decade coated everything in gray film.
Some of the clutter looked less natural. A couple desk drawers had been removed and upended.
“It looks like someone ransacked it,” Briar said.
“Could easily have been Da who did that. Mam mentioned he’d given out to her about his missing journal the day he disappeared. He was always misplacing things.”
“Any chance the journal wasn’t lost, but stolen?”
Rowan frowned. “Could be. I don’t know where to start.”
“I’ll start with the desk. That stack of books over there looks… well used? Maybe there’s useful information there.”
They sorted through the contents of the office, though with little idea of what to look for and so much to sort through, it made for a frustrating task. Vatii perused the spines of books stacked against walls and overflowing from shelves. Briar sifted through desk papers—spare parchment and Post-its with only a few scrawled reminders or phone numbers on them. The one drawer not strewn across the floor was locked. Briar asked abouta key, and Rowan said he’d have to ask his mam when she wasn’t preparing to carve a turkey, as she was liable to carve him up instead.
Rowan leafed through ledgers and history books with one hand, the other fidgeting in his pocket. A small frown tugged at the corners of his lips.
“Anything interesting?” Briar asked.
“Hm?”
“In the history book. Anything about the invasion?”
“Oh, ehm, no. Doesn’t cover anything so recent,” Rowan said distractedly.
Briar turned back to the desk. There had to be some clue here, yet the only thing Briar gleaned was an interest Éibhear had with a particular plant called the red carnella. A handwritten treatise of Coill Darraghn flora had been consulted so many times that the spine fell open to a specific, tea-stained page. On it was an illustration of a red flower shaped like a string of hanging bells. The same flower was painted and framed on the wall, along-side scientific lino prints. In the margins of notes, Briar found doodles of the plant. It seemed like an obsession. The botanical book claimed it was rare and endemic to Coill Darragh—something about the soil being the exact acidity necessary. Briar had never seen one before.
He sighed and closed the book. Nothing else jumped out. Nothing about the invasion, or Gretchen, or the responsibilities Rowan would inherit. Nothing that might have precipitated the loss (or theft) of the journal, nothing to indicate why it might be worth taking.
He looked at Rowan, profile aglow with the lamplight behind him. He seemed far away, still holding the same book, open to the same place. Briar admired the fall of dark lashes over warm brown eyes, the slope of his nose, the pursed shape of his lips.
Rowan still fidgeted with something in his pocket. On closer inspection, he looked agitated.
“Find anything?” Briar asked.
Rowan sat up straighter. He blinked, looking down at the book in his lap. “Ehm, nothing.” Sheepishly.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah! Yeah, fine.”
Briar looked around the office—a museum to Éibhear’s history. He stood and reached for Rowan, who got up and stopped fidgeting to put his hand in Briar’s. It was shaking. Even towering over Briar as he did, the hunch of his shoulders made him seem small.
“Is it hard having so much of him around?” Briar asked. “We don’t have to keep looking now.”
