Larus takes a long, slow look at the dining hall. “I can almost hear their voices still. And your father’s laughter. Gods, that laugh of his could shake the rafters.”
I grin, remembering. “Like a barking dog. And his sneezes too!” My mother insisted on keeping a wind-born around to dampen the sound.
“I know this isn’t what they would have wanted for you, but they lived in a different time. Under a different king.”
I look up at him through my lashes, suddenly shy. “Has he grown on you then? Ronan?”
He looks at Ronan, measuring him with his eyes. “He’s an easy man to know. He has a lot of big ideas, and they seem like good ones, but there’s a difference between saying something and getting it done. Still, you can tell his heart is in the right place. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as enamored with another person as he is with you.” His features soften. “I may have never wanted it for myself, but it’s everything I could have wanted for you. I wish the circumstances were different, but I know you have what it takes to get through this.”
“Thank you, Larus,” I say softly. “It means a lot to me to hear you say that.” Especially knowing what my parents would have thought. To have the approval of Larus, the closest thing I have left to a parent, is everything.
“But be careful while I’m gone. Adria has a vested interest in finding you and stopping you before you can take the city back. She’d be foolish not to send spies and assassins anywhere Ronan could have fled. Be careful who you trust.”
“I will,” I say. “And you be careful too out there. I’m jealous though, really. I’d love to see you out on the open seas.”
Larus shakes his head. “I gave all that up long ago. I’ll be lucky if Octavia doesn’t throw me overboard for getting in her way.”
I give him one last hug, and then they’re on their way, trailing after a barely chastened Xu Fushi, who marches them back towards the docks with all the confidence of someone who owns the place.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The cellar near the kitchens is one of the few things in Castle Pyka that doesn’t seem to have changed at all.
It’s an absolute disaster in here.
Ronan, Seth, and Taran are ostensibly somewhere nearby, but the only one of them I can locate is Ronan, and that’s exclusively because I can feel him. I’m able to guess at the others’ general direction only based on the crashing sounds and clouds of dust and cobwebs.
It’s like the Alchemists’ Guild Mistress’s chambers, only if instead of priceless ingredients and rare manuscripts littering the floor, it was crates full of moth-eaten clothes, broken toys, tarnished candlesticks, and paintings of my ancestors done by someone who must have been going blind in one eye.
It seems like anything of value has been sold, leaving only the truly worthless garbage. If we weren’t looking for something in particular, I’d tell Seth to light the entire place on fire.
As we make our way deeper into the room and further from the doorway, Ronan casts a few glowing orbs of light to help the others see. I try to emulate his magic, but I’m finding it difficult to wield when I’m not directly next to him and no one’s life isin danger. Hopefully I’ll get some time to practice while we’re waiting for the others to return.
“Hey, Sylvie. Catch!” says Seth, tossing me a leather pouch. “Do you remember these?”
I empty the pouch into my hand. Dice. “I remember you cheating. You always picked this one, and it always comes up four.” I hold up one particularly uneven block of white bone.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just lucky.”
I drop the die to the ground to demonstrate. “Four.”
“That’s just one toss. Do it again.”
I toss it again. “Four.”
“Still doesn’t prove anything.”
“How are you going to stand there and lie when I’m proving it to you?” I toss the die again, but this time, it rolls too far.
“Shoot,” I say, knocking over a pile of empty frames as I chase after it. I find it settled into a groove in the wood. Damn, it’s actually on two this time, but that’s only because it got caught. “Four,” I say. If Seth can lie, I can lie.
I reach to pick it up, but when I touch it, the plank of wood creaks and moves.
I wedge my fingers into the gap and pull, and the plank begins to come up, bringing with it part of a door. I shift the crate covering it out of the way and lift it open.
“Hey, guys. I think I found something.”
There’s a ladder down into a small room. There doesn’t seem to be much down there—a couple of cedar chests, a desk, and a bookshelf.
