He enjoys this, thought Patrick.
The lord stood and pulled his robes closed. “I will need your signature as well, Mr. Colson.”
Patrick shook his head, feeling as though he were hurtling over the edge of a cliff. “No.” He paced across the room, trying furiously to think. “I told you I would make no agreements until you gave me proof of the seam. And I need proof that Nina… that she’s come to no permanent injury.”
Shop considered Patrick’s conditions for several careful moments. In the corner, Theo turned away, shoulders still slumped.
“Very well,” the lord intoned. Then he pulled open a thin drawer at the desk and drew from it a disintegrating leatherbound book no bigger than the span of his hand. The cover’s embossing readThe Stewards’ Testament. “This was recently recovered.”
“From who?” His eyes stuck to the wordStewards, seeing a glimmer of promise in it. It had been some time since he’d heard mention of them. Not many believed.
“A direct descendant,” Shop said slowly, clearly sensing Patrick’s growing curiosity. “Recently passed, Idia claim his soul. This book was found among his possessions and kindly gifted to the archives.”
“What archives?”
Lord Shop did not deign to answer. He merely pressed his lips together and proffered the book with his thin hand. “This is the only conclusive lead we have that Idia’s Seam exists, Mr. Colson. I bid you treat it like the relic it is.”
Patrick snatched it from his grasp and relished the fury that flashed in the lord’s eyes. It was quickly suppressed.
So then, he wasn’t unfeeling. Just a man who concealed himself. He could burn. He could hurt.
Patrick opened the cover none too carefully and saw the faded, bleeding lines of symbols he didn’t recognize. A language he’d never seen. But in the crevice near the spine’s binding was a different hand, this one less faded, as though it had been written retrospectively.
The Seam of Idia, it said, clear enough.
And then there was nothing more to discern. Just page after stained page of symbols vanishing into the parchment after a flash, just as Idia’s life source had concealed itself in the marrow of the world.
Thiswas his proof?
Patrick slammed his fist into the tea table, and the glass top splintered. Then he stomped to the hearth, held the book over the flames, and watched as every man in the room lunged toward him, wild-eyed.
Color climbed up Lord Shop’s neck.
“Patty!” John cursed, then smoothed his beard—an anxious habit. “Easy, son. That there’s an important bit o’—”
“It’s a rag,” Patrick said. His eyes were on Shop. “You’ve lied to me twice now.”
“There was no deception,” Shop said. No snark now. Patrick watched the lord’s face change, becoming desperate. “I promised you proof—”
“This book is as useless as a cock on a priest.”
“It’s alead, boy. Where one piece of the puzzle resides, another will follow.”
“Glyphs? On parchment leached nearly clean, thanks to your useless fuckin’ archive keepers,” Patrick said darkly.
The flames licked higher, touching the very corner, the fibers singed.
A hiss escaped from between Lord Shop’s teeth. Patrick suppressed his own satisfaction.
The words came flying from the lord’s mouth. “Damn it. The whereabouts of the Seam wasprotectedby Verian Script, boy! Everything we need to know can be uncovered by someone who can translate it!”
“If there was a way to translate it, you would already have done so.” Patrick knew the men could smell the first tendrils of burnt parchment. The edges were blackening.
“Ihidthe knowledge from Tanner,” Lord Shop admitted in haste. “I have someone ready to reveal the translation.”
“Which someone?”
“The descendant had a child who was taught Verian Script.”
