While he recovered, I still had time to search for a solution. Coffee kept me upright after lessons with Seraphynand Laerune, both of them draining any semblance of energy I possessed.
It had been frightening to try divining again after what they told me. My last memory of attempting it for Reagan was closing my eyes while he made a face that said he would rather be anywhere in the estate than in front of me. After that, nothing. And at the next lesson, the Sight remained silent once more.
A brown book sat on the desk with a warped leather binding that made its spine unreadable, even when I squinted. There was a chance that my eyes were simply too tired to read it.
Even the study refused to answer when I asked it for a book that would give me what I wanted, a reason to keep the court from tampering with my father’s memories and separating us.
My body protested the hours I had remained hunched in the same position. My eyelids grew heavy as I skimmed yet another useless text.
Low voices and the rhythm of steps drifted along the corridor. A woman’s voice reached me, clear and unfamiliar, nearing outside the half-opened study door.
"What is this room?" she asked.
"A study,” Reagan said. “Nothing particularly exciting."
My chest leaped as I understood what this was. They sounded so close. I slipped behind one of the far aisles, stepping as silently as possible over the rug.
"I beg to differ,” the woman said as she stepped inside. Her voice held a soft, polished sweetness. “We can learn quite a lot about a man from what he reads."
I breathed quietly, praying he couldn’t hear the frantic beat of my pulse.
This was not dignified. This was painfully embarrassing. Yet I could not peel myself away from the cold wall at the end of the aisle.
I covered my mouth to smother any sound, my chest sinking at the thought of them wandering into the aisles as he once had with me. There was no other door to leave the study. If I could fling, I would have.
Peering above the row of tomes, I glimpsed the fall of her dusk-brown hair cascading in waves to her waist, her rose velvet dress skimming a slender frame. She lifted a hand over the books I had been reading, her head tilting as she seemed to read the titles on the table.
Reagan, who had lingered near the door, now approached her, his hands tucked into his pockets. I’d missed whatever he said, but she was already perusing my study, so I assumed he’d granted permission.
A sharp sting pierced my chest, a sensation uncomfortably close to betrayal.
It was unfair, entirely untrue. I wasn’t entitled to this space. It wasn’t mine; it was his to give to whoever mageborn woman he would choose to bond with, possibly this one.
"You have quite a collection on court protocol," she observed, running her gaze along the spines. "No ruling body may infringe upon the fundamental protections..." She stopped her reading. "Since you don’t work in a court, I’d assume you’re an intellectual or…an idealist perhaps." She paused to look at him, her cheek lifting in what I imagined was a smile. "Which are you, My Lord?"
Acid coated my tongue.
Reagan’s quiet chuckle sliced through me. "Neither, I’m afraid. I have no patience for this."
"Could have fooled me," she murmured, lower now, and my head turned involuntarily toward the narrow gap between the books. I caught her drifting past him, her fingers grazing his arm as she moved.
I studied the part of him I could see, from his neck down to the middle of his torso. He remained perfectly still, neither leaning in nor pulling away.
"Your role must require a lot of patience," she observed. "I sat through countless meetings with my father’s council, and do you know what I learned most?"
"Based on what I know of your father, I would guess you learned hundreds of ways to avoid giving a straight answer," he guessed from behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder with a soft chuckle. "That too. It’s a required skill for magisters.” He hummed, and I wondered if it was supposed to be a joke. “But what I learned was how people challenge the ones making the decisions. So you”—her gaze swept over him with deliberate interest—“must be very patient.”
Compliments were a charming way to flirt. She sounded like someone confident and trained and fluent in charm. Naturally they would fall into talk of the work they both understood.
Everything he ought to want.
I needed to get out before humiliation gutted me completely. If they wandered into every aisle, they would find me huddled like some pathetic creature.
My gaze slid back to him. He smiled, and I breathed through the nausea, the hurt.
"I quite like this room." She drifted closer, into his space. Her head tipped up toward his chest.
