They stared at each other for a moment, while the golden merhorse rooted through the basket. She huffed, snorted, and munched with so much enthusiasm that Kiela started to laugh—until Sian grabbed the basket with her teeth and tried to yank it off Kiela’s arm, knocking her off-balance. Kiela yelped.
“Sian, back!” Larran barked as he lunged forward to grab Kiela before she could tip.
The horse-fish tossed her mane, whickered, and raced off into deeper water.
“I’m fine,” Kiela said, regaining her balance without, thankfully, splashing into the water this time.I should bring spare clothes every time I come to visit.Except this could be her last visit.
He hadn’t released her arms, and she didn’t want him to.
Staring up into his eyes, Kiela tried to think of all the words she’d planned out on the walk through the greenery and down the cliff stairs. She was going to remind him that they hadn’t known each other long, even if he did remember her from years ago, and that they didn’t know each other well. She wasn’t ending anything because nothing had ever begun.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, fine, of course.”
“After yesterday. Are you all right?”
He was looking into her eyes so intensely. She gazed back. “Yes.”
“Is Caz all right?” he asked.
And with that, she couldn’t say any of the words that she’d wanted to say. That question—the fact that he chose to ask about her best friend, the fact that he genuinely cared as he waited for her answer—it undid her.
She rose up on her tiptoes in the wet sand and kissed him.
He froze, his lips motionless and his eyes wide open, as if he hadn’t expected this—how could he, when she hadn’t even planned to? She nearly pulled away, but then he was kissing her back, suddenly, as if he’d snapped awake after a thunderclap.
He pulled her closer, and the seawater from his chest soaked through the fabric of her dress. She didn’t care. He tasted like the ocean, and his lips were warm.
The kiss ended. But he didn’t pull back. He was only an inch away, and she was still breathing his breath. He was looking at her as if she was all that existed on the entire island.
“I came to tell you that I have to leave,” Kiela said.
“What?” Larran said.
She took a deep breath and took a step backward and then another step until she was out of the water and on the sand. It was easier to think when he wasn’t so close. “I said I have to leave Caltrey. With Caz. And Meep. Because we can’t stay.”
He blinked at her as if her words were in another language. “Why?”
“Because I’m a librarian.”
“Oh.”
She wanted to kiss him again. It was odd how much she wanted to—she wasn’t used to her lips telling her brain what to do, but she wanted to feel his body against hers, and she wanted his hands to touch her.
He frowned. “So, why?”
“Because I’m also a thief and a liar.” Kiela made herself take another step backward, farther away from him, and then another toward the shore until she was standing on the pebbles beyond the touch of the waves. “The emperor was thrown from a window—not by me. I didn’t have anything to do with that. I’d never even met the emperor. Saw him once, in a parade, or at least his ship—twice a year, he’d parade through the canals of Alyssium, and this was while I was at the university and usually I’d remember to stay late to study so I wouldn’t have to navigate the crowds, but this one time I forgot and . . .” She took a breath. “The night the emperor was killed, there were fires. The library began to burn. Everyone else had already evacuated, but Caz and I . . . We fled when it began to burn, with as many books as we could save. The only place I could think to come was here. Home.”
“Then the crates . . .”
“Spellbooks.”
“Ah.”
“I’m the rogue sorcerer that Radane is searching for,” Kiela said. “Well, sort of. At least I read through several of the books and cobbled together a few practical spells, like the one with the pine cone that heals trees, but I’m not really a sorcerer.”
He was still staring, but now she couldn’t read his expression. “You’re not.”
