Page 46 of Starside

“I’ll stay with you,” I offer. “While they rest. I can answer your questions.”

Zane and Kira look at me as if I’ve lost my fucking mind. Maybe I have. I only smile tightly at them and hope they trust I know what I’m doing. Or, at least, I think I do.

“Very well,” Ellis says. “Level Ones will escort you two to your rooms.” The dark gray–robed men scuttle out again, leading Kira and Zane away.

I turn back toward Pelas. “What is it you want to know?”

Two hours later, Pelas has asked me an endless stream of questions. The latest was about how he compares to a mortal man.

“You’re … fine,” I say, careful with my words. “Most mortals have more muscle, if they aren’t starving. But … your face is … not revolting?”

SUFFERS FROM VISION PROBLEMS, he writes.

I fight to mask a laugh, and his eyes dart up to my face. His demeanor completely changes. “Were you reading my notes?” he demands.

Fuck.

I blink quickly, then divert my gaze to the floor. I hunch my shoulders and will red to stain my cheeks. “Oh, no—I … I can’t. I was just marveling at how quickly you make the shapes.”

He reaches a finger out to touch my cheek. His touch is clinical as he studies the rush of color in pure fascination. I wonder if immortals’ durable skin means a blush looks different on them.

He tilts his head. “Mortals do not read?”

I smile weakly. “We have no use for such things.”

His aggression melts away, replaced by something worse: conceit. “Of course not.” He shakes his head. “Of course you have no use for such things, simple creature.”

I smother the urge to bury my sword in his skull. “Where do the words live?” I ask innocently.

He blinks. “The books, you mean?”

I nod quickly, eyes as wide as I can make them.

He sighs. “You simple, simple creature,” he says, stroking my cheek, and I have to stop myself from recoiling. “Stand. I will show you.”

And I wonder who the simple creature is.

It’s the middle of the night, and the corridors are quiet. Pelas looks around before lighting a candle. I watch as he takes a quill with a sparkling metal point out of his pocket. Starside steel. Though here, I’m guessing it’s called something else. The quill has a jagged edge. It almost looks like a key.

Pelas slips it through a crack in the wall and turns it. A door punches out of the stone, then we’re in the tower.

He frowns at my dirty clothes. “You’re not worthy of being in here, mortal. Be grateful I have charitable instincts.”

Charitable. I know men like him. Men who are treated as if they are lesser, then take the first opportunity to do it to others.

I nod deeply, almost bowing. “You have my gratitude.”

I’m not a threat to him. He thinks I’m too stupid to lie. He’s too eager to feel important.

My boots click over a mosaic that makes up the entire bottom of the tower. Its pieces form a ring, with a much smaller silver circle at its center, filled like an orb. I stop right atop it, frowning, studying the two thin lines of silver erupting from the middle to the outer ring, shooting from opposite directions.

Before I can ask what it is, Pelas turns, motioning around him. “This. This is half a century of work,” he says. “Being able to walk in here whenever I wish.” His pride is a drug. He looks up and points at the levels overhead, floors and floors of shelves all visible from the center of the hollow cone-shaped tower. “Half the library. I can access half of it. You wouldn’t understand. You have no idea how rare this is.”

I do. And it’s getting hard to mask my excitement. I force my voice to be casual as I say, “Do … do any of these books include accounts from those who have completed the Questral?”

I swallow, waiting, hoping he answers.

Pelas only frowns. “I haven’t encountered one yet. But it wouldn’t be from a mortal. It would be an immortal’s account, of course.”