Page 14 of The Seeker

She didn’t answer, but I heard the rustling of fabric as she moved away.

Taking a deep breath, attempting to calm the nerves that were alight after my near miss-step, I made my way down the stairs little by little.

When I arrived at the bottom, the elder Hansen’s room was nothing noteworthy. Just a large feather-stuffed bed similar to the one Leif and I slept in, a desk, a wardrobe, and a bedside table with a candle holder, the candle halfway burned down.

There was one door in the room, which revealed a small bathing chamber, much smaller than the one Leif and I had access to. With nothing else to see there, I crossed the room to pull open the drawers on the desk. They all came easily, revealing nothing interesting. Not even a letter. The dust on the desk surface was thick as fog, and I struggled to restrain my sneezes.

Someone had cleared the room of all of his personal effects.

I stepped back, surveying the room again. While it screamed safety in dangerous times, it received no outside light and had few amenities. Something a viscount’s wife was sure to abhor.

Which meant his wife, Leif’s mother, had likely never lived down here.

I filed that information away for later, glancing under the bed one final time before making my way back up the stairs. Although I hadn’t found where Hansen had kept his books, I had found something else.

Somewhere to hide things I didn’t want Leif to know about.

In my mind, there was only one more place worth checking, and it was the most risky, which was why I saved it for last.

The room where I’d been forced to read.

It made sense now, that if Hansen’s room was a refuge, he wouldn’t keep the whispering book there. While I hoped he’d disposed of it, in the time since I’d read it to him, if I knew powerful men, and I did, he would never dispose of something until he was sure it wouldn’t offer a benefit to anyone.

I peeked around the corner into the room where I’d read, which was also the dining room, and contained the dais with the refurbished altar to Leif’s father.

The oak table was still littered with dishes, but the chairs were empty as servants moved to clear the table, carrying the plates to the kitchen. There was no sign of Leif.

Which was enough for me.

Tossing my shoulders back and walking into the room like I belonged there, I walked up to Hansen’s altar first, ignoring the painting and burning candles on its surface, as I kneeled down. I pressed my hands together, as if I was paying homage to the prior viscount, before checking over my shoulder to ensure that the servants were focused on their jobs.

Once I was sure none were sparing a glance in my direction, I reached under the white lace cloth covering the altar, feeling for anything akin to a book.

There was nothing.

Merely an empty shelf with a thick layer of dust.

With a huff, I sat back on my heels. Where were the books?

I glanced around the room, trying to remember what had changed in the days since Hansen’s death.

That’s when it hit me. The shrine I was in front of was not the one that was here before. The table was larger, higher than the one that had been built for Leif’s mother. And the candles dotting the surface were much more upscale than the ones I’d glanced at previously. The shrine hadn’t changed, it had been moved.

And I needed to find out where it had been moved to.

CHAPTER 6

Trying to find Leif’s mother’s altar, or the items that had once been associated with it, was harder than finding Hansen’s room. Not only had the servant girl I previously spoke to disappeared, but when I asked others about the altar, they didn’t seem to have any idea what I was talking about.

Which meant, once again, I was on my own.

Leif didn’t talk about his mother much, though I knew he’d loved her and grieved her death—it was something we had in common that I’d learned the first time I’d been taken here.

If I was Leif, where would I want to visit the memory of my mother?

The answer came quickly, and I mentally smacked myself for not thinking of it sooner as I crossed the courtyard to the door that led to the field and pond. Both were still within the walls of the keep, meaning Leif could visit them with ease, but out of the way enough that someone unsuspecting would never look for Seid books there.

The sun was bright in my eyes as I closed the door behind me. I cringed at the sight of the pond I’d once called beautiful. I’d nearly drowned there before being bonded to Leif, and my subconscious remembered the feeling of not having enough air. I shivered, trying to push the feeling away so I could focus.