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“Send him in.” Flint shut his book and set it aside.
A tall, slender man trailed behind the historian, his head bowed. He was dressed nicely in a button-down shirt and blazer, but the fabrics had the worn-out look I knew well—he’d used mending spells on the sleeves and shoulders so much that the magic wasn’t able to hide its age.
“Hello, Your Highness,” the man said, keeping his head bowed. “It’s an honor to be called in to speak with you.”
Flint nodded. “Sit. We have a lot to talk about.”
Luthor greeted me as well and sat down next to me. His light brown curls were standing on end, as if he’d raked his fingers through them over and over again on his way here. I hadn’t been around a fae who didn’t work in the palace in the presence of Flint, Jagger, or Lex, so I forgot how intimidating they all were. Flint wasn’t as huge as Jagger, but his serious demeanor and confidence filled the room.
“This family journal.” Flint slid the open book in front of Luthor. “It was a part of your collection, right?”
“It was.” Luthor kept his finger on the page where I’d had it open, then closed it to look at the cover. He frowned. “You were able to unseal it?”
“Yes. It took a long time, but we did. You never unsealed it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I didn’t. Well, I wasn’t able to. I only knew it was relevant to the Aridunn family because of my family’s archive system. That was the only book we had on them. Honestly, I almost forgot it was there until the historian contacted me about my sealed books.”
Flint’s frown deepened. “So, you aren’t connected to the Aridunns?”
“No.” Luthor played with a ring he had on his right hand. “I’ve read a lot of books, but I’ve never come across the Aridunn name in anything else that I’m aware of. Then again, I haven’t read everything.”
“Then how did this book come into your possession?” Flint asked.
“I don’t know. My father got it, but he passed away before he told me about it.” Luthor swallowed as Flint’s expression darkened. “I promise, Your Highness.”
“I believe you,” Flint said, the hard edge still in his voice. “Does your father have any remaining siblings or family we could talk to? We need to track down someone to make gaps in this journal make sense.”
Luthor bit the inside of his cheek. “He doesn’t. He was an orphan himself, and his adoptive parents didn’t have any other children.”
Flint drummed his fingers on the table and looked at a spot above his head. The longer he stayed silent, the more uneasy Luthor grew.
“I… Maybe I can help? Somehow?” Luthor asked, his voice cracking. “I know of his friends, some who knew him when he was a child. Anyone to help you find the source of this journal.”
I made eye contact with Flint. What other options did we have? Something in my gut told me this journal had the answers, somewhere. And if someone was trying to get the Aridunns wiped out of history, we had to find out who they were. Was it the Order, or was there another factor at play?
Or maybe it was the Forsaken Lunars? We didn’t know much about their origins, so the idea of them being involved wasn’t too far-fetched. We hadn’t had any more incidents with missing kids, but they might have changed their strategy.
“Fine. Find whoever might have given this to your father and report back to our historian immediately. It’s extremely important,” Flint said.
“I will, Your Highness.” Luthor’s cheeks flushed.
“You’re dismissed.”
Luthor stood up, nearly tipping over his seat, and bowed his head again. He went to the front and disappeared. As soon as he was gone, Flint slumped a few inches in his seat.
“You don’t think this is a good plan?”
“I do. It’s just…” He paused, once again looking past my head to gather his thoughts. “Whoever ejected the Aridunns from their throne and erased them from the history books had to be powerful. Extremely powerful. I don’t even know how that would work, since that kind of coup never crossed my mind. And there had to be a lot of them to cover so much ground.Allof the books in the kingdom have been purged? That’s unheard of.”
My heart sank. “What if we can’t find them? What if they’re hiding themselves?”
“I’m going to help you figure this out, Arden,” he said, his eyes intense. He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If it’s the last thing I do.”
I believed him. He was going to do this. Even if he wasn’t going to give in to me physically, he would do anything for me if it meant my happiness.
But what if that wasn’t enough? Whoever was able to wipe a Royal family out of history might have been stronger than even we could handle.
Chapter51
