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Was she insane? What had she been thinking when she’d offered to come here in Geordie’s place? This was a job for a professional, not a novice with more bravado than skill. She’d never find one book among the hundreds rising from floor to ceiling on every wall.
She gave a passing thought to returning home and explaining her failure. Discarded the idea almost immediately. Geordie needed her. He’d asked so little over the years they’d been together, the least she could do was complete this one small job.
Plucking a candle from a low table nearby, she mumbled the words to set flame to wick. She’d learned over the last few years to hide even the small bits of household magic she’d been allowed at home. Survival meant being normal. Passing as one of the non-magical Duinedon in a world where to be Other meant persecution and worse. But she was in a hurry, with no time to waste searching for flint and steel. Not when she had a much bigger and more frustrating search ahead of her. Magic would have to serve.
Yet the futility of her task was simply made more clear to her in the light of the tiny flame. Had she said hundreds of books? There must be thousands. And more spread out on tables. Heaped upon the desk. Some even stacked in corners for lack of other space. She’d never seen so many in one place. Not even in her stepfather’s library, the coveted symbol of his newfound wealth.
Cat started at the shelves, browsing the titles and spines, hoping against hope the damned thing would jump out and holler, here I am! Found nothing even remotely resembling the diary’s description Geordie had given her.
She moved to the tables. Plucking books up. Leafing through them. Putting them back disappointed. Scowling, hands on hips, she surveyed the bibliophilic excess. This was getting her nowhere. And time stood as her enemy. The longer she remained, the greater the chance she’d be caught. She needed a plan of action.
So, if she had a diary, where would she keep it?
Simple. Close at hand. Easily accessible. That meant the desk.
She focused her attention on the volumes scattered there. A book did lie open. But a quick scan showed her columns and rows of tiny, carefully written numbers. Sheet upon sheet, with little to show for them at the end if she were any judge.
Pushing it aside, she took up the next in the pile. And the next. A third followed. Then a fourth.
She gave up. Started rifling through drawers. Ledger books, receipts, correspondence. She’d progressed as far as the bottom right-hand side when she encountered a lock. Out came the betty. With a practiced flick of her wrist, the lock gave way. And . . . success. A book lay at the bottom of the drawer. A drawer empty but for this one item.
Carefully, she withdrew the book. Placed it on the desk, her breath coming jumpy with excitement.
Old?
Frayed at the edges. A cover of tooled leather, supple from handling. So far, so good.
A crescent pierced by a broken arrow in gold leaf?
She studied it in the weak light. Turned it one way, then the other.
Here was a funny squiggle rubbed to a dull brown, but if she squinched her eyes almost shut, it sort of resembled the sketch Geordie had given her to memorize.
The final test. The stamped personal crest of Kilronan.
Cat smiled. That was easy to see. A spread-winged bird atop a crooked sword had been pressed into one corner. Fortuna ventus validus. Luck favors the strong.
Latin. A straightforward language and one she’d learned the secret of long ago, despite Mother’s gimlet eye on her every moment she’d not been at her needlework or helping with her half sisters.
This was it, then. She could taste success.
Curiosity set her fingers leafing through the pages.
Her heart beat sharp as a bird’s, her mouth going dry, her throat tightening. Not Latin this time. No language she’d ever seen.
She lost herself in the hand-inked marks upon the vellum, in the swirl and slice of each faded letter. Strung together like beads upon a string. She studied their weight and shape. The emptiness between. They fell into her head like stones into a pool. Rippled and struck. Bounced back until they met their echo in the still center of her. And from the unintelligible came meaning.
This was what she’d been sent for. She’d bet her only farthing on it.
She smiled, shifting on the balls of her feet as success lit her insides. Clutched the diary to her chest as if embracing a baby.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” A deep baritone voice punctuated by the snick of a cocked pistol.
Cat froze.
Aidan studied the woman as he might some rare new species.
Womanus Exoticus.
