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“I asked about your education. Where did you tell me you learned to write such a neat hand?”
One shoulder dipped in a half shrug, half rebuff. “I didn’t.”
Another nonanswer. He let it go.
He returned to his study of the pages. Anecdotes, expenditures, daily family events. Aidan laughed out loud, reading about the day his father had caught him and Brendan on Belfoyle’s roof. And the culmination of ladders, footmen, nursery maids, and attic windows it took to get two oblivious young boys down. His father’s vexation was clear even at this far remove.
“Let me guess. The roof story?” Cat asked.
“Dead on.”
“Your parents must have had their hands full. It’s a wonder you made it to adulthood.”
“Looking back, I’ll admit there was a definite pattern of danger seeking. But my father promoted it to an extent. He never wanted his sons to flinch from a challenge.”
“Stand fast or die trying?”
He met her eyes, baring his teeth in a roguish smile. “Something like that. I rode. I fenced. I boxed. I shot . . .” His voice trailed off into a stilted silence.
“But?” she coaxed.
He shrugged. “In the end none of that seemed to count against the one thing at which I didn’t excel.”
She lifted her brows expectantly.
“Magic. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly proficient.”
She looked as if she might say something. Her eyes widened, her lips parted, but she must have thought better. She dropped her gaze back to the diary, and the opportunity passed.
Just as well. What could she possibly say to mitigate a lifetime of not measuring up? What would she know of the tangled web of love and disappointment, pride and expectation that made up the memories he held of his father?
He raked a hand through his hair, put his maudlin thoughts aside, and focused back on the translation. Or tried. His temples bulged with the throb of an anvil clang, and yellow black swirls swam across his vision. They’d been translating for hours, and he’d yet to come across anything seeming to be the stuff of murder.
The page he held contained notes from a meeting. One of the mysterious gatherings that seemed such a large part of Father’s life. And Aidan’s childhood. Men and women who arrived stern lipped and grim, disrupting the household as they lurked in the corridors and treated the normal inhabitants like intruders. Mother would flutter uselessly as Father barked orders for meals to be prepared and rooms to be readied. The stream of commands ending only when the group disappeared into Father’s study, doors locked against all comers. Except for Brendan. He’d been the only one of the children to warrant an invitation.
Aidan remembered seething with jealousy until his younger brother had confessed the nature of the meetings. Astronomy, he’d claimed. Mathematics. Ancient languages. And like a dolt, Aidan had believed him.
Or had he wanted it to be true so badly he’d disregarded all the clues pointing to a more sinister purpose? Only emerging from his blindness after it was too late.
Scanning Cat’s translation, he read names, dates, an agenda of sorts, though even translated it made little sense. One name stood out among the others. Aidan read it with a twinge of recognition. Daz Ahern. A man he’d once known with the intimacy of a favorite uncle. A man last known to be residing outside Knockniry in the moorland isolation of the Slieve Aughty Mountains. He’d send an inquiry by post. Discover if Daz still lived and what he knew.
None of the others mentioned rang any bells. A hodgepodge of Irish and English surnames. A few foreign sounding titles thrown in for good measure. But nothing to explain why unknown hands would be bent on gaining the information contained within these up-to-now mundane pages of trivia.
“Here’s something interesting.” Cat’s voice broke into the endless circle of questions. “October seventeen. Eighteen-o-three. One of our own has sought to break with the group. Un . . . unfor . . . oh no, I have it — unacceptable.”
Aidan crossed to her side, his stomach knotting in unexplained dread as Cat continued reading the entry word by stammering word.
“M. suggests we”—her face scrunched in concentration—“persuade him to return. As if we all don’t know what he means. I’m not . . . not . . . a . . . averse to his suggestion, but how dare he undercut me with the others. I brought him into the council. I made him one of the Nine. And he repays my interest in his . . . schooling . . . knowledge . . . no that doesn’t”—one finger traced the page as if understanding involved the whole body—“studies by suborning my closest friends.”
Aidan followed the progress over her shoulder. The writing spilled across the heavy paper in bold, violent strokes. It jumped and swooped as if Father had sought to assuage a black fury here within the privacy of his diary. Even Cat’s colorless translation was unable to mitigate the blast of emotion worked into the ink. It transferred itself to Aidan as an immediate lance of agony. Glowing auras outlined the room and everything in it, pulsing with every rapid beat of his heart.
“It does not sit well with me to prolong . . . strife that can only undermine our . . . our . . . energy for greater things. But M. cannot assume I will allow him to continue this blatant bid for dominance.” She shifted in her chair so that she faced him, strain tightening her mouth, clouding her eyes. “Who do you suppose M. is?”
Aidan shook his head. Immediately regretted it as the pain curled down his spine. Slid along his ribs to the gash in his side.
“You look odd,” she said, rolling up and onto her feet in one fluid movement, a queer look passing over her face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
She wore the same golden glow as the rest of the room, her black hair haloed, her skin pearlescent. Even her lips burned scarlet, pulled now into a frown, slanting her dark brows over eyes sparkling like green gems.
