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“And perhaps some theft.”
“That is almost as enjoyable as the other things I was imagining. Let’s move quickly, while everyone is still in Council.”
Lio touched the door, and she heard its lock grind open again and the door bar creak up. She wrapped an arm around Knight briefly, giving his head a rub, then sent him in first to sniff the room for danger. She felt Lio’s power flare in the darkness.
“How interesting,” Lio said.
“What? Is there magic in the room?”
“An Aithourian spell designed to repel Hesperines,” he explained, “but it isn’t cast properly.”
Cassia took his arm and pulled him back from the door. “Did the Dexion cast it?”
“No. Eudias did. A mage of his skill would never cast such a malformed spell—unless he intended to. I suspect Flavian asked him to keep me out of the solar, and Eudias decided to make sure I had access.”
“Oh, clever Eudias.”
They slipped inside the dark room, and Lio conjured a faint glow so Cassia could see. “Anything in particular we should keep an eye out for?”
She glanced around the chamber, looking for places she would hide her secrets. “Flavian has something that is mine, and I want it back.”
“Your papers,” Lio guessed, “the documents you sent him outlining your plan for the overthrow.”
“I know he’s already used them—and perhaps destroyed them. But if they’re still here, I want them back.”
“Anything else he might have from your courtship?” Lio asked, his voice taut. “If he has a romantic token of you somewhere, I refuse to leave that with him, either.”
Cassia snorted. “He gives tokens of his affection to all the ladies he flirts with, but never accepts them in return.”
Lio began rifling through the correspondence on Flavian’s desk. “Lucky him. I won’t have to break his hand for cutting off a lock of your hair.”
Cassia went from chair to chair, feeling the seats for slits or hidden compartments. “I would not object to you breaking something more essential to his romantic pursuits than his hand. Secretly. So it won’t disrupt negotiations.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Lio warned.
While Lio read the documents on the desk at Hesperine speed, Cassia sent Knight on the hunt for her scent, on the slim chance that her papers still smelled like her after all this time. She searched behind furniture, inside wine bottles, and under rugs.
“Who is he writing to?” Cassia asked.
“A significant number of influential lords and religious leaders. This stack of letters is essentially a catalog of his supporters.”
Cassia cursed. “Anything we can use to sway them to Solia’s side?”
“I’ll note any detail that could help us.” From an inner pocket of his robes, Lio pulled out a sheaf of paper the size of his hand, tied with string, and a small stick of charcoal.
Cassia couldn’t suppress a smile. “You bring writing supplies to forbidden trysts with wanton damsels on hidden parapets.”
“Wanton damsel, in the singular. No one else tolerates my scrollworm tendencies the way she does.” He began jotting notes, his charcoal dashing across the small slips of paper so fast it blurred before Cassia’s eyes.
She began running her hands along the walls to feel for loose stonework that might conceal a niche or latch. “I will be disappointed if there isn’t a secret door or compartment of some kind. If Patria is anything like Solorum, the Mage King filled it with secrets.”
Lio set down the letter he was reading. “Do you think the Changing Queen did, as well?”
“What a fool I am.” Cassia pulled the ivy pendant out from under her robes. “Why didn’t that occur to me?”
“Becoming a mage is a profound change of mindset,” Lio said. “But it is time for yours to change, Cassia. This is one of the most important lessons every mage must learn. Stop thinking like someone who lives by mundane rules. Start thinking like someone who is powerful.”
The energy of their feast made her so aware of her new senses, of the new presence in her own veins—her magic, sleepy though it might be. She held the Changing Queen’s talisman in both hands. The ancient wood felt different. More awake, somehow, like a hawk that had opened its eye to look right into hers.
