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The connection I thought I felt snaps.
The scholar opens his mouth, closes it again, and then tips his head toward the room where we usually meet. “We’d better look through this quickly. We don’t want it missing for too long before we return it.”
“Of course not,” I say, pretending his rebuff never happened, and shove my jumbled feelings down.
I need to keep those ridiculous impulses reined in. We’re working together only for now, and soon enough we won’t be.
And I’ll go back to doing everything on my own.
No one else to worry about. No one else calling the shots.
The thought shouldn’t create a hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach.
We tramp back to the small, dusty room, and Alek tosses himself into the chair behind the desk. I perch on the desk’s edge while he pages through the ledger, starting at the most recent entries and skimming back through the pages with impressive speed.
“There are regular expenses marked as donations, the same amount once a month, going back years,” he reports after a moment. “To ‘RI’ it says, and nothing else.”
“Someone’s initials?” I suggest.
“Perhaps. I’ll see if a full name comes up.”
He’s got less than ten pages left when he pauses. “Now that’s quite the sum. A large endowment to some place called the Riverside Institute for Children’s Wellness, fifteen years ago.”
RI, Julita murmurs at the same time as my heart leaps.
“Children,” I repeat.
“I’ve never heard of that organization before.” Alek peers at the page and then flips back through a few more. “But it looks like the monthly donations started right after that initial endowment.”
He glances up at me, a glimmer of his earlier exhilaration coming back into his eyes. “I think we’ve got it.”
Before I can respond, the far wall wavers, and Benedikt steps out of the hidden passage.
He raises his eyebrows at the two of us. “Hard at work already? The others should be along in a moment. What are you two looking so smug about?”
I hop off the desk, my good mood returning. “We’re uncovering all of Ster. Torstem’s secrets. Now we’ve just got to check out this place and find out what he’s really up to.”
Twenty-Three
Right after I’ve stepped into the stable, I stop for a moment and simply breathe in the sweet and musky scents. A faint aura of comfort settles over me.
Not entirely purposefully, I find myself wandering over to the corner that holds Toast’s stall. The dark bay stallion lets out a huff at the sight of me and paws one hoof against the ground.
I reach out my hand and hold it steady a few inches from his face until he concedes to bowing his head so I can give his jaw a gentle scratch. Then he shakes his mane as if to make the statement that he doesn’t like the attentionthatmuch, so I shouldn’t get any ideas.
I click my tongue at him. “I wouldn’t take you out today anyway. We’re supposed to be making a good impression.”
Personally, I hope you never sit yourself on that beast again,Julita pipes up.
“Oh, he’s not as bad as he wants people to think. Are you, Toast?” I extend my hand upward, and he allows me to scratch beneath his forelock this time.
A soft chuckle rings out from down the aisle.
Casimir strolls over, his expression lit with amusement. “Making friends with all kinds of unlikely characters, I see. You got here early.”
All at once, I feel awkward, although I had no expectations of keeping the stable to myself. If anyone was going to interrupt my peace, I’d rather it was Casimir than any of the other nobles.
I offer Toast one of the apples I liberated from the breakfast spread and give Casimir a shrug. “I figured since I had to come out here anyway, I might as well make a visit of it. The horses are better company than a lot of the people back there.” I jab my thumb toward the college buildings.
