I know who it is without needing to see him, some deep-seated link tugging even tighter. Just as the instinct hits me, I’m swarmed with familiarity—finding a key with Ceridwen, only to be distracted from the find by Theron.
In Summer, I brushed it off as a coincidence that Theron was in the cellar. He went looking for me—he probably asked a servant, who directed him there.
But for him to be here, again, just after we found the key . . . did he follow me? Why would he have followed me without revealing himself earlier, involving himself in the search?
My body quakes with another tremor of unease. No—I won’t distrust him that much. Theron is still my friend,he’s stillhim, and he wouldn’t do anything like that.
But he has already,my instincts whisper.Twice, now—in Winter, when he told Noam about the chasm, and here, when he gave the goods from the Klaryn mines to Giselle.
I curl my fingers around the tapestry. Is this key a conduit too? Probably—both my reaction to the barrier in the magic chasm and the last key hang all-too memorably in my mind. But I only had visions when I touched the keyandTheron—so if I don’t touch the key, I should be safe.
I open one of the pockets on my dress and slide the key in via the tapestry. The iron thumps against my thigh, but the fabric of my gown keeps it from touching my skin.
“Guard this,” I tell Ceridwen, and thrust the tapestry at her. “Please.”
She hesitates, her eyes narrowing. I can’t tell if it’s from finding a Ventrallan tapestry hidden in a Yakimian library or her finally reaching the end of her endurance.
“Only if you explain what’s going on. All of it,” she demands.
I pause. She waits.
“I will,” I relent, and even I don’t know if I’m lying. “Soon. I promise.”
Ceridwen considers, one beat, two. Finally she rolls her eyes, takes the tapestry, and closes the hidden compartment. “Fine. Deal with your Rhythm prince.”
I start that she knows who the pianist is too, but she doesn’t say anything more. Ceridwen leaves the booksstrewn about as she and Lekan duck out of the row, heading back for the main door.
Absently, I clutch the locket at my throat, the empty conduit giving me some sort of relief. Which is completely absurd—I’m stuffed with magic, and yet a small piece of useless metal comforts me?
I leave the row, letting the music pull me through the shelves. One last turn and a small opening reveals a few chairs with a piano against the wall. Theron leans over it, his fingers brushing the keys to make the music swell abruptly, cut off, and plunge down again. Each note . . .aches. Slow and palpitating, filling the empty air with melancholy, so even before he says anything, I feel broken.
He doesn’t glance up as he plays, his head plunging side to side, lips tight in concentration. But I know he sees me enter the area—his shoulders jerk sharply, one note faltering ever so brokenly under his fluttering hands.
“I thought you weren’t feeling well,” Theron says, his attention on the piano.
I bite my lip but stay silent.
He stops playing, the song ending on a crash of keys. “I went to visit one of Putnam’s factories. Figured you found the Summerian key in a wine cellar; maybe the next one would be in a symbol of this kingdom too. Giselle has to give special permission, though, to visit the oldest factories, so I went to your room to make sure you had returnedall right, but Dendera said you left.” He cuts his eyes to me, so fast I almost miss it. “Seems you weren’t feeling as ill as you appeared at the university. My mistake.”
Theron went searching for the key without me too—luckily he went for the wrong symbol of Yakim. I don’t point that out, though, straightening before him.
“I needed to be alone for a little while. I won’t apologize for that,” I say, and I only flinch a little at the hardness of my voice. “You’re the one who should apologize to me. You had no right to give Giselle goods from the Klaryns.”
“That’s why you’re upset? That’s one of the reasons we’re here!” Theron flies off the bench. “Wehadto give her some of our mines—she’s a Rhythm. She never would have—”
“Stop.”My chest lurches with cold and this time I welcome it, opening my body to the way every nerve fills with flakes of snow and shards of ice. I know my voice reflects the sensation, can feel just how cold I sound. “They’re Winter’s mines. There is noour.”
Theron lunges forward, cutting me off. Hands to my shoulders, yanking me to him; lips on mine, but not in a gentle, loving kiss—a hard, desperate kiss, his fingers stiff, his mouth unyielding, his body a formidable mountain with me trapped at the top, hopelessly lost in the clouds and wind and light.
“There is still anus,” he tells me. “There will always be an us.”
I heave back from him. “No,” I state, voice hard. “There will always be aseparation.”
Theron’s arms hang open in front of him, and he pants, yanking his hands up to rip through his hair.
“You need to stop doing this,” he growls.
“Doing what?” Because I have no idea which part he’s talking about. The lying? The choosing Winter over his own goals?
