“Of course, I missed you. Haven’t seen you in at least a year.”
“I’ve been… busy.”
“Aye, busy.” He turned to her when they reached the counter and he’d sat on the little stool behind it with a groan. “I suspect you’ve had to be careful, considering the emperor tried to kill you once already.”
“More than once,” Gabriol said.
“Right,” Neokles sighed.
“So.” Terena crossed her arms. “You said Xoran wanted to hold a meeting here. I think we’re the ones he’s meeting with, if it is for today. We came to meet with his sister, actually.”
“Didn’t mention a sister. Said he’d be here at ten bells.”
“So we have an hour to kill,” Migela signed as she leaned against the bookshelves to the left of the door.
“I’ll go look for the boys,” Gabriol said as he walked to the door. “I’ll either come back this way or meet you at the inn.”
“Thanks, Gabe,” Terena called out as he closed the door behind him.
“You have a book by Circe, the priestess,” Cassandra commented, looking down at the tome in her hands. Flipping it over, she squinted to read the text. It looked to be bound in red leather with faded black lettering on the front.
“That is not just any book,” Neokles said. His face became animated as he smiled at Cassandra. “You are holding Circe’s grimoire.”
“You’re joking,” Cassandra said sharply as she swung her head around to regard the herbalist.
“Not when it comes to witches,” the old man said with a wink.
“Do you know what this means?” Cassandra asked Terena. She shrugged as she watched the seer turn the book over and hug it to her chest.
“It’s a book of her spells, incantations, creating amulets?—”
“And how tofindamulets.” She stepped closer to Terena, turning the book in her hand as she motioned with it. “This book will help us find the Amulet of Kaïra.”
“The Amulet of Kaïra,” Neokles said in a voice filled with horror. “No, you must not! No!”
He made to stand, groaning the entire way up. Terena went to his side to help him, but he waved her away as he glowered at Cassandra.
“Give me that!”
Cassandra pulled the book away, holding it up high behind her. “We need this to find the amulet! The emperor is looking for it, too, and I think you’ll agree, Terena finding it is the lesser of two evils.”
“The gods hid it for a reason!” Neokles hissed as he reached up to try to take it from her. Instead, Terena reached around him and plucked the book from Cassandra’s hand.
“And yet the key to finding it sits in your dusty old shop?”
Flipping through it, Terena glanced up at him. “Why do you have this? I would’ve thought you, a good citizen of the empire, would’ve handed this over to the clerics or the City Watch to have it burned.”
“I would never! That book was a gift from?—”
Terena glanced up at Neokles when he stopped speaking. Curiously, Cassandra chuckled as the old man stared down at the wood floor with a bemused expression.
“What is it?”
“What?” The old man looked up at her, befuddled.
“You were saying something.” Terena held the book up. “You said this was a gift from…?”
“Aye. That was a gift from?—”
