Seraphina recognized Kaspar’s voice.
“Yes?”
“Can I sit with you for a minute?”
She gave him a smile. “All right.”
Kaspar was Peter’s youngest son, and he seemed to be shy when he wasn’t with his brother.
“Your mother is doing better,” she told him.
“I’ve heard. Thank you for what you’re doing for her and for the others.”
She nodded. “Where is your brother?”
“He’s outside, and I don’t have long. I wanted to give you this.”
He pushed something into Seraphina’s lap, and she touched it gingerly with the tips of her fingers. It seemed to be a book, tattered at the edges and with some pages poking out, as if they’d come undone. The cover was soft leather, and there was an engraving in it.
Seraphina gasped. “Where did you get this?”
The engraving was a scale of justice. The central pillar was a human femur, the crossbeam a humerus, and the pans were two skeletal hands cupped as if to hold weight. It was the sigil of House Syracuse, which symbolized the judgement of purity and the weighing of a soul’s worthiness.
This was Matteo’s journal.
“This is impossible,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t have this.”
“I apologize, Miss Seraphina. I didn’t steal it, I swear. When I saw you the night you came, I thought I remembered youfrom somewhere. It took me a while, but now I know. You were here two years ago with a handsome man who carried this pocketbook and wrote constantly in it. He forgot it in a chair, right there.” He pointed at the table where she and Matteo had sat and ate. “When I found it, you’d already left.”
She opened it and ran her fingers over the pages. What she wouldn’t have given to have her eyes now and read Matteo’s beautiful writing that looped at every G and L. She felt the scratches of quill and pencil under her fingertips, but they weren’t prominent enough that she could read the words.
“He didn’t say anything,” she whispered.
“He probably didn’t know he’d lost it,” Kaspar offered.
“No, he would’ve known. He would’ve realized and asked to turn back for it.”
She closed the pocketbook and hugged it to her chest.
“Did you read it?”
“I...” He scratched the back of his neck. “I did. I was just learning how to read, and we haven’t many books...”
Seraphina took a breath and promised herself she wouldn’t get mad. Kaspar was just a boy, and back then, he was eight years old. Children were curious. She told herself it was a good thing someone had taught him how to read and that he went to school.
“I could tell you what it says–”
“No. Don’t.”
This was Matteo’s personal journal. It contained patterns and notes about relics and lattices, but also his most private thoughts. She didn’t know what those were, and she hoped Kaspar was too young to understand them. She had to believe that, or she’d start feeling envy toward the boy. He had eyes to read. She didn’t.
She’d rather not know what Matteo had written than hear it from the mouth of a stranger.
“Did you show it to anyone?” she asked. “Did anyone else read it?”
“No, Miss Seraphina. I swear it.”
“Good.”
