It was only fair that she take something back.
Her footsteps quickened. With Signey ignoring her, and Torreyand Jesper missing, Elara had spent the afternoon exploring Hearthstone. She’d found a library near the back of the dormitory with a spiral staircase in the center of the room that led up and down to more floors of books. She’d discovered offices on the first floor that appeared to belong to professors, as well as a gymnasium the size of a drake hangar and a dining hall with several rows of tables. She’d even seen back stairs that led to a smelly area where they disposed of garbage and old food, as well as several paths that looped into a cluster of trees too small to be considered a forest.
All her earlier wandering had been to prepare for this. Now, on the first floor, she found the office farthest from the gymnasium, the one withLUXTONcarved into a gold plaque, and contemplated the problem of the locked handle. Fearless Faron considered a locked door a challenge. It was just Elara’s luck that the only person who could help her was an ocean away.
Elara gripped the handle, and it gave way easily. She swallowed.
“Hello, Headmaster, I just wanted to talk about—” She stopped when she realized the office was empty. The lights were off, as she’d seen from the hallway, and there was no one waiting inside. She paused in the threshold, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for why the headmaster would leave his door unlocked beyond simple cultural differences. Perhaps Hearthstone was really that secure. Perhaps he kept nothing of interest in this office, rendering her presence irrelevant. Perhaps he’d simply forgotten, a fortunate coincidence.
None of the explanations felt quite right, and that put her even further on edge.
The office was vast, roughly the size of the communal area of 206. A large wooden desk was in the center, surrounded by severalplants in cauldron-like pots. To her right was a door, also closed, that probably led to filing cabinets or a second office or maybe a small library. Rows of portraits of old white people, with Headmaster Luxton’s own portrait near the top, filled the wall to the left.
Elara let the door fall shut behind her. Already she was running out of time.
The desk drawers were unlocked, but empty of anything useful. She found fountain pens and cream-colored letter-writing paper. Open envelopes with sunflower-yellow lining. An empty leather glasses case. One drawer held nothing at all, but Elara had absorbed one more lesson from Faron. She slid her hands over the wood until her fingers caught on a hidden hinge, allowing her to lift the false bottom. A treasure chest of documents stared up at her, some of them student files and some of them letters. Elara grabbed the letters first, hoping they were important. For now, she’d have to stuff them beneath her shirt until she could have Reeve translate them.
Then she realized she could read the letters as easily as she could read patois, more easily than she would have expected from nothing but half-forgotten school lessons. It baffled her for a moment before she remembered what Zephyra had said in the infirmary:As long as we are connected, no form of language will be unknown to you.
She paused to squash her bitterness that the same bond that had ruined her future was now proving helpful.
Keeping one eye on the door, Elara began to read. The letters were correspondence with Commander Gavriel Warwick, going back years at a quick glance. Many of them mentioned the Sotos, and Signey in particular: “an excellent student with a challenging personality,” “the first member of the Soto Dynasty to take thislong to be paired,” “deeply affected by reminders of her father’s incarceration.”
Her father’s incarceration.
Elara filed that away for later with wide eyes.
The final letter at the top of the stack was dated from the week before the Summit.
72 Harvest 1894
To O. Luxton,
There is a chance, however small, that we may soon have the answer to at least two of our problems.…
Elara nearly spilled the papers across the floor. Someone was entering the office. She shoved the stack back into the drawer, replaced the false bottom, and dived beneath the desk with seconds to spare. Excuses for her presence flashed through her head, each more absurd than the last, and she covered her mouth in the hopes that not even her breathing would draw Headmaster Luxton’s attention before she could sneak back out.
But it was not Headmaster Luxton who entered.
Instead, Signey Soto emerged from the side door on silent feet.
Elara’s muffled gasp was loud in the quiet, and when Signey stopped inches away from the desk, she knew she was caught. Slowly, she emerged, her hands in the air to placate her Firstrider. Signey cycled through several expressions—surprise, anger, curiosity—before settling on resignation. Signey’s fingers tightened around the papers in her own hand, papers she shoved behind her back when she caught Elara staring.
“What are you—”
“Shh.”
Signey ate up the space between them before she could blink. Her hand was surprisingly supple when it clamped over Elara’s mouth—and then Elara realized that Signey was wearing a pair of dragonhide gloves, decorated with the diamond outline of scales across the back of her palm and knuckles. They were so close that Elara could count her freckles, as innumerable as stars in the night sky, so close that she could see each individual eyelash that curved, serpentine, around her earth-brown eyes, so close that she could feel Signey’s breath like a silk-soft touch against her skin. Their proximity stole her words, her ability to even move.
Once Signey seemed sure Elara wouldn’t make a sound, Signey removed her hand. She made it all the way to the door before she realized that Elara wasn’t following her.
She rolled her eyes, and that was enough to remind Elara that this was not just any beautiful girl, but her Firstrider, who hated her, condescended to her, resented her. Whose hostility was like a third presence between them—a fourth, if one counted Zephyra.
Whose past Elara now knew a little too much about.
She followed Signey into the hallway, watched her spread her gloved fingers and summon a flame beneath the doorknob. The gloves must have been made ofrealdragonhide, turning them into a relic she could use to do magic. Seconds later, there came theclickof heat-activated tumblers sliding back into place. Signey didn’t speak again until they were safely back in the dormitory.
“What were you doing in the headmaster’s office?” she hissed.
