“Wolf.”
“Have you even made contact?”
“Once. With her.”
The man called Wolf scoffed.
“A lot of good that does us now,” he grumbled.
“I’ll work on it, okay? But this takes a delicate approach you just aren’t capable of. This isn’t the kind of job you go crashing into. These people don’t trust anyone outside the family and can you blame them? Look at what they’ve been through the last year and a half. I’ll find an in, I swear. Just give me some time.”
Wolf eyed her for a moment, gaze narrowing, but she just crossed her arms and raised a brow back, enduring theexamination. Finally, he shook his head and turned away. I darted back behind the stairwell as he began walking my way.
“Two weeks,” he called over his shoulder.
I pressed myself against the inner wall of the ring, hoping the stairs up to the First were hiding me well enough in their shadow, as he made his way to the stairs down to the Third. As he looked down to begin his descent, I saw a tattoo on the back of his neck, right in the center. Three rings beneath a thin web.
I watched as the Guardians on duty didn’t even glance his way as he descended to the Third from a level he clearly didn’t have clearance to be on and felt a chill shoot through me. So Cosmo didn’t have every Guardian on his payroll. Some belonged to this man, whoever he was, which meant there was another power in play. Could it be a fourth leader no one was aware of?
The sharp snap of a shutting door in the dead silent night told me strawberry blonde Veronica had gone back inside, but I kept my gaze firmly on the man named Wolf as he disappeared into the darkness of the ring below. Because I’d recognized that mark. Though I couldn’t for the life of me recall where I’d seen it, I knew I had. And somehow, I knew it was important that I remember where.
Releasing a breath, I turned and quickly took the stairs back up to my own ring with a sigh. It looked like Milo wouldn’t be the only one wiling away his hours in the library anymore.
Chapter Five
Milo
It was raining tonight.
I drank deeply from a glass of grandmother's preferred wine as I stared through the windows of the study I’d made my own. The diary laid open on the desk far behind me, ignored for the moment. I'd locked myself away for a week after the party, only emerging late at night to stumble back to my room or at various intervals throughout the day to relieve myself. I'd become a ghost haunting the primary residential wing of the House. I never saw the children our priests taught during the day or other cousins assigned to various tasks around the First Ring and beyond. I never saw aunts or uncles or even my parents anymore, never spoke to anyone outside of these walls, just Nascha and Paxon and Simi.
I sighed and glanced back at the journal, running a hand over my face in an effort to wipe away the exhaustion. It was growing late in the evening, several hours past dinner, but the idea of another night spent in fruitless search through those fraying pages suddenly felt impossible. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't. I needed to do something else instead, something productive butless mind-numbing, something I'd loved so much before Nascha had named me Heir and tasked me with sifting through the rantings of a madman. I needed the library.
Setting the glass down beside the bottle Paxon had brought with dinner hours earlier, I abandoned Simi and exited the study for the first time prior to midnight in a week. I made my way through the halls of House Avus, nodding in greeting to various cousins and servants as I passed. They watched me go in awe and whispered as I left, clearly shocked to see me emerged from my hideaway.
The library doors were open when I reached them. That wasn't unusual. I had a fair amount of cousins, aunts, and uncles who enjoyed perusing the fictions upon the shelves from time to time and even a few who enjoyed reading the histories like me, though none enjoyed them so thoroughly or pursued them as vigorously as I did. But I stopped dead in my tracks when I crossed the threshold to find Olympia's head bowed low over a dusty tome in the center of the room.
"Olympia," I uttered her name before I meant to speak.
Her head shot up at once, her gaze meeting mine and burning through me the moment it did, as always.
"Milo," she replied, monotone.
The sound of my name relieved the tension brought on by shock. Olympia was the only one who still called me Milo rather than Sir or Heir. Maybe it was a sign of disrespect. Maybe I should have demanded she show more regard for her Heir, but I didn't. It made me feel human again, like the man I once was, the boy I'd been before. It was familiar, friendly even, and I couldn’t deny that I was craving a bit of closeness lately. So I crossed the library and came to a stop in front of her table, looking down at the book she was reading out of curiosity.
My brow furrowed. I couldn't have possibly guessed a stranger title if I'd tried.
"Semiotics and Symbology Through The Ages," I read the cover from the top of the page and raised a brow at my cousin. "Odd choice of topic for such a dreary night."
"Should I be reading one of my mother's bodice-ripping romances instead?" she replied drolly, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms as she glared at me.
I smiled back. Aunt Helena always did enjoy her erotic romances.
"Why the sudden interest?" I asked, rather than continuing that line of conversation. I lifted one corner of the book and let it fall back to the table.
"Can't a girl take up a new hobby?" Her tone was flat, bored, disinterested. It was precisely the tone Olympia used when she was up to something and didn't want you to know it.
"I know you're working for her now. I know this is her doing, whatever it is. I can help. No one in this House knows this library better than me. No one has done as much research among these shelves. Tell me what you're looking for and I'll help you find it."
