“That’s unsettling,” I admitted once he was finished. I couldn’t help but turn away from the journal as the pages seemed to have taken on a darker hue at the culmination of my cousin’s tale regarding their origins. “But I don’t see what that has to do with you or grandmother.”
Milo frowned.
“Grandmother is convinced there’s some secret hidden within this journal or the events surrounding it,” he said, eyes boring into me as if willing me to make some connection. “She believes whatever drove Simi mad is some universal truth that might turn our whole society on its head.”
Realization struck me.
“The gods,” I whispered, stunned. “She thinks he discovered something about the gods.”
“More specifically,hergods,” Milo replied, frowning. “Have you noticed anything different about grandmother lately?”
I shook my head. Nascha was the same old enigma she’d always been, floating around the house with a smile on her lips and a command for anyone who looked her way too long.
“She stops to smell the roses in her garden a bit more lately,” Milo told me, voice dropping to a low whisper. “She warns me about how things might be once she’s gone. She makes more jokes about her age and settles her affairs more quickly. I think she’s…preparing for her own death. And this task she’s given me, I think she’s done it because she’d like to have some closure regarding her faith before she goes. She’s always pushed aside the popular worship of the Geist in favor of these gods we know hardly anything about. She prays to them. And now she’s–I don’t want to say she’s doubting, that’s not it. I think she just wants to know. I think it would comfort her to know.”
“So this is the important task she’s had you locked up in your room for months doing?” I asked, raising a brow. “A personalvindication of her faith? That doesn’t seem to be in the House’s best interest.”
“It is if she’s right.”
I stared at him, hardly daring to believe I’d heard him correctly. Milo, the infamously heretical scholar of House Avus, was actually entertaining the possibility of some divine power existing over us.
“You haven’t found anything?” I asked because we wouldn’t be here if he had.
He shook his head.
“Not a word,” he replied. “It’s mostly nonsense. Gibberish that I can’t make out half the time and conspiracy theories about resource hoarding from the other Houses and whispers of uprisings from the lower rings the other half. There are names as well but not anyone I’ve ever heard of. I’ve checked our records and what we have of the other Houses and they’re not in any of them. I’ve sent requests to the Minor Houses but most haven’t responded or sent back a curt note that they didn’t have anything and not to ask again. I’m at my wits end with it.”
“If anyone would have any better record of that time than we do, it would be the House of Harlowe,” I told him but he was already nodding before I’d even finished.
“So I thought as well. But I can’t get them to answer me at all. I’ve sent a dozen notes through the acolytes now and not a single one of them was ever returned.”
“Sounds like Harlowe needs to be paid a visit and reminded of their place.”
“Olympia–”
“Not by you. You’re the Heir. You can’t be seen descending to the lower rings for any reason, but I can.”
He frowned.
“Harlowe is the most secretive of the Minor Houses,” he said after a moment. “They may even be more close-lipped than theMajor Houses. They aren’t just going to let you in if you show up at their door and demand it, Olympia.”
“Are you saying I have no tact?” I asked, crossing my arms and raising a brow.
That, finally, got a smile out of my exhausted cousin.
“If you do, I haven’t seen it,” he replied.
I couldn’t help but grin right back.
“I can be convincing when I need to be,” I assured him. “Besides, House they may be but they’re still Second Ring. We’re First. We don’t ask, Milo. We require compliance.”
“That sort of attitude is precisely what’s brewing a rebellion,” he said, leaning forward and rubbing his temples as if I’d given him a headache.
“I’ll be nice,” I promised, just barely keeping myself from rolling my eyes.
He looked up at me, head cocked to the side in that way of his. I could see him thinking before he spoke.
“At this point, what have I got to lose?”
