She dipped her head in acknowledgement of my gratitude before waving me off toward the door so she could dress in peace.
“Keep me apprised of what you find at Harlowe, Milo,” she commanded just as the door shut between us and I was alone in the hall once again.
As I made my way back to the study, I found I couldn’t stop thinking about the necklace in my pocket or its eerie blue glow. Could my grandmother be right? Was this necklace imbued with some power of a long forgotten divinity? Or could my great-great-grandmother be onto something about it having luck? I shook my head as I reached the door to the study, reminding myself I was a scholar, not a priest.
Still, I shut the door and settled in to flip through Simi’s diary once more anyway. I was sure I’d read the phrase written on the amulet before, recently. Since this was the only book I’d been reading at all recently, it was the logical first place to check.
I searched for the phrase hidden in the pages of messy scrawl but found no mention of it. Then I reread the passages I’d already scanned through, focusing on any mention of his wife. If Nascha was right about the history of the jewel, it would have been worn by her during his time as Patriarch, but mentions of her were few and far between. His daughter, Adelaide, however, was mentioned nearly as much as her brother, the Heir, Atticus.
“Will you be needing anything else, sir?” Someone interrupted my reading, drawing my attention up from the pages of the diaryto the dinner plate sitting on the corner of my desk and the fresh-faced preteen girl in white robes before it.
“Could you fetch me something from the library?” I asked, sitting back in my seat and blinking my tired eyes. “Perhaps engage the help of your fellow acolytes for the task?”
“Yes, Sir,” she agreed with an eager nod. “Of course.”
“I need books with any mention of Adelaide, daughter of Eximius, former patriarch of House Avus, brought to me immediately,” I informed her as she reached for a notepad and pen on the edge of my desk to jot my instructions down. “Personal journals and letters are preferable but I’ll take any mention of her name at all, be it family records or genealogies. She would have lived during the late 1800s.”
The acolyte bobbed her head as she wrote the information I was giving her down on the paper in her hands. If she had any questions at all regarding why the Heir of a major House was requesting the personal correspondences and diaries of a woman who’d lived and died hundreds of years ago, she didn’t voice them.
“We’ll get right on it, Sir,” she promised before turning and nearly running out of the study, armed with her task.
I glanced over the dinner that had been brought to me before returning to my research, though my focus didn’t last long.
“Jude is agreeable to joining the council,” a familiar voice spoke.
I didn’t have to look to know it was Olympia.
“Grandmother will be happy to hear it,” I muttered in reply, not bothering to look up from the passage I was reading.
“Will she? Is it me or do you get the impression her thirst for justice has died down in the weeks since the murder?” Olympia grumbled. I could judge her poor mood by tone alone without having to look up to see the sour expression on her face.
“Execution,” I corrected. “We can’t call it a murder until he’s found guilty.”
Olympia plopped into the chair across from me and lifted her boots onto my desk before I could object. She also helped herself to my forgotten dinner, biting into a perfectly roasted fowl leg as I shook my head and returned to my reading.
“Learn anything new today?” I asked.
“Just how much grain that asshole had squirreled away before shit hit the fan.”
I grimaced at my cousin’s crude language but kept my eyes on the words on the page.
“What’s that?” she asked, leaning forward and forcing me to look up for the first time. My gaze followed her own until it fell on the amulet I’d removed from my pocket and sat on my desk, near some papers I’d discarded in favor of the journal.
“A family heirloom,” I replied, monotone.
“Why’s it glowing?”
“No one knows.”
“Milo.”
Her tone was as flat as her expression when I looked over.
“I’m serious,” I told her. “Grandmother told me the whole story about how every Matriarch or Patriarch’s wife throughout our history has worn it during their time as leader. It’s supposed to bring luck or something. She wants me to give it to Isla.”
Olympia snorted.
“Another reason I’m glad she didn’t appoint me Heir,” my cousin said. “That thing is ugly as shit.”
