Sometimes, it felt like he was trying to make up for all the years we’d spent apart by cramming twenty-five years’ worth of brotherly concern into every interaction.
“Don’t tell mewhat?” he repeated, arching a brow.
“About all the books and artifacts we uncovered, but then had to leave behind, in the Palace of Midna,” said Thalia. “You’d be devastated at the amount of knowledge rotting there. Though we brought back as much as we could carry, of course.” She shoved the bag of our collected spoils into his arms.
The distraction worked; the concern in his grey eyes gave way to curiosity as he picked a book out, shouldered the bag, and then gently started to flip through crinkling pages.
“…In rough shape,” he mumbled after a moment. “But there’s still plenty of legible reading to make sense of, isn’t there?” He seemed to be talking to himself—and he answered his own question, too. “I’ll share these things with Eamon, and we’ll see what we can extract from it all.”
“So that’s your afternoon sorted,” Thalia said, pointedly. “We were on our way to go wash the dust of the middle realm off ourselves, anyhow.” She poked me in the back, urging me to move before Bastian could protest.
We hurried toward the palace without looking back. We lost Phantom at the entrance, his attention caught by two squirrels who scampered across the front steps.
The rodents were a welcome sight—another sign of life returning. Little by little, creatures like these were being reintroduced into our world. They had likely come from the sanctuary in the center of the nearby city of Tarnath, where royal scholars had been raising and protecting all manner of flora and fauna during this realm’s prolonged period of decay.
While the rest of Noctaris had withered into a wasteland of dust and drifting ghosts, Tarnath had been spared, protected by magic that radiated out from the palace. Now, as other parts of Noctaris fought their way back to life, we were testing things, letting smaller creatures venture into wider perimeters to see how they fared.
These squirrels looked lively enough so far.
Hopefully, they would survive my overzealous dog, too.
Once inside, we didn’t make it far before we spotted a familiar, careworn face—Aveline. Her pale hair was slicked back in a tight braid. Flour coated the bright blue, smocked dress she wore. She smelled of sugar and spice, which wasn’t unusualfor her; she’d likely been baking all day, making treats to coax our political visitors into calmer, more rational discussions. We certainly needed all the bribery and help we could get with that.
She swept a quick, concerned look over my disheveled appearance, just as Bastian had done.
“We’ve had a long day,” Thalia informed her.
“I should say so,” Aveline replied, propping a hand on her hip. “You look as though you were dragged from one end of that day to the next.”
“I’ve looked worse,” I pointed out.
She pursed her lips. “Nevertheless, you have several obligations to attend to this evening, and you can’t very well walk into your meeting with so many important leaders while looking so…unkempt.”
I didn’t ask how she knew who I was scheduled to meet with this evening; nothing happened in this palace without her being aware of it, even if it didn’t truly involve her.
“Come with me,” she ordered, beckoning and starting to walk without waiting for my reply or to see if I followed. “We’ll get you cleaned up and revitalized. The pools are ready by now, I suspect.”
I felt a bit like baggage being tossed from one handler to another. But my head was pounding too hard to argue, so I let Aveline lead the way toward the pools in question—warm, natural springs that flowed through several rooms carved out beneath the eastern wing of the palace. Another sign of life erupting back into Noctaris—quite literally, in this case. A week ago, the ground had rumbled, and then steaming mineral water had started to seep into the rocky, empty basins for the first time in ages.
Palace records suggested these natural baths had once been a favorite gathering place of royalty and visitors alike. Aveline hadinsisted on returning the space to its former glory—a plan I’d wholeheartedly endorsed.
She glanced my way several times as we walked. Her lectures weren’t generally as stern as Bastian’s or Thalia’s, but I could tell she was biting her tongue as she looked me over, trying to keep herself from giving her opinion on my latest dangerous mission.
I kept my gaze forward. “I can tend to myself, you know. If you have other things to do.”
“Never mind the other things I have to do. They can wait.”
I breathed in deeply through my nose and exhaled slowly.
She stopped to gather towels and toiletries before steering me onward with a dogged determination. “That’s the second time you’ve visited that dangerous middle realm this week, isn’t it? I do think perhaps you could take a longer break before next time, if there’s any chance?—”
“I prefer to stay busy.”
I didn’t elaborate onwhy.
I didn’t have to—she already knew.
She pursed her lips but remained silent.
