Before anyone could stop him—namely Luce—he turned to the tent with Emillie and whipped open the front flap. His half-sister sat in the dark on her bedroll and startled at his sudden appearance. Behind him sounded a deep, threatening growl, and he resisted the urge to take the bitterness he had for his brother out on the lycan who was merely trying to protect his sister.
From his pocket, he pulled the Noct Ariadne had given to Emillie and tossed it at her. “Put it on.”
Emillie cringed away from it. “I told you, I do not trust it.”
“I need you to trustme.” Madan shoved as much meaning into his tone as he could muster. “Ariadne can’t find the book, and I need your help. Now get out here.”
He’d never spoken to her like that. Especially as her guard, his instructions had always been light and understanding of her place in the Society. But they no longer had the luxury of that usual dance of patience. Not with their mutual sister risking everything to get to the book that only Emillie knew of.
With that, he stepped back and let the flap swing into place. Turning, Madan almost ran smack into Luce in her fae form, who stood so close, eyes blazing, that he startled just like Emillie. He made to step around her, muttering a curse, but she shifted to stand in his way.
“You don’t order her around like that,” Luce said, her voice low and dangerous.
Madan didn’t have time for this, nor was he in the mood to listen. But when he tried to take the high road by side-stepping again and failed, he bared his own fangs at the lycan. “Get out of my way.”
“You have no idea what she’s been through these last few weeks,” Luce whispered. “Don’t ever speak to her like that again.”
“Andyoudon’t get to make such demands,” he snapped back, volume growing with each word, “when you can’t even admit to yourself that you bonded to her!”
Luce’s umber cheeks paled, and her golden eyes snapped to a spot over his shoulder.
Fucking. Great. Madan pinched the bridge of his nose and sucked in a deep breath, no doubt in his mind that Emillie had emerged from the tent and listened to their argument. As angry as he was at everyone but Whelan, it wasn’t his place to expose the lycan like that.
“Of what do you speak?” Emillie’s soft question doused the growing fire in Madan’s blood. When no one responded right away, she pushed, “Madan?”
He should have bitten his tongue rather than allow Luce to get the better of him. Slowly, Madan turned to his sister while slipping a neutral mask onto his face, praying it was enough to fool his keen-eyed sister. “I—”
“He was telling me,” Luce interrupted, “what he’d said to the Dhemon King when he admitted his bond to Ariadne.”
Emillie narrowed her eyes between them. If she knew they lied, she said nothing against it. Rather, she slung the Noct around her neck and looked pointedly at where Phulan stood with their collection of ritual supplies.
“Come, then.” The corner of Emillie’s mouth tightened as though to keep herself from asking more questions. “If you make me wear this thing, I would like to help my sister.”
Madan hesitated, then said, “Thank you,” before following her to the campfire. “She said the library’s been rearranged.”
“I know what the book looks like,” she said, “but the language on the cover was nothing I recognized.”
Yet another dilemma that Madan hadn’t anticipated. Could nothing go right?
“I may have a way to help.” Edira stepped forward. “As you’ve already granted me permission to listen in on your conversation, I could, perhaps, use my telepathy to create another channel of communication.”
A knot in Madan’s stomach eased, but at Emillie’s confusion, he turned to her. “She can let you speak directly to Ariadne through me.”
“It won’t be perfect and I can’t hold onto it forever,” Edira explained, “but it might help in this case.”
Brows relaxing, Emillie sucked in a breath. “I will be able to speak with her?”
Edira smiled. “In a way. But quickly. She needs your help.”
The touch of Edira’s consciousness was not alarming to Madan, being that he was almost never entirely alone in his own mind. Beside him, however, his half-sister squeaked in surprise as she felt the intrusion for the first time. In the next beat, Emillie’s mind swept against his like the flutter of a butterfly.
“The books are all out of sorts,” came Ariadne’s voice, quiet and distant. Frantic with panic seeping out of every syllable. “The shelves are all disordered and new, and I am running out of time.”
Emillie’s shoulders tensed. At first, she opened her mouth to speak aloud before remembering herself and thinking instead.
An image of the book flashed into Madan’s mind: a brown leather tome with black writing stamped into it. The words made no sense in either the common or dhemon languages, though the runic print pointed to Emillie attempting to recall the latter—not unusual for someone who hadn’t committed the image to memory and instead pieced it together with what could be recalled.
“Father would never keep books in such a state,” Ariadne replied, the thoughts stuttering through their minds as she no doubt searched for any sign of the old book.
