Graysen
An old tome lay open before me, its ink smudged and faded over the centuries. I tapped a finger against the page, a dullthud-thud-thud,as I tried to smother the exhilaration burning through my blood.
My fingertip drifted up and down the center where the pages met, my thoughts flipping from my mother to Nelle and back again as I weighed what each needed. I dog-eared a corner, then smoothed it flat again—crease, then smooth, crease, then smooth.
Sweet smoke curled through the air from the blunt pinched between my fingers. I took a drag, relishing the pungent haze. Leaning back into the armchair’s headrest, I held the smoke, then released it in billowing plumes of white-gray clouds, watching with mild curiosity as it swirled upward toward the stained-glass mural with its colors deepening with the fall of evening.
As the drug spiked my blood, I sank further into the cushions and considered how I was going to make this work. Nelle and my mother were connected. Deep in the marrow of my bones, I knew it.
Warmth radiated from the fire as logs burned, crackling and popping. My body soaked up the heat, turning my mind and limbs languid. After giving Nelle space to collect herself, I’d taken a moment of my own. A walk around the balcony, a breath of fresh air, enough time to steady the rush still humming through my veins. Then I’d dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, finished rearranging the new furniture, and wandered into the library barefoot. There was research I needed to do before meeting my brothers to get inked.
But this book reminded me of my mother.
And her memory had kept me company in the library.
I closed my eyes and let my mind drift…
…drift back to the fragmented dream I’d had last night.
Our library gave me a similar feeling to what I had experienced in the dream. Wherever I’d been, I was standing somewhere ancient, in a treasure trove of some sort.
Mom, with a hand on her hip, long hair twirled into a loose bun at the nape, stepped toward me. The light shifting and dancing on her sun-kissed skin came not from a lightbulb but from feeble candlelight.
Though she tried to remain stern, the twinkle in her eyes betrayed her as she leaned down and waved a finger in my face. “Graysen Crowther, you stand here with your hands in your pockets where I can see you.” She straightened and twisted away to speak to someone else. “He’s a natural-born thief.”
Her companion replied in a raspy voice, “As he should be. Wouldn’t be a child of the Houses if he wasn’t. Taking after someone else, is he, little thief?”
In the murky recesses of the room, I glimpsed blood-red eyes and heard a sound. Talons perhaps rapping on a wooden surface?
“He’s a better thief than I ever was,” my mother shot back with a wide grin, her cheek dimpled.
“You did well enough. You stole my friendship when you were only a little older than this one.”
“True.” Mom raised her hand, and in her grip was a brown paper bag. “A friend who brought your favorite snack…” Her smile dimmed as she lowered the paper bag, and her voice became urgent and worried. She fished something out of her handbag and held it aloft. Pinched between her fingertips was a small, flat stone. Simple and ordinary. But for the fact that it glowed bright crimson. “But first, you need my help, Florin. I came as quickly as I could.”
My mother hurried away, and I was left alone. It took ten seconds before I disobeyed her.
The place felt cavernous and old. I had the faintest impression of stale air. And power, such vast unfathomable power, vibrated through the air and raked against my skin like needled fangs, making the blood in my veins thrum with excitement.
A Horned God?
The rugs were soft beneath my formal shoes as I strolled off. Pale candlelight from enormous candelabras wavered near polished surfaces and struck off in streams of weak yellow to scatter across…What? What did they illuminate?
There was something hanging high. A wooden placard with silver lettering. I saw the first lettersP.U.R.before an object stole my attention and I wandered away.
A collection of haphazard shelves and bookcases filled the space, surrounded by rich, opulent colors and rows of glass jars, my distorted reflection staring back. I wore a black suit tailored for a five-year-old, with curly hair and gappy teeth.
Wherever this place was, it reminded me of the library. Not stored with information, and not the kind of trove that hoarded gems and gold but artifacts and strange oddities.Antiquities perhaps?
In my periphery, I caught something golden, like threads of magic quivering in the air.
Golden strands…
The strange memory split apart as a sudden loudthumpingnoise resounded within the library.
I jolted. My gaze sliced to Penn wobbling on a ladder, an enormous book at the base of its feet. Kenton was there in a heartbeat, steadying her with one hand on her arm, the other at the dip in her spine.
My thoughts remained briefly with my mother as the strange memory dissolved.
