Anders Pearshield narrows his eyes, evaluating me. His lips curve into a smile I don't like at all.
“Ah, yes. An extraordinary piece,” he nods, rubbing his hands together. “Very rare. Extremely valuable.”
“I want to buy it back,” I declare without beating around the bush.
The old man arches an eyebrow.
“Really? I'm afraid that would be impossible. You see, that book is an acquisition for my private collection.”
“I'll pay the same thing my friend received,” I rush to insist, taking out the wad of bills Colt gave me and putting it on the counter.
Pearshield looks at the money with disdain.
“I don't think you understand the value of what your... friend has sold me,” he responds, raising his bushy eyebrows. “If you really want to recover it, the price would be, at minimum, fifty times that amount.”
“Fifty times?” I exclaim, feeling the air around me form small whirlwinds even though I try to control myself. “That's robbery!”
“No, dear. Robbery would be appropriating something that doesn't belong to you,” the old man replies calmly. “Like, for example, a book about Air Elementals written in the ancestral language of Aifshara.”
The way he pronounces “Aifshara” leaves me frozen. It's the same word Sylara used when talking about the Fae realm.
“How do you know all that...?”
“I know many things,” he interrupts me, raising a hand and leaning over the counter. “The important questions are: what do you know? And what are you willing to pay for that knowledge?”
My mind works at full speed. I don't have that amount of money, I barely have enough to pay rent. Maybe I could ask the girls for it, but I don't want to owe them anything. Besides, how would I explain that I lost the book?
“I can't pay for it,” I admit, letting out a sigh of frustration. “But that book is important to me. Please.”
Pearshield stays silent and studies me for a moment that feels like an eternity. There's something in his gaze that unsettles me, as if he could see something in me.
“Why is it so important?” he insists. “What does it mean to you?”
I don't know what to answer.
I can't tell him the truth: that I need that book to learn to control a magic I didn't know I possessed. That I need it if I want to complete a mission imposed by an exiled Fae king who threatens to send to prison the only people who matter to me.
Then I remember something I read in the book a couple of days ago. Something about how air elementals can subtly influence others' emotions through small changes in atmospheric pressure.
I breathe deeply and concentrate. It's not very different from what I did with Voronov or during my training with Sylara and Althea. I just have to be more subtle, much more precise.
“It's a memory of my mother,” I lie, putting on a sad puppy face while I try to slightly alter the air around the old man. “She passed away when I was very young. It's the only thing I have left of her.”
The memory of my mother is powerful, and I fear the air becomes too dense around him.
The man blinks, as if trying to clear his thoughts and, for an instant, his expression softens. I also blink several times. My head spins and I have to discreetly lean on the counter. Using magic to manipulate emotions is more exhausting than I thought.
“I understand,” he murmurs, rubbing his forehead slowly. “A family memory. Very well,” he adds after aninstant of silence. “The book is in my warehouse. Wait here while I look for it.”
He disappears behind a beaded curtain that separates the store from the back, but minutes pass and he doesn't return. The silence becomes oppressive, broken only by the ticking of an antique clock that's driving me crazy and the occasional creaking of one of the shelves under the weight of so many books.
“Mr. Pearshield?”
No response.
Shit.
“Mr. Pearshield? The book?” I call again, also entering the warehouse.
