I kept moving.
Past the wall of shelves I stopped in front of a beautifully maintained weapons rack. Swords, daggers, and something that looked like a staff lined with embedded red crystal were mounted on the carved wooden frame.
Cabinets lined the next wall, and I opened each one quickly. Neatly hung cloaks filled the first. Another held stacked journals bound in dark leather. I lifted one, flipped it open, and found it blank. Did he collect them or…
Ah, maybe he’d used magic to hide the contents? If so, that was going to be a problem.
I was tempted to steal one and wait until my magic got good enough to unspell it, if such a thing was possible. But with my minxpip still avoiding me, the odds of me being able to do even a few simple spells before I turned sixty were slim.
The next cabinet held a row of storage drawers that yielded little but seals, loose parchment, ink refills, and a pair of thin leather gloves.
I got down on my knees and peered underneath the furniture. No secrets there—and surprisingly little dust.
Everything felt almost too clean. Not in the sense of someone hiding things, but as if every object here had a place and a purpose, and not even a shadow dared drift out of line.
I told myself I was looking for evidence. Instead, my fingers brushed a cloak he’d laid across the back of a chair, seeking hiswarmth. I snatched my hand back as if it had been burned, only to find myself pressing my fingers against my mouth, breathing in the scent of his skin.
Fates, I hated that part of me wanted to keep it there.
Time to check the desk drawers.
I sat in Trew’s big leather chair, leaning back a moment to suck in his scent. Then I realized what I was doing and snarled at myself. I slid from the chair and knelt in front of the desk, tugging on the top right drawer.
Locked.
I slipped the tip of my blade into the gap beneath the lock and fiddled, biting my lip.
The lock clicked, and I tugged the drawer open.
Inside, I found a few loose sheaths of paper. Supply manifests, letters stamped with broken wax, and some half-filled forms about beast licenses and trade routes. Dry. Official. The most incriminating thing about them was how tidy Trew’s penmanship was.
I quickly checked the next drawer, finding it locked as well. The lock gave way just as easily, but the inside held more of the same.
My jaw flexed as I broke into the upper left-side drawer, finding a half-finished letter addressed to someone I’d never heard of where he talked about the encroaching wasteland, though I didn’t learn anything new. A folded scrap of paper with a child’s messy drawing lay beneath the letter, smudged fingerprints still visible, plus a map marked with trails and landmarks. It looked like the southern border of Syllavar, if my geography lessons held true.
The second drawer was suspiciously full of candied ginger.
I paused, blinking down at it. “What…?”
A flicker of memory hit, one of his mouth tasting of ginger and heat. The heat came from him—and me, I supposed—but this must be where he kept his secret pile of candy.
Everyone had a weakness. Ginger must be his. Before I closed the drawer, I pocketed a few pieces.
The bottom drawer refused to budge. I twisted my blade into thelock and gave it a wiggle, hoping I could coax it the way I had with the others.
Nothing.
I tried again, pressing the blade hard against the catch, the metal protesting beneath my fingers?—
Snap.
The blade slipped, poking my left palm. It bled. Of course it did.
“By the fates,” I hissed as I sucked on the wound, glancing toward the door, half-expecting guards to burst in with drawn swords over the sound of my cry alone.
I blew a strand of hair off my face and once my cut had stopped dripping, tried again to get past the lock, taking better care with the knife. “Come on, you secretive thing. What are you hiding?”
Finally, the lock gave way, and the drawer creaked open.
