More papers. A mess of folded documents, dog-eared notes, and a few sealed envelopes shoved toward the back. I flipped through them rapidly, unable to stop my hands from trembling.
And then?—
There.
Beneath a loose sheaf of survey maps and an ink-stained sheet outlining army supplies for the border from five winters ago, a leather-bound journal caught my eye. Small, it may have been tucked into the drawer and forgotten. The corner held a faded silver crescent moon with pearl inlay no larger than my thumbnail.
My blood turned to ice, and the world collapsed.
I gently lifted it.
The leather was worn, soft from use, its edges curling on the corners.
It still smelled faintly of the primamint oil she’d hoarded, rubbing it into her hands at night to keep them soft. My breath snagged.
I ran my fingers over the spine and opened it to the middle. Slanted handwriting danced across the page—looping, neat, and muchtoo familiar.
Addie.
I flipped another page, then another. Names in the margins. Sketches of constellations. Notations in the corners in a shorthand only my sister used. My throat tightened, a soundless gasp lodged in my chest.
This was my sister’s book. After the funeral pyre, the hasty explanations my father had come up with, I might finally find answers.
Addie had written this. Her hands. Her mind. Her voice on the page.
I sat on the floor, laying the journal on my lap, and I turned the pages like they were made of spun sugar. Carefully. Desperately. Looking for answers in the margins, the notes, the final pages.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until a drop fell on the page and smudged the ink.
I wiped it away with the edge of my sleeve.
She’d used a code, a playful mess of symbols and invented punctuation, something she’d done after our mother died to keep nosy people out of her business. Me included, though I’d teased her about it for years.
I let out a strangled laugh. “You pain in the ass.”
Addie had always loved a puzzle. And now she’d left me one more to solve.
I flipped to the inside cover, hoping for a cipher. But I found nothing but a doodled drawing of a silver, pocket-sized wyvern perched on top of a book.
Hers?
I clutched the journal to my chest.
It didn’t belong here, hidden away in Trew’s office. In a locked drawer. It was my sister’s. And my sister’s possessions now belonged to me.
I stood, my knees cracking in protest. Adrenaline surged through me. From rage. From the keening grief that rose up inside me, aching to be set free.
I hadn’t cried for Addie in weeks and now wasn’t the time.
But I was going to take the journal. I didn’t care what Trew thought, or how he came to have it. It wasn’t his. And if he dared to argue otherwise?—
Well.
I tucked the book into the top of my pants, yanking my tunic down over it to hide it, and kicked the drawer shut with my boot, only pausing to make sure it and the others had locked again.
I walked to the center of the room and glanced around, taking in the maps and papers and books. The ginger, evidence of softness that clashed with the steel-edged man I’d encountered since I’d arrived.
What else was he hiding? I didn’t know, but I’d start with this. With Addie. And I would not stop until I knew the whole truth.
