Allaster watched the motion the way a spectator would a magic trick, looking for the lie. She could see why he and Vera had been circling each other for so long—they were both the type to search for the method long after the trick was done.
Allaster regarded her with a tilt of his head. “Where did you learn that song?”
It wasn’t until he asked that she realized what she had sung: It was a lullaby her mother used to sing for her when she couldn’t sleep, one of the few things she remembered even when her parents’ faces had faded. Something real and distinctly Kasira.
“I’m not sure,” she lied. “I’ve always known it. Why?”
“It’s an Avari lullaby.”
“And?”
“And it’s been five hundred years since anyone’s had access to Avaria.” Allaster’s eyes narrowed. “Who did you know that knew an Avari lullaby?”
This had been a mistake, not an intentional move, and her mind scrambled for an explanation even as she shrugged nonchalantly. “A lot of Avari immigrated to Kalthos before the border closed, and their descendants still live there,” she said at last. “I probably just heard one of them singing it.”
And yet Allaster was looking at her as though she were one of his history books he longed to splay open, a level of scrutiny she never wanted to endure during a con. It was yet another reminder that he was an opponent unlike any she had faced before, his knowledge and perspective far vaster than a mere Kalish noble. For all she knew,Allaster was familiar not only with the song, but the writer, the alternate translations, and the exact point of origin, all of it information gathered from a lifetime of books and travel.
“You mentioned a deal Vera made with your family.” He scrubbed a hand roughly across his jaw, where a dark stubble had grown. “What did you mean?”
Kasira hadn’t been sure if he’d caught that bit. It was the culmination of her play here, the kind of question she had been waiting for him to ask. One of the quickest ways to earn someone’s trust was to solve a problem for them. It showed them that you were on their side, that you cared enough to help them out, perhaps even enough to make a prickly Librarian a little curious about the woman he was supposed to hate.
And if there was no problem for you to solve, then you created one.
For all the Library’s other responsibilities, it had become clear to her in her few short weeks here that what everyone cared most about was the beasts. It was also the thing Eirlana was expected to hate most. Which was why she had needed to be seen growing to care for them and then ultimately facing her fear to help them. And Vera’s unexpected meeting had very nearly jeopardized the whole thing.
Now, as Benlo leaned harder into her scratches, she felt a little guilty for what she had put him through.
“There’s a reason I was never given a formal education or presented at court,” she said at last, picking her words carefully, the way someone would when speaking about something personal to them. “It’s the same reason my family was so willing to give me to Vera as her candidate: They’re ashamed of me.”
“For what? Did you sneak a bottle of mylak and damn your soul?” His flippancy only made it easier for her to look uncomfortable.
“I befriended a beast.”
The look of astonishment on Allaster’s face nearly made this whole ruse worth it. She liked catching him off guard, liked watching the emotions she sought play across his face like notes from an instrument, entirely in her hands. It was a feeling of satisfaction she hadnearly forgotten, the thrill she used to seek with every word, every move.
Kasira looked away as if chagrined. “My mother and father were always occupied by business, and my rearing was left to the servants. I suppose I was such a terror that when I would run off into the woods, they took their time searching for me. In those solitary hours, I had only beasts for company, and no one to tell me I should be afraid.”
It was a strange version of the truth: a girl who fell in love with beasts, only for the world to dismantle her one piece at a time, until all that remained was clay for them to mold as they pleased.
Her fingers had stilled in Benlo’s fur, and he nosed her gently to start again, but she only patted him on the neck with a faint smile. “I found an injured Talowell one day. I took it home with me, not knowing my father was in a business meeting in the parlor with an important investor. Sometimes I wonder if his reaction would have been as severe if he’d been alone.”
Allaster’s expression had gone eerily vacant, his voice a hard line when he asked, “What did he do?”
“He made me drown it. Then he took a hot blade to my hand to burn out the sin of touching it.” She showed him the scar across her palm from the priests who had done just that, and Allaster’s jaw tightened. “But it was too late. The damage was done. The local kids called me a beast sympathizer. Library whore. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I prayed or how devoutly I attended church, I was the corrupt child. The one whose soul was already damned.”
A grim smile curved her lips. “And now I’m here, where Ambassador Vera thinks I will be the tool she wants. What she doesn’t understand is that I long ago became a blade, and I will not be wielded by anyone other than myself. I am not a spy for Kalthos. I am not a pawn. I am the distraction the magician performs with one hand while the trick is done with the other, and if you insist on watching me, you will miss how it’s done.”
Allaster tipped back his head, baring his face to the sky in a tableau of the sort of weariness so far past words, it could only rest in the lines of someone whose exhaustion was lifetimes in the making. When atlast his gaze settled on her, his depthless eyes slicing her to the core, she suddenly wished she could pull back every word she had spoken and reknit them into something else. Something that deserved the way he looked, if only for a moment, like he might burn the world down for what it had done to her.
“Allaster!” Fen’s voice cut across the yard, and they beckoned him over.
Allaster gave Kasira a final measuring glance. “Tomorrow. Dawn,” he said. Then with a snap, he joined Fen by the shed, where they handed him something she couldn’t see.
Kasira gave Benlo a final apologetic pat on the neck. “Well done, partner.”
PART II
CHAPTER 14
