“I’m saying, Thane is conning them. Each and every one of them whom he can get to speak to him. If I were him, I would be telling them Allaster doesn’t care about them. Playing on his absence to mean he’s selfish and remote. I would use it to plant the idea Allaster doesn’t care about Amorlin at all, until they start to wonder if it wouldn’t be best for him to go.”
She met Allaster’s gaze. “I know a con when I see one.”
“I’m sure you do,” he muttered, and she couldn’t hide her flinch. He leaned heavily back in his chair. “What do you suggest then?”
“Deny him access to them,” she said. “Assign him busywork. He’ll have no choice but to complete his duties, or else you’ll be within your rights to relieve him of his position, and even Vera won’t be able to claim prejudice.” It would also slow down his gathering evidence against her, hopefully long enough for Kasira to regain Allaster’s trust and complete her mission.
“How do I know you aren’t working with him?” Allaster asked.
She bristled. “Because I’m not.”
“How convincing.”
May looked between them, her brow furrowed in consternation. “I am only going to say this once. Despite current appearances, the two of you are not only adults, but upon occasion, even display a mild amount of intelligence. Sort this out, before your disagreement proves fatal to us all.”
Allaster’s jaw shifted. “That is exactly why I want nothing to do with her. I can’t trust her, and I can’t afford people I can’t trust right now.”
“Trust me or not,” Kasira replied stiffly. “But I’m on your side, and you need everyone you can get right now.”
At last, Allaster looked at her, his eyes sharp as vylor steel as he retorted, “I need nothing from you.”
Those words struck harder than they ought to have. Her instinct was to fold it all away, but she needed Allaster to believe she truly cared about her position, about him, so she didn’t waver when shesaid, “I’m not going anywhere. You made sure of that when you told the Ambassador to fuck off. So you can keep pushing me away like you have everyone else, or you can let me help you.”
With that, she teleported to the Eyrie. She knew by now that the more she pressed Allaster to do something, the more suspicious he would become and the more he’d resist. She was better off making her point and then giving him space to reach the conclusion himself.
Taking a deep breath of crisp air, she approached Gievra’s pen, where he lifted his head curiously. Things between them had settled into something of a truce over the past few weeks. At the very least, he didn’t thrust his wings into the ground defensively or hiss at her any longer. She had gone through half the Library’s feed stores bribing him to that point, and it reflected in his health. His wounds had healed into scars, his missing eye obscured by new feathers. He even held his once-injured wing comfortably nestled against his back, the splint removed.
As had become a habit of hers, she delved into the magic, establishing a link between them. The Alkatir cub had a naturally calming energy that she sought whenever the pressure in her chest grew too great. She settled on the grass outside his enclosure and let the sounds of the Eyrie and the gentle pulse of his energy lull her as her mind spun through possibilities of how to earn back Allaster’s allegiance.
She couldn’t simply chip away at him like she had before, not with time whittling down and Thane watching her every move. If she wanted Allaster back on her side, she needed something big, something he couldn’t doubt.
And if there was one thing she knew about Allaster St. Archer, it was the lengths he would go to, to protect the people he cared about.
“Kas?” May’s soft voice carried easily in the quiet Eyrie. She had a basket over one arm, the scent of freshly baked bread making Kasira’s stomach growl. May settled beside her on the grass, moving slowly so as not to startle Gievra.
“What are the odds that Allaster sent that as a peace offering?” Kasira asked dryly.
“About as likely as him apologizing.”
Kasira sighed, sitting upright. “He’s more stubborn than an Alkatir.”
“Tinder and spark,” May reminded her, and Kasira’s lips curved in a wry smile. It felt a lifetime ago that May had said that to her, and like before, here she was, playing peacemaker.
“I’m sorry for putting you in the middle of this again,” Kasira said and meant it. Regardless of her goal, she didn’t enjoy distressing May, and it wasn’t the First Mage’s responsibility to sort things out between them.
May was silent for a moment before she said, “Let me be very clear. I care for both you and Allaster, but that isn’t the only reason why I continue to facilitate your relationship. My duty as First Mage is to aid the Assistant and Librarian in defense of the Library, and I’m nothing if not good at my job. Please don’t minimize that by making it just about you.”
Kasira winced. “That’s fair. I apologize.”
May smiled and offered her a warm bun, which she accepted gratefully. It was light and fluffy and tasted of cinnamon and clove, and Kasira promptly devoured it, licking the icing from her fingers. “At least now I understand what it was like for Allaster when I first arrived,” she said once finished, reclining in the grass. “It’s terrible keeping track of everything Thane does.”
May chuckled as she picked apart a bun. “At the very least, Allaster thought you were cute.”
A flush erupted across Kasira’s face, catching her off guard. She wasn’t a fool. There had been moments when Allaster had looked at her in a way that stilled her. Moments where she had wondered if there was something between them, something she could use. But she had dismissed it as too fragile, too unstable. For if there was any part of Allaster that felt that way about her, there were twice as many that would never act on it.
It was an element of the con she had never been good at. Playing on people’s romantic feelings. Relationships had always been different for her than most people, which was to say she had never really had one outside of whatever had existed between her and Loraya. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested; it was that she didn’t know how to navigatethe complex web of emotions and intimacy that came with it. Physical touch came with expectations, and it didn’t leave room for explanations like,This is suffocating me, andI’m not sure I want this.
When people touched her, they mistook her stillness as acceptance, when in truth, she retreated into a place so deep inside herself her body no longer felt her own. A place she had only begun to navigate before Belvar, one that needed connection before intimacy. After, she had done everything she could to avoid that connection, reducing herself down to the need to survive.
