Allaster gave a breathless laugh. “If they continue at this rate, yes. If they somehow manage to remove me from the Library … it will be so much worse.”
KASIRA BARELY NOTICEDGievra taking the pieces of dried meat out of her hand. She sat with him in his paddock, the bucket of treats trapped between her feet as her mind turned.
The quakes had been a part of her life in Kalthos for years, and though they had grown more frequent recently, she had dismissed them in favor of more immediate problems like surviving the day. Even when Allaster told her about the impact beast hunting was having on the world, Kasira had thought it a distant problem, something for the Assistant who came after her to worry about. But if she succeeded at the Conclave and left with her freedom, the next Librarian would still be Kalish, and they would only make the problem worse.
“He’s only supposed to get a handful of those a day, not an entire bucket.”
Kasira looked up to find Allaster watching them impassively from outside the pen. It had only been a few hours since they saw each other last, but he looked twice as haggard, leaning against the railing as if it were the only thing holding him up.
She glanced into the empty pail as Gievra cleaned one paw in satisfaction. Shrugging, she sent the bucket back to the shed with a snap of her fingers. “Some days you need a bucket. You should try it.”
“That would require me to have an appetite,” he muttered. “Are you ready?”
Kasira gestured to the pasture. “I thought we might stay here instead. We can keep an eye on the portal room through the magic.” For that was how they had laid their trap: By announcing to the council that Allaster intended to get Thane dismissed, they had provided the spy with news to share with Vera. If their plan progressed, they would catch the culprit delivering it through the portal room door, which they were most likely to do after everyone had retired for the evening.
Allaster frowned but sat down beside her in the paddock. “Remind me again why this requires both of us.”
“It doesn’t, but seeing as you don’t trust me, I want to be sure you witness this for yourself,” she explained. “And seeing as you’ve never run a con before, I’m here to make sure you don’t ruin it.”
“How hard can it really be?”
She raised an eyebrow with an amused scoff. “Tell me a lie.”
A faint blush rose in his cheeks, softening the edges of his face. “It’s not—I don’t mean—”
“You can’t.” A smile curved her lips, then faded. “Most people can’t. They feel guilty or foolish or obvious, and they usually are the latter.”
Allaster’s gaze shifted from her, his fingers curling in the long grass. It was nearly as blatant a tell as the way he spun his rings. Her words had touched on something, something he wasn’t going to share with her. A wall existed around the Librarian, one nearly as thick as her own. Most of the mages she had spoken to remembered a very different man before Mora’s death. One every bit as forthright and studious, but who didn’t spurn the company of others. This Allaster had become a stranger to them, and he didn’t even seem to realize it.
“Tell me how you do it,” he said without looking at her.
“What?”
“Lie like that.”
She laughed, leaning back on her hands. “Why? Thinking of running your own game?”
When Allaster failed to share her amusement, she sobered. Loraya and Thane had always been the ones instructing her. She had never had to teach someone else, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to tell him. It wasn’t that she thought he would turn the skill against her; only that, with him, she liked knowing she only ever got the truth, even if she had to work for it. But despite his mood, this felt like Allaster was … trying.
“The first question you always ask yourself is, what does your mark want?” she explained. “Take the Kalish King, for example. He wants to eliminate threats to his power. It’s why he’s marrying his son to the Yadora heir: so that they become allies instead of rivals. If you show him how the imbalance of magic will impact his grip on the throne, he’ll be more inclined to listen to you.”
“That sounds like a good argument, not an elaborate scheme.”
She shrugged. “A lot of cons are about convincing your target to give you what you want by giving them what they want. Not all of them end with your mark losing.”
“Like you did to me,” he noted. “You wanted to become Assistant Librarian, so you gave me the Assistant you thought I wanted.”
“Was I wrong?” She tilted her head.
Allaster was quiet for so long she didn’t think he was going to answer. When he finally spoke, she didn’t know if his words were for her or himself. “No one should have to live like that.”
Her initial reaction was to defend what she was, to say she hadn’t been forced into anything. She liked the thrill, the challenge, liked pitting her wits against another’s, and unpacking each mark like a puzzle to be pieced together. But if she’d had the chance, would she have chosen this life? If she had truly been born Eirlana Corynth, who would she have become?
May would say she had been destined for the Library. Loraya would tell her their lives were theirs to live, and they could do anything. Thane would laugh and say she was what she made herself and nothing more. Kasira didn’t know what she believed.
If life dealt in destinies, what did hers say about her? A girl fated to tell lie after lie until the truth became a distant memory.
And if the world was truly open to her like Loraya had believed, then what was she doing here, betraying Allaster with every breath?
