“Lucian?”
“On our way back to Dad, while you were unconscious, Jonah asked me if I really wanted to hand you over. I think he was giving me a choice, but I didn’t see it at the time. I’m sorry I went through with it.”
My eyes widen. “It’s okay. It’s what I wanted. I needed to meet the man I thought killed my father. And I guess… in a way… I did.”
“Where do we hit him next?” Lucian asks.
I take a deep breath, feeling a sense of calm returning. “If our father believes so strongly in whatTheBook of Dark Magicshows him… if he’s had it for years and followed it for that long… then he’ll be lost without it.”
Lucian jolts. “We’re stealingTheBook of Dark Magic?”
I smile. “We are.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
My brother blows out an exhale, caution filling his eyes. “Veda, no. You saw what eventhinkingabout that book did to me. You can’t look at it, let alone touch it?—”
“But I can.”
Lucian stares at me. As does Anarchy.
“I have already,” I say.
Anarchy glances at Lucian before she focuses back on me. “Darkness?”
“The woman who raised me left me a page from it. I wasn’t hurt when I held that page or looked at it.”
All the time we’ve been talking, I’ve been conscious of the keeper. Of the way he has remained silent and hunched in his cloak. At some point, he stopped pacing and now he’s like a pillar, his head a little bowed as if by a weight, his hair falling forward over his face, his features in shadow.
He finally speaks and his voice is hollow, so much so that a cold chill settles at the base of my spine. “My Veda is one of the few beings who can hold a page fromTheBook of Dark Magicand resist its power.”
Why does that sound like a bad thing all of a sudden?
At the time, he seemed to marvel at my ability to resist the power in that piece of paper, but now…
I shake off my misgivings. This is the first real step I can take to truly weaken my father’s hold over the Nostra Empire. It’s my best next step.
“Once I have the book, our father will make mistakes,” I say, refocusing on Anarchy and Lucian. “I just need to know where the book is kept so we can figure out how to steal it.”
Lucian leans back a little, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Veda. This falls into the category of important information that I wasn’t told.”
Damn. My shoulders sink as I try not to deflate.
“But James Vanguard could tell you,” Lucian says.
My lips part in surprise. “Vanguard?”
“He let it slip once that he knew how to find it.”
“Okay, then. I’ll make Vanguard tell us.” Maybe I’ll get Ryuji’s sword back for him in the process. “That is… assuming we can find Vanguard.”
Ugh. I don’t want to get stuck in a loop, looking for one thing to find another.
“I can help you there,” Lucian says. “Before he left, Jonah gave me a way to contact him if I was ever in trouble.”
That does sound like Jonah.
I may have been at odds with the fire jotunn, but once we had a truce, he was far more thoughtful than I’d expected him to be, even giving the panthers water when they needed it.
