“I should go.” The words leave my mouth before I can think better of it. I know I should stay to research, to prepare, and to gather knowledge that might help us stop Elowen’s plans—whatever they may be. However, every second away from him makes the pressure behind my ribs all the more noticeable.
Dimitri’s silver eyes lift from the scroll he has been reading, catching mine across the low-lit table. “You think youwill find answers faster in your own court?” His voice is measured, almost teasing, though I can feel the undercurrent of something tense.
I hesitate, biting the inside of my cheek. “I…don’t know,” I admit softly, glancing toward the tall windows. “I just feel like if I don’t—” I cut myself off. I don’t want to speak Koen’s name. It’s too dangerous to admit how much he has actually occupied my every thought.
Dimitri sets down the scroll, leaning back in his chair, patient, almost as if he already knows the storm waging in my mind. “You’ve found more here than you ever will in your polished palace records,” he says. “Your own historians have been curated for centuries. Do you truly believe anything on the Veil or Gravenholme would survive there?”
I stiffen. I have combed through every record I could find. Mentions of Roxnos, cryptic references to the shadowborn fae, ruins swallowed by floods, anything that might mention the Veil. Dimitri is right about the past being carefully hidden, and staying here might truly be the only way to piece it together.
Yet, every hour I spend in Noctheron is an hour that I don’t know if Koen or the others made it back to the palace safely. My heart feels heavy with the weight of the uncertainty.
Did they make it through the portal? Did Torin force Koen to a healer? Or did Koen stubbornly refuse? I can’t stop my mind from spiraling, imagining all the ways he might be in pain and all the ways I’m powerless to help him. I’m the strongest healer. I should have been the one mending whatever wounds he got in Gravenholme.
“You’re not ready to leave,” Dimitri says, breaking meout of my thoughts. His words are calm, but there is no mistaking the edge of truth to them.
I exhale slowly, leaning back and letting my eyes drift over the bookshelves. “I’ll give it a few more days,” I murmur.
His lips curve into a slow, knowing smile. “A few more days,” he echoes, softer this time.
The hours pass. I study tomes that smell of cedar and dust, trace lines of long-dead cartographers mapping a world half-erased. Every scrap of Gravenholme’s history and every fleeting mention of Roxnos seems to pull me deeper into a mystery I barely understand. I feel the weight of it pressing at the edges of my mind, joining my unrelenting worry for Koen.
By midnight, I have stacked a small tower of books beside me. I pause to stretch and, for a brief moment, allow my mind to wander. I imagine him safe at the palace, recovering in his chamber, perhaps restless as he always is when idle. Does he think of me, even now? Did he notice my absence, or is he too exhausted from the trial to care?
I shake my head, forcing the thoughts back into the cage of reason. I need to focus. This is research, preparation, and strategy.
Still, when Dimitri shifts in his chair, lowering his voice to murmur something about cross-referencing something with the oldest tomes, I feel a flicker of reassurance. Even if I cannot go to Koen right now, I am not powerless. Even if Elowen’s plans remain elusive, I can still arm myself with knowledge.
The fire crackles low, a few embers sparking and drifting into the air. My hand hovers over the edge of a fragile page, tracing Roxnos’sname once more. There is a strange reverencein it, a call I can’t ignore.
I move along the table where my notes are spread in chaotic rows—half-translated scrolls, sketches of symbols, diagrams of what the three artifacts might be. The candlelight flickers over us, throwing restless shadows across the pages.
Dimitri leans back in his chair at the far end of the table, my shadows resting at his feet. “If you keep reading the same sentence over and over, I doubt the answer will appear,” he says lightly, eyes narrowing in amusement.
“It might,” I say without looking up, flipping to another brittle page. “Sometimes the mind makes the connection before the eyes do.”
Ravelle, sprawled across the couch nearby with a book half-shielding her face, lets out a chuckle. “Or sometimes the mind is just stubborn.”
Dimitri shifts, his voice softening. “You’re too tense. Even shadows fray when their wielder runs themselves raw.”
I give him a dry look. “You’re saying this as if you haven’t been pacing like a caged wolf every time you think I’m not looking.”
“Point made.” His smirk is quick, but there is a flicker of truth in his eyes. He is restless, too.
I reach for another scroll, ignoring the twinge in my shoulders from hours hunched over.
Ravelle finally stands from the couch, tossing her book onto the table. “You’ve been here every night since you agreed to help. You need a distraction. Why don’t we take a break?”
“I’m not here to be distracted,” I say, sharper than intended.
Silence follows. It’s not heavy, but it’s enough for me to notice the glance Dimitri exchanges with her.
I exhale slowly, softening my tone. “If Elowen gets what she’s after, I’m assuming none of us will have time for distractions.”
The three of us work in relative quiet after that, Dimitri occasionally offering translations, Ravelle fetching volumes from the higher shelves with a lazy flick of magic.
When Dimitri returns from the archives with yet another text, he sets it down gently beside me. “You know, for someone who swore she didn’t trust us anymore, you seem awfully comfortable here now.”
My lips twitch before I can stop them. “I wouldn’t call this comfortable. But…less aggravating than before.”
