“Six, but everyone must be masked for the first three,” Radane said, “because the third empress met her wife after three spring festivals and ever since it has been considered good luck.”
“Which dessert is considered—”
Larran held up his hand. “If you and Caz know all this, how is this proof?”
“Ask me a question I would only know if I were a high noble who’d studied for her third-year exams in wind-speaking,” Radane said. Wind-speaking was a study of sorcery that focused on controlling the movement of air. It had numerous applications: on ships, obviously, for filling sails, but wind-speakers were also employed as spies, for their ability to carry distant voices to their ears.
“What section of the Great Library holds the treatises on Oppeindone’s experiments on wind manipulation from the third dynasty?” Kiela asked. It was a trickier question than it appeared, because the sorcerer Oppeindone had conducted a wide variety of cross-discipline experiments, and he hadn’t been as organized in his writings as a librarian might wish. His treatises tended to flit from topic to topic. If she’d been his mentor, she would have spoken to him sternly about the need to focus, at least enough for the paper to match the abstract. Scientific books were not supposed to be stream-of-consciousness. That said, his work was brilliant, and any sufficiently advanced wind-speaker should have been assigned to read his original texts.
Radane stared at her for a moment.
“If you were as advanced as you say, you’d know,” Caz said.
“I didn’t say I was going to pass my exams,” Radane complained. “We were assigned to read Oppeindone’s early experiments in wind . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I spoke to the librarian with the green-streaked beard. He had moss growing on his tunic and grumbled about being transferred from the west wing . . .” She opened her eyes. “He was on the second floor, north wing, by the stained-glass depiction of Empress Pergin and the building of the Alyssium canals.”
“And what did Oppeindone’s wind experiments prove?” Caz asked.
She glared at the plant. “I just admitted that I was not a good student. But I can tell you his notes were handwritten, near impossible to read, in a blue book that had tea stains on the cover. And I would have read it, if his handwriting hadn’t been so atrocious.”
Caz glanced at Kiela, who nodded. “He did have atrocious handwriting. No imperial investigator would know that.” She would’ve heard if an investigator had requested any books from the second floor, north wing. It was rare enough that gossip about such a request would have spread, but a mere student, no matter how noble, was exactly the sort of patron who the library was designed to accommodate. “She’s telling the truth, at least as far as I can tell.”
“All right then,” Larran said.
Caz nodded.
“Meep?”
Kiela understood that question without need of translation. “Now what?”
Together, they sailed back to Kiela’s cove.
Whatever they were going to do next, they could figure it out in the comfort of the cottage with some tea and jam—after the crates of books were safely back inside. Without an actual investigator on the island, there was no need to keep them so hidden. Kiela’s bedroom would do just fine.
Larran rode on the back of a brilliant teal merhorse, while the mermaid and her child dove through the waves. Meep stayed stuck to the top of the mast, while Kiela sat near the rudder. Caz stretched himself over the crates of books and watched Radane.
Radane was very carefully steering clear of any topic that made her sound like she was still a threat. “I always hated the spring festivals,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind. “You dance too much, you eat too much, and a lot of nobles assume that since they’re ‘anonymous’—even though the costumes make it blatantly obvious who is who, since they’re typically designed around a play on the wearer’s name and status—that the rules do not apply to them. I like to be asked before I’m kissed. And the noise! I do not mind musicians, but one at a time.”
“I hid in the library for all festivals,” Kiela said.
“Lucky,” Radane said. “My mother would not let me. She claimed it was my duty to represent my family. One year, my younger sister, who was desperate to go to her first festival, paid me in all her birthday candy to let her masquerade as me. Later I sneaked into her room and put her candy back, because the truth was I would have paid her to go in my place. She came back saying she had a magnificent time.”
“Sounds smart.” Kiela wondered where Radane’s mother and sister were now and if they were considered heirs. Had Radane’s escape just delayed civil war? “Are you the last heir, or does it fall to another relative and then another?”
“My mother remarried after my father died, and the bloodline is on my father’s side. The remarriage voids my mother’s claim to the throne. So they are safe, if that is what you are asking.”
“Glad to hear it.” So that meant war wasn’t inevitable, which was excellent—a true civil war would undoubtedly spread to the outer islands. A coup had the chance of being contained to just Alyssium.A good reason for people to be hunting Radane.
“I did not have a chance to say goodbye to them,” Radane said. “That is the only piece of this I regret. Also, I regret taking your parents’ cookbook. It felt in character, and I needed you to believe I was who I claimed to be.”
“It was effective,” Kiela said. She hadn’t doubted that Radane was an imperial investigator when she took the precious cookbook.
“I will return it,” Radane said. “It is undamaged, I promise.”
“Thank you.” Perhaps she could forgive her for confiscating it, though Kiela couldn’t help but wonder how far Radane would have taken her act. She had frightened people, but short of taking the cookbook, she hadn’t caused any real harm. If her plan was simply to disappear . . . Kiela was glad that Caz hadn’t taken more extreme action.
But what were they to do with Radane now?
As they drifted into the cove, Kiela lowered the sail, and Radane poled them to the dock. Kiela tied the boat securely to the dock and then stepped out. Larran joined them, and together they carried all five crates back up to the cottage. Caz and Meep rode on one of the crates.
