“Yes?” he inquired as if I’d interrupted his morning tea.
I shoved my notes in his face. “What does this rune mean?”
His irises flashed from brown to black and speckled.
They settled back to brown, drilling straight into my soul with unsettling intensity.
“Unmaking.”
Why did I get the feeling he was implying something with that word? Did he figure out I’d snuck into his study? A prickling dread ran down my spine, draining the warmth from my face.
“Do you know what it has to do with this pentagram?”
“No.”
He pulled back like he’d fulfilled his one-answer quota for the day, and I wedged my foot between the door before he could shut it, holding up the book.
Because I sure as hell wasn’t letting him get away without answering more of my questions.
He knew things.
And this wasn’t one I’d let him avoid.
“Who wrote this? And how do I dream-walk to the moment they did?”
Cato looked at the handwriting, and his dry expression shuttered. He took the book from me, closed it, and caressed the cover like one would a lover.
“Life and death feel inconsequential when you think you can control them.” Deep-seated knowing weighted his soft words. “Such hubris is destructive. Unimaginable.”
“You tried to change the past? To save them?” I guessed.
He eased open the front cover and pointed at a name jotted in the bottom corner.
Ariella.
It was the name I’d found in Cato’s dream-walking exercises.
“To save my cordistella.”
“You—”
“Death is a jealous sovereign. Attempt to claim what he deems his, and his answer is not a price, but an unthinkable retribution. My penance for my attempt was the extinction of an angelic race, with the exception of myself.”
No wonder he was so adamant about the creed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling the urge to hug him.
He placed the book back in my hands, any emotion that might’ve graced his face already gone.
“I didn’t express my failures for an apology, but for education. Now, she enjoyed a book calledThe Celestial Plight, Earl Grey tea, black licorice, alphabetizing her books, and…” He straightened his spine and clasped his hands within his robed sleeves. “Rubbing my bald head.”
In that moment, I was entirely grateful none of the other males werehere, especially Oliver. I could only imagine we would’ve been kicked out and banned until the end of time.
“Inviso.”
He gave a sharp nod. “Yes. And if those details aren’t enough, hold this in the process.”
He unclasped something from his wrist and placed a bracelet of tiny white-and-black beads into my hand.
