Page 8 of When the Sky Breaks

I blinked a few times, thrown off by her casual revelation. “Well, that’s incredibly convenient, I’m sure.”

She paused, stroking one of the cats.

“But for now,” Sorcha said, “you are officially helping me find the documents I was going over last night. Since you lost them.”

“Filed them,” I corrected.

“Lost.”

“Sorcha, I think you need to see this.”

We’d been sorting papers for nearing an hour and still hadn’t found the black, cloth-bound ledger Sorcha was looking for. Apparently, it contained full details of the Outer Court’s official contacts. And apparently, she needed it right now.

“What? Did you find my ledger?” Sorcha asked, looking up hopefully.

“Sorcha, this is important,” I said. “Sorcha . . .”

“Is it something about the portals?” Sorcha asked.

“No. I shook my head. “It’s a letter. From the Inner Court. For you.”

“Jeremy must have meant to give it to me and forgotten,” Sorcha said, fingers tracing over the words. “It’s in High Elvish.”

“Can you read it?” I asked.

She nodded. “You?”

I shook my head. “Stewards learn to speak it but not the alphabet.”

“So even you didn’t use the Inner Court pamphlets about becoming literate in our venerable and ancient tongue?” she asked.

I chuckled in spite of myself, then stopped abruptly as she scanned the paper and her face fell, something almost like terror blooming in her expression.

“Neal?” Her voice cracked. “Neal, she says the title’s illegitimate.”

“What title? Yours?” I asked, taking the paper from her, then realizing with deep annoyance that I couldn’t make out a word of it to confirm. Sorcha nodded.

“She says that because I’m under one hundred, the title does not transfer,” she said, “unless I submit to either a marriage of another noble Elven household, to someone over one hundred. Or to essentially a regency, with a regent—she’s calling them a High Councilor—of her choosing.”

“I don’t think that’s legal,” I replied immediately. I’d studied Elven Court law for decades, at Da’s insistence, and I’d never heard of such a regulation. Sorcha shrugged.

“But do you know for sure?” she asked. “Because I’m not about to write back saying she’s suggesting something illegitimate without confirmation. I’m fairly sure an unfounded appeal would be the worst possible course of action.”

“I’m not certain. But Ansel may know, and if not he’ll certainly have a way to find out. He’s due here in two days, but if he’s riding hard it may be sooner.”

Sorcha nodded.

“Maybe we can send a messenger out to meet him,” I offered.

“Neal,” Sorcha said, “Jeremy won’t even be back in St. Petersburg at the Inner Court yet. We’ll give the papers to Ansel when he arrives.”

She placed the message in her top drawer and slammed it closed.

“And you thought my chaotic approach to filing didn’t have any positive externalities.” She chuckled, turning back to the box of papers in her lap.

Another hour passed in companionable silence, and an additional thread of discomfort at Iksura’s letter crept its way into my thoughts. What if Iksura was right? What if the law was truly on her side? And what if Sorcha conceded and married a nobleman?

I shook my head to clear it. Why did I care? A small voice at the back of my mind reminded me that Sorcha was pretty and charming, that she was quick and funny, that she smelled like sunlight on lavender fields, and that my heart did a strange, uncanny palpitation every time we so much as brushed hands.