Page 48 of The City Of Fractured Memory

“That’s what we need to find out. But if those seers were a part of it, is someone trying to stop them? Or could they be…”

I turn the page, desperate for more answers, and find a drawing of a huge tome surrounded by thorns, the page torn in half with the bottom piece missing. Beneath it is a small caption which I read aloud, the words filling me with dread.

“‘Augustus was entrusted as keeper of the Codex, the council tasked to hide the book from those seeking to use its pages to perform rituals to the Gods using the dark magic within. May the Faceless God forever live within his misty cage’– and that’s where it stops. Someone’s ripped out the rest of the passage.”

My head falls as frustration eats away at me. The fact someone’s defaced this book surely indicates that this information is important, but it’s not much to go on without being able to source the rest of it. Stryx turns the page to continue reading, but it just seems to be examples of some other spells the Codex can conjure. Interesting, but not currently helpful.

“Holy Mother,” Stryx breathes, her ears flicking back and forth in agitation. “These spells are horrendous. There’s one about cursing your enemies, a tranquillising spell that can put someone to sleep for weeks, multiple ways of killing…does this Codex not have any nice spells or rituals?”

“Doubtful,” I mutter, not really listening. My eyes catch on something in the top left corner of the page, a small passage of text scrawled into the margin. The words are faint, as if someone pressed a quill too hard and bled the ink dry. I lean in close to read it and sigh heavily when I realise it’s not in any language I recognise. Stryx follows my gaze and frowns deeply, whipping her head closer.

“Can you read that?” I whisper, once again checking over my shoulder to ensure we’re alone as the back of my head prickles uncomfortably.

She scrunches her face in concentration, tilting the ancient tome towards the candlelight as she brushes her fingers over the brittle edge of the page. “It’s an ancient language, one used by the Echofae many years ago. I can make out some words.”

I scan the writing as she tries to translate it, and I stop breathing, a cold thread curling slowly down my spine as my gaze catches on a single word.

Corvusoe.

“Stryx,” I gasp. “Please tell me you can translate that.” I stab my finger at the word and she draws in a sharp intake of breath.

“Not exactly. There’s no direct translation. But in this context, the closest words in the old tongue would be…” She swallows. “Black crow.”

For a long heartbeat, neither of us even breathes. Then, a memory comes unbidden, sharp and disdainful into my mind, hitting me like a blade of ice.

“That can’t be a coincidence,” I whisper.

“What is it?” she asks with a frown.

“Riven.” The name leaves my lips like a curse. “When I was taken to his office, all his letterheads had a sigil on. A crest of a black crow.”

The air between us thickens, charged with unease.

Stryx’s voice trembles as she catches on to my train of thought. “You think he’s been the one sending the notes? All this time?”

I want to deny it, to laugh it off and call it absurd. He survived a blood oath, exonerating him from the murders, but I can’t ignore this coincidence, the cryptic warnings, the way he always seems to appear everywhere we go…

My jaw tightens. “He may not be a suspect for these murders, but if he is the one sending those notes, then he is connected to it somehow, like we thought. He has to be the key.”

The candles sputter violently behind us, as though something unseen just exhaled, and I snap the tome shut, fear threading itself through my veins.

“Octavia, he’s the Governor of Aethermere. What if we’re wrong? What if he’s not the key?”

I meet her gaze, determined. “Then he’s the lock I have to break, regardless.”

For a moment, neither of us speak, then once again the candles gutter.

“Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?” Stryx breathes, her voice barely audible.

“I thought I was being paranoid,” I admit, my eyes darting around the stacks surrounding us. “I think we should go.”

I turn to grab the book, when somewhere in the vast stillness of the Archives, a page turns by itself. The hairs rise on the back of my neck, and my Shadow creeps in towards me, barely an inch from my ear.

Run.

Every candle goes out, and we are plunged into darkness.

Twenty-Three