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She frowned. “Inky, what does the word Rhovan mean? Have you ever heard it before?”
Inky’s skin turned unusually pale. “Where the coggles did you hear that word?”
“Last night. Lord Drake got a whisperseal call. That was one of the words.”
Her tickerkin gathered herself up into a tight bunch of tentacles. “You stay away from that man, Miss Mae. You hear me? You stay far away from him.” She shuffled off to prepare Maelin’s gown for the day.
Leaving Maelin both confused, concerned—and curious.
Chapter Ten
Despite her position in Caelemar society, Maelin, Lady of Theryn, was nothing if not industrious. No laying around in her morning robes over a sumptuous breakfast, or hours spent deciding what to wear.
With Inky’s assistance, and a brief morning visit from Darady who also had a couple of comments about last night’s Velarine, Maelin shook her head.
“Go away. I’m dressed, ready for the day, and I’m sure you both have other things that need attending to.” She glanced at her desk in the small study adjoining her room. “Besides, I have some thank-you notes to write, and so on.”
“There will be a large pile of notes for you as well, I expect,” said Darady, straightening the bed. “Although since it was Lady Varelle’s ball, she’ll probably receive the lion’s share of them.”
“Which means someone else will have to respond.” Maelin rolled her eyes. “If she asks, you two are running errands, doing things, being very busy on my behalf, all right? She will not conscript either of you into working for her. She has enough staff, poor things.”
Inky and Darady exchanged glances, sighed, and nodded, making Maelin smile at their well synchronised movements. “I do have some errands to run, Lady Maelin. They may take me a bit, but you tell me if there’s anything I can do first?”
Inky sighed loudly. “I’d like errands to run. You get out of the house a helluva lot more than I do. Always off on this or that...”
“That’s because I have two legs, not seven,” retorted Darady.
“Yes, but...”
“No arguments, please. Now go away, my dears. I want to get this chore out of the way as soon as I can.”
It took a little longer, but finally Maelin was on her own, with time to think her own thoughts, which badly needed sorting.
Cyrus was on top of them all, of course.
She could still sense him, breathe in his unique scent, feel the heat of this body as it thrust against hers. His lips, beautiful lips carved by some talented god having an excellent day...they haunted her. As did his eyes, his hands...
And that was quite enough. She had a task, and letting her thoughts drift where they shouldn’t wasn’t going to get it accomplished.
Her small desk was tidily arranged, with a pile of notes on one side and ink and paper ready on the other. But before she began, there was one thing she desperately wanted to do.
Gathering a pen and a blank sheet of paper, she left her suite quietly, making her way along a darkened corridor and down a staircase to the main library of Theryn House.
It was, as one would expect, huge. And it was also filled with an impressive assortment of books, both fine literature, not so fine literature, and utter trash. But it wasn’t the fiction that lured Maelin on this morning, it was the reference shelf. There she looked for the two massive volumes that comprised a basic history of Caelemar. There were facts, legends, tales from the past and discoveries from the present.
Both volumes possessed the “Access Plates”, endpapers that connected to Caelemar’s Civic Archive Grid, which allowed them to update themselves regularly. If there had been any recent occurrences in records, official notices, legal changes, discoveries, deaths, incidents...pretty much anything of note in Caelemar, these two volumes would already have included it.
And their historical records? As accurate as possible.
She’d used them on numerous occasions for essay references when she was a child, and they’d always fascinated her. The slight tingle she felt in the tips of her fingers every time she opened them...it was still there.
Pulling out a chair, she sat in front of the desk, and decided to begin with the older book.
The hard red covers opened easily, and she found the index page, running her finger down until it rested on the letter R. Leaning close to the page, she quietly spoke one word.
“Rhovan.”
Three red X’s danced over the page, surprising her, and making her eyebrows draw together in a frown
