The library in which we sit is not the library, the one belonging to the queen, bedecked with velvet-bound books, each worth half a million rubies.
This library is mine and Gunter’s—at least, we’re the only ones who use it.
Who are allowed to use it.
It’s more like a heavily armored dungeon than a library. Just not as humid and dank, lest the books and scrolls suffer damage.
The queen saw fit to provide us with shelves, at least, but at the rate Gunter collects books, we filled them in about a week. The rest of the books are precariously stacked upon the stone-cobbled floor, each a tower threatening to topple over any minute now.
It looks a mess, but Gunter’s got his own organization system, one I’ve only just begun to wrap my mind around.
These books are not exactly velvet bound.
They’re not all technically books, either. At least, not the kind that gets a royal stamp upon publication.
Gunter calls them journals, because that makes their existence sound a tad less illegal.
Abra doesn’t care, of course, so long as it benefits her elusive cause, but the Council that presides over the various kingdoms of Alondria wouldn’t exactly be thrilled if they knew what sort of information we collect.
“Your headache didn’t go away,” Gunter says, peering up over his spectacles as he watches me massage my forehead.
He doesn’t have to say what he means. Gunter never does.
You didn’t torture her, did you?
“She passed out.” Because I gave her a dose of mandragora, I don’t add.
Gunter grunts, which is his way of expressing that he doesn’t believe me. Gunter has approximately thirteen grunts at his disposal, each of which I’ve learned to discriminate between during my years as his apprentice.
“She’s not our typical test subject,” Gunter says, returning to flipping the pages of a spell tome he procured from the caves of an ancient human civilization in Laei.
“No, she most certainly is not. She spit on me.”
Gunter grunts. Grunt number seven, in fact. The one that took me three years to recognize is supposed to be a chuckle. “I’d spit on you too, if you used wraithseeker on me.”
I bristle, annoyed. “You’re the one who taught me how to make it.”
“Yes, but not to use it on innocent girls.”
“I’d hardly call her innocent. Unless you’ve forgotten where Abra found her.”
Gunter flicks his gaze up to meet mine, but we’re long past the point of him scolding me for using the queen’s given name. “Not all prisoners are criminals. I would have thought you of all people would recognize that.”
“Are you going to spend the entire morning lecturing me, then? Or are you going to help me find a less excruciating way to extract the magic from Blaise’s body?”
I swear Gunter smiles at that, but it’s always so hard to tell with that abhorrent mustache he refuses to keep trimmed.
He passes me a tome that looks to be a children’s book of ancient faerietales on the outside.
It’s not a children’s book. Surprise, surprise.
When I open it, plumes of dust float from the delicate, yellowed pages, revealing an Avelean grimoire that dates back at least half a thousand years.
The Moon Summons is what it’s called, and I’m already shivering.
But the memory of Blaise’s wide, terrified eyes has apparently tattooed itself on the inside of my eyelids now, because when I close my eyes to think, she’s all I can see.
Fine, I’ll read the book. Gunter seems to think it’ll help, at least.
The book’s not nearly as helpful as I’d hoped. It mostly just drones on and on about lychaen, the thought of which makes me want to shed my skin just to get away from the creeping sensation that crawls up my spine at the thought of them.
I don’t love the idea of my bones breaking and hair sprouting out every which way.
No wonder Blaise was so upset when I mentioned her evil alter-ego.
But Blaise isn’t suffering from lychaenthropy. Whatever inhabits her body is something else entirely. When Abra went to Dwellen to retrieve Blaise, she was sure Blaise was a host for an ancient magic, similar to the Old Magic that currently inhabits Queen Asha of Naenden.
I’m not yet willing to throw out the notion, but Blaise’s presentation doesn’t exactly match Queen Asha’s symptoms. For one, Queen Asha’s magic uses its power over her voice to create, while Blaise’s magic is of the shape-shifting variety.
That’s not what bothers me the most, though. It’s how Blaise’s magic only seems to be active during the first several hours of the full moon. If Queen Asha’s story is true, she used her magic multiple nights in a row to convince the king to spare her life, meaning her magic isn’t at all tied to the full moon.
Still, there’s part of me that wonders—if we could release the parasite from whatever ties it to the full moon, could we coax it into leaving Blaise’s body? From the little I can discern from Abra’s irritation, it appears she tried to reason with it. Perhaps she hadn’t brought along enough leverage, hadn’t made the offer tempting enough.
Abra didn’t bother debriefing me on her conversation with the parasite, but I doubt she offered to free it from its moonlit shackles.
Allowing itself to be extracted from Blaise’s body in return for being released from its bondage to the moon seems like a fair enough trade to me.
Of course, it’s not a perfect plan, but it would fulfill my debt to Abra.
