Quill of Thieves

Chapter 50

The quill reforged to rewrite the realms' tomb.

Astrid hoped the traitorous librarian would move at least the most minimal of smidgeons to make use of Sebastian's flames that bound him. Alas, she should have known she would never have been so lucky. Lambert kept perfectly still when he finished his reading and lifted his head.

Their gazes met. You know. The contempt in his eyes accused her. You've always known.

She bit her tongue and allowed the pain to steady her emotions before she turned to meet everyone else with an upturned chin. The person she sought out first was Sebastian.

Her breath caught.

The way he observed her, as if she were about to pull the truth from her own arse and shove it up his nostrils, failed to help her spiraling thoughts. Instead, it caused her to simultaneously want to bury her face into her mother's richest furs to scream while also issuing each of them a swift kick in the shins with the pointed tip of her left boot.

She was a much stronger kicker with her left leg.

But as she glared at Sebastian's bronze skin, it was Serah's voice that mocked her. Salveretta is a farce.

So what if it was? It would hardly make a difference to her life. To what she wanted.

"Soleita will come," Davina had always warned her. "When they come, they will need to be stopped. To stop, we will need your father. For your father, we must acquire the quill."

Yet the story of Corelei, of Davina's deceit against her own mother and the prophecy she had foretold—Astrid had never heard that truth. And though her mother had told Astrid many others, Astrid wondered if Davina had kept just as many of her secrets hidden.

The silence was deafening, so Astrid cleared her throat. She took care to hold back all that she could say. "So, Gaia—Spirit—Earth's favored sibling—possessed my grandmother's body and spurned my mother for a meager fisherboy from Eilibir?"

Even as the words left her mouth, she tried to ignore Sebastian's gaze because she would never be able to find him meager at all, but—ah—too late. His lips twitched as if he were about to inform her about the actual statistics of infamous people who originated from his poor, stink-ridden village; his fingers twisted in the open air as if to pull the facts from it. Astrid hated the way the sight of it caused her own lips to tingle.

"Can the Spirits of Eyelesene truly do such a thing?" Abel asked.

Yes. "No," Astrid scoffed.

Lambert grunted. "Told you she would never believe it."

"She does," Matthias said. "She must."

She scoffed. "You are hardly a mind reader, captain. Unless, of course, you are about to claim you are truly the second-cousin twice removed of Gaia herself."

"Astrid." It was Sebastian this time, stepping close enough that his shoulder brushed the ends of her hair. A shiver threatened each nob of her spine. "Your grandmother," he pressed, "was her name Corelei?"

"Yes," she admitted, "but that doesn't mean—"

"And Corelei's grandfather," he continued, dark brows drawn low and tight over his lids, thoughts churning behind them, "You're related to Enzo Beulgravia, the Halorian Head Healer."

Of course that would be the most interesting piece of information he had retained. "Yes," she seethed again. "But—"

He snapped his fingers. "So, that's how you healed Abel!"