Frey

Chapter 2

Chevelle stood there, staring down at me as I leaned halfway across the table of documents concerning the northern clans to conceal that I was researching him. I tried not to betray myself by glancing at the papers, but the only other place to look was at him.

He didn't look away. I had no way of knowing if he'd seen the documents before I realized he was there, and I stared at him, frozen for what seemed like an eternity. I was unable to decipher his expression or guess how I should explain having the documents. Words abandoned me when I opened my mouth to speak.

He finally broke the silence. "Freya."

He'd used one of Junnie's pet names for me. I couldn't believe how much I liked that.

He reached out his hand. "I am Chevelle Vattier."

I nodded a slow, stuttering nod.

He wasn't smiling. His face was unreadable. "I am an old friend of Junnie. I saw her at Council this morning. She was disappointed that she has been too occupied by clan business of late to guide you. I offered to help her—to help you."

The stranger I had been obsessed with was going to help me with my studies. I melted, sliding down into my chair. He was still holding his hand out to me. My back pressed against the wall, and as he took a step forward, I became wholly aware of how small and isolated the library space I had chosen was.

He turned his outstretched hand palm up, indicating the stool beside me, as if that had been his intention all along. "May I?"

I nodded once, and he slid onto the stool, facing me, not the table spread with documents.

I still had not spoken.

His dark eyes moved to the pendant against my chest then quickly back to my face, as if he had committed an indiscretion.

We sat there for a few more moments, but my words would not return, not with the imposing stranger inches before me.

When he finally spoke again, I realized his offer of help wasn't a request. "Let's begin with histories." He flicked the middle finger of his left hand, and a thick ivory tome flew from a shelf, opened, and floated steadily between us, as if on a table. There was something so wrong about it, but I couldn't say why.

I pushed away the urge to question an associate of Council, instead asking, "Chevelle?"

He smiled. It was only one word, but he understood. I was asking if I could address him in the common parlance, not the official titles and formalities of Council that he might have been used to. He tilted his head in a nod.

We sat tucked in the narrow space behind a small library table for hours. He pulled books between us and returned them to the shelves, never once glancing at the papers referencing the northern clans, spread out beside us. Nothing we studied touched on the histories of those clans—there was nothing of his histories, nothing of mine. But conversation had become easy as soon as I had spoken that first word, as soon as I had said his name and he'd smiled in return.

I found myself leaning toward him as he spoke, actually paying attention at times, for he had a pleasant voice and an unusual dialect. He wove histories as if they were stories of his childhood friends instead of useless facts, and I became enthralled. It felt as if we were alone there in the quiet corner of the third level, the occasional murmur below and whisper of flipping pages the only other sound in the dim setting. A small knothole made a window in the wall across from me, and some light from the cloudy day occasionally came through, putting Chevelle's face in shade. I had been right—his eyes appeared nearly black in the shadows.

I leaned forward, listening to him as a small gray bird landed on the lip of the knothole and chirped once. Not many animals feared the elves. It seemed curious about what we were doing.