Raphael grinned like he was proud of the murder, his smile flashing too-sharp canines that even magic couldn’t fix. I looked away, disgusted.

With him, or with myself, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t forgive him for the murder, but I was able to make myself look past it with disturbing ease. Like with Nelson. Maybe Thomas wouldn’t have killed me, but it felt like survival all the same. Raphael, for all his monstrous traits, had kept me safe and gotten me to the city.

“Come on.” I shoved past our neighbors, turning from the crowd even while others remained to watch. “We won’t get to any Librarians today. This must be his pilgrimage.”

“His pilgrimage?” Raphael asked.

I snorted. Something I knew about Eurobis that the vampire didn’t. The list shouldn’t have been as short as it was, considering it was my kingdom. But that’s what a long life got him, and a decade of servitude had gotten me.

“Not sure why I should tell you,” I said, half-heartedly.

“You definitely shouldn’t,” Raphael agreed. “But perhaps I could answer a question for you in exchange for soothing my curiosity.”

We were past the crowds now. Somehow, even though I was the one who had pushed to leave, Raphael was once again leading. Like he couldn’t help himself.

“Anything?” I asked, considering.

That was a powerful offer. Tempting.

“As long as telling you would not endanger my kingdom,” he corrected.

“That’s hardly fair, since you want to know state secrets.”

Raphael rolled his disguised eyes at me. “I could simply enthrall another off the street to tell me.”

“Then why don’t you?” I countered.

“Perhaps because I want you to be the one to tell me. Though if you’d like to use that as your question, by all means.”

Fine. He made a fair point, and I might as well get something from it. “The pilgrimage is a trip made after the royal heir turns eighteen. There’s meant to be a specific prophecy for every ruler for the next thousand years. It’s the only time the royal family is allowed to ask the Librarians for counsel. If they attempt at any other time, their requests are ignored, even though the Librarians will hear other requests.” The ruling line didn’t get to choose what question the Librarians answered, either.

“Because of what the royals did to seers.”

“What the seers made them do,” I corrected, just as I’d been taught.

It was said Apante had previously been the capital of Eurobis because that was where seers were strongest. But several hundred years ago, some king had decided to build up Ulryne as the new capital, right in the center of the continent—as far from the vampires as possible. Seers were immediately outlawed.

Raphael scoffed. “Just because some king felt threatened that someone knew more than he did.”

“It’s said to be a betrayal of the throne to have powers greater than that of the king.” That’s what we were taught. It was pedantic to argue with the vampire over the point. Even as a child, those two things had sounded similar to me, though my mother had insisted there was a difference.

All witches must pay a tithe to the king. Yet the seers give it only at their discretion. They may say no to the king, but yes to a peasant who asked. It was treasonous, she’d told me. She never said a single thing against the royal family—or at least, not against King Vaughn.

“And for that so-called betrayal, he ordered them all put to death.” There was no mistaking the disgust in Raphael’s voice, the curl in his lips. “But still they grasp on to slivers of that power.”

It was hard to argue that point.

Before the seers had been killed, they had stored their magic in the Great Library. Even now, all these years later, their cards remained. The Librarians, though not seers themselves, guarded that knowledge, along with more traditional books, and dedicated themselves to understanding the world around us. Any witch or void could ask for their guidance—once. Because of the exile, even the king himself would be turned away if he asked for any more than what he’d been given during his pilgrimage.

Marcel was already eighteen.

It had felt like my life had frozen while I’d been in Greymere. That obviously wasn’t the case.

“My turn.” I could’ve asked him for vampire weaknesses or something useful, but one question had bothered me for days. “Why did you let yourself get captured?”

“Let?” Raphael drawled. “What makes you think I let myself get chained in copper and shoved into a dark prison?”

“Don’t play dumb. You can enthrall humans, and I’ve seen you fight. Or rather, I’ve seen you kill. It’s not even fair to call those fights.”

Raphael was quiet for a long beat. I wondered if he’d go back on his word.

“You’re observant, I’ll give you that,” he eventually said with something that bordered on respect in his tone.

“Well?” I prodded.

“I was looking for something. I was led to believe I’d find it near the witch prison. When I didn’t find it, I decided to let some pompous guards think they’d found me, and enthralled them into imprisoning me rather than attempting to decapitate me.”

“But why? What were you looking for?”

“I’ve answered your question. If you wanted more details, you should’ve been more specific.”

I huffed a breath in frustration. He’d let them put him in copper shackles, turning him weak as a mortal while they whipped him for days? His thrall might have stopped the first set of guards from decapitating him, but a new set could have done so. I still wasn’t convinced his thrall worked in Greymere—he’d have been defenseless. For a vampire who planned to live a “very long time,” he’d risked coming to a bloody end in chains. What under the gods’s sun could he have been looking for?

“Is this what your question to the Librarians is about?”

Raphael didn’t answer. I hid my grin and took it as a yes.

I should’ve dropped it. Once I asked the question, my bargain was fulfilled, and we’d go our separate ways.

But the vampire was a puzzle. And I was terrible at resisting puzzles.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Fourteen

The markets of Apante weren’t as famous as the Great Library—they weren’t called the Great Markets, after all—but they still far exceeded anything I’d ever seen. Colors exploded from every stall, vendors shouting bargains and enticements in a joyful cacophony. The noise hurt my ears, but there was so much life in it I forced myself forward. For years, the only yelling I’d heard had been from pain. Here, there was every other emotion on display—greed and pride, pleasure as customers inspected beautiful goods, good-natured bartering at every stall.

We had time to spare, since Prince Marcel would likely spend the day with the Librarians. Until he left tomorrow, we’d be unable to get an audience with them. We’d have to put in a request tomorrow, and if I was lucky, we’d be seen the same day.

One more day. Then we’d part ways.

There was a lovely deck holder that caught my eye. The case was surrounded in delicate beading, with bright blue and reds forming a pattern. It slotted along a belt that continued the same pattern, with sturdy leather that could fit all kinds of tinkering tools in addition to the deck. It would do a much better job holding the pile of cards than my makeshift pouch, that much was for certain.

Raphael, of course, caught me looking.

“Should I thrall him into giving it to you?” he offered, humor in his eyes.

I forced us to continue on. “It’s pointless where I’m headed.” For more than one reason.

“So you have decided to join the Monastery.”

Was he joking? “I’m an exile,” I hissed, keeping my voice so quiet only his vampire hearing would pick up on it. “It’s not like I have any other option.”

There were three main powers in the Witch Kingdom. The Crown, of course, set in Ulryne. The Great Library of Apante was another, because even outlawing seers didn’t diminish their power. But the Monastery was different. Despite the name, it was really a network of churches that stretched throughout the kingdom. It claimed all of Eurobis as its seat of power, since the gods, too, claimed all of the continent.