“But the Guilds...”
I shrug. “Won’t let women learn the trade. I know. My uncle taught me in secret.”
He stands there for a moment, a surprised look on his face. “Have you played violin for a long time?”
“Yes,” I reply. “Since I was a small child. And...and you? Do you play any instruments? Anything?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head, looking as if he’s distracted by his own thoughts. “I heard a Fae violinist once, though. I was very young. I can still remember it. It was...beautiful.”
The look of longing in his emerald eyes as he says the last few words catches me off guard, and I find myself flushing and needing to look away.
As I glance around the barn floor, I become aware of papers scattered about. I pick one up. It’s a page from The Book of the Ancients. Puzzled, I get up and pick up a few more of the papers. More pages from The Book.
“That’s odd,” I say as I continue to pick up pages, a stack growing in my hands. “Someone ripped up a copy of our holy book.” When my eyes meet his again, I’m surprised by the look he’s giving me. He’s grown as still as stone, his expression gone cold...and defiant. “Did you do this?” I ask, very slowly.
He doesn’t move, but his unwavering look of defiance is answer enough.
“Oh, take care, Yvan,” I breathe. “This is a major crime in Gardneria.” I hold up the stack of papers in my hands and gesture toward him with it. “Vogel wants to execute people for defacing The Book. Were you aware of that?”
“I suppose it’s a good thing we’re not in Gardneria,” he replies, his green eyes hard.
“You’re treading on very dangerous ground.”
“Oh, really?” he shoots back. “And where would the safe ground be, Elloren? Because I’d really love to find it. Maybe if I looked exactly like Carnissa Gardner, it would be easier to find.”
“That’s hardly fair.”
“What about any of this is fair?”
“I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right,” I say acidly. “My life has been so easy lately. I’m so happy that my looks offer me complete protection from all difficulties.”
He looks momentarily surprised, then ill at ease as his brow knits tight. “We should be getting back,” he says. “The other kitchen laborers will notice that we’re both gone, and it will seem...odd.”
“Why on Erthia would the two of us going off together seem odd?” I ask sarcastically.
Yvan smiles slightly at this, but his eyes remain serious and sad.
I reach up and touch his arm. “I want to help you rescue your dragon. What they’re doing to her is wrong.” My face tenses with frustration. “There’s so much we can’t change. But maybe...this is one thing we can do. And...” I think of the danger Tierney and the Icarals are in. And Trystan. And Yvan. My resolve hardens. “Dragonflight is a pretty good means of escape.”
Yvan takes a deep breath and looks down at my hand. His arm is sinewy...and so warm. It feels good to touch him. Too good. The air shifts between us, to something kindled and sparking. Flustered, I let my hand fall away.
“All right, Elloren Gardner,” Yvan relents, his eyes steady on mine. “Let’s see exactly how much trouble we can all get ourselves into.”
*
“You want to break into a Gardnerian military base and steal a dragon?”
I’m facing Rafe, sitting on the chair by his book-strewn desk. Trystan, Rafe and Yvan are all poised on the edge of their beds, facing me in turn.
Rafe is grinning widely. Trystan wears his usual guarded, unreadable expression, and Yvan looks like he’s recovering from finding himself firmly in cahoots with a bunch of Gardnerians from a family such as ours.
“You’re serious?” Rafe prompts.
“Yes.”
Rafe shakes his head from side to side as he tries, unsuccessfully, to keep from laughing. “Well, I tell you, Ren,” he says, “things are a hell of a lot more interesting with you here at University.”
“We always thought you were quiet and reserved,” Trystan observes, and I can see a small glimmer of amusement in his eyes, as well.
“And now you want to steal dragons and rescue Selkies,” Rafe continues.
“I don’t think our grandmother would be proud,” Trystan tells Rafe.
“No, I think Trystan’s right,” Rafe agrees, giving me a look of mock disapproval. “You are being a very bad Gardnerian.”
I glance over at Yvan, whose eyebrows are raised in surprise as he follows their unexpected banter.
As always, I feel a little off-kilter being in a room that Yvan lives in, too. It’s intimate and strange. I can’t keep myself from noting things about him whenever I’m here. The titles of his books, what type of clothing he has slung over his chair or on his bed. It seems to me, from the way he averts his eyes when we meet each other’s gazes, that he feels the vague inappropriateness of it, too.
“Ren,” Rafe says, his grin fading and his tone cautionary. “You do realize that, with the Selkie, if you’re caught, you’ll be fined for theft. If you steal a dragon from a military base, you’ll be branded part of the Resistance, brought up in front of a military tribunal and most likely shot. By multiple arrows. If you’re lucky, that is.”
“I don’t think the dragon can be freed,” Yvan interjects. “I think they’ll kill her long before anyone can figure out how to get her out of her cage...if that’s even possible. Damion Bane’s magicked the lock.”
“What’s the cage made out of?” Trystan inquires, suddenly intrigued. I can see that familiar light go on in his eyes. Trystan loves a mental puzzle.
“Elfin steel,” Yvan replies. “It’s so strong it can withstand dragon fire.”
“Ah. I’m familiar with it,” Trystan says. “It’s what the Elves make their arrow tips out of. It can only be manipulated before it sets. Once it sets and cools, it can never be worked with again.”
“Can you get your hands on some of it?” Rafe asks Trystan, a mischievous look in his eyes.
Trystan shrugs. “Some arrow tips, sure.” Trystan narrows his eyes at Rafe. “You want to experiment with it, don’t you?”
“Maybe there’s a spell that can break it.”
“Don’t you need a military-grade wand for that?” Trystan points out. “Wands that powerful are expensive, and I’m assuming that Yvan here, being a Kelt, probably doesn’t have one.”
“Well, you’re a military apprentice,” Rafe points out to Trystan.
Trystan shakes his head. “They don’t let us hold on to the wands. They keep them locked up in the armory. And we certainly don’t have the money to buy one—”
“I have a wand,” I blurt out.
Everyone stops talking and turns to stare at me.
“Are you stealing wands now, too?” Rafe asks, clearly ready to believe me capable of anything at this point.
“The morning we left Halfix, Sage gave me a wand. I think she stole it from Tobias, and... I didn’t want her to get into any more trouble than she already was in, so I sewed it into the lining of my travel case. I took it out when I arrived, and it’s been hidden in my pillow ever since.”
“You’ve a wand in your pillow?” Trystan says, incredulous.
I eye him sheepishly. “Yes. I do.”
“Why was this girl in trouble?” Yvan asks, and I feel my face beginning to flush as I struggle to put together the answer to his question.
“She...she fell in love with a Kelt.” I look away from him and catch Rafe’s eye as I do so. He’s studying me closely, one eyebrow cocked. “She’d been wandfasted to the son of a member of the Mage Council,” I continue, my eyes finding their way back to Yvan’s riveting green ones. “She ran away with the Kelt. She had a child with him. An Icaral.”
Yvan’s eyebrows fly up. “This Icaral,” he says, leaning forward, staring at me intently. “It’s the one the Gardnerians are searching for?”
“You’ve heard of him?” I say, surprised.
“I heard that the Gardnerians are aware of a male Icaral hidden somewhere, and that many believe that this Icaral is the one of Prophecy.”