Pieces of Eight (The Frey Saga, #2)(6)

Her eyes flicked to Chevelle and then back to me. I noticed he was still watching, but now his face was hard. Her voice was almost accusing. “I thought you burned those up?”

“The ones from the council, yes. These were from the library.” I glanced from Ruby to Chevelle. Something about this troubled them, but I couldn’t tell why. And then my brain caught up and I turned back to Ruby, a little harsher than I’d intended. “Wait, you read the diary?”

She almost blanched. Almost. And then she answered matter-of-factly, “It was of interest to me.”

Before I had time to respond, Chevelle was beside us.

I was startled, and then I flushed… this was the closest he’d been since my last failed seduction attempt.

“That wasn’t in the documents you found at the library.” I tried to process the concern in his tone but as his words sunk in, I flushed anew. He had seen the documents I’d had at the library, researching him. He was waiting for my answer.

“Um, I found these before.”

“In the library?” Still serious.

“Yeah.” And then I remembered. “Actually, they fell, from a higher level.”

They were staring at me like I’d missed something obvious, something they didn’t like.

Ruby interjected, “Frey, are you sure you didn’t pull them to you with magic?”

“I don’t think so…” But how would I know.

They were quiet.

“What?”

Chevelle was close, intense in his “careful” mode, the one they used with me to protect my delicate brain. I nearly snickered but held it, this was the wrong conversation for that. “Were there any other documents, papers, anything, that you found?”

The way he said found had me confused. “Uh, I don’t know.”

He waited.

“There were those, and then the ones in the library… the day you helped me study…” I tried not to trail off as I realized he hadn’t been helping me study, he’d been watching me. I huffed out a breath and continued, “And then the ones in the council library.”

“Nothing else?”

“Only the scroll.” They both looked away for a second and then he turned back to me.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. But it didn’t matter, they were all messed up anyway.”

“What do you mean, messed up?”

“They were all out of order, just loose pages.” His eyes narrowed and I couldn’t stop myself from talking. “The stuff about the northern clans was mixed in with stuff about Fannie… and you…”

My voice cut off at his response. I thought he might have paled, but I couldn’t be sure because before I could get a good look, he was gone. I watched after him for a moment, and then turned to Ruby, who sat beside me, still. Expressionless.

“What is it, Ruby?” I whispered.

She composed a polite smile. “Nothing, dear. You should get some sleep.”

I tried not to glare at her. They weren’t going to tell me anything.

I flipped a blanket out a few feet from the fire and flopped down, pouting. I wondered for a moment if I could get someone else to tell me. Steed maybe. I could try. I didn’t know about the others, they were not as open. I liked Grey very much but I had my suspicions that he hung around more for Ruby than my company. And Rhys and Rider were practically never in conversation’s distance, always on the periphery, watching, guarding. That only left Anvil. There was something about him. I was drawn to him the first time I’d met him, wanted to be his friend. It didn’t seem right, though. He was massive and should have been frightening. Not to mention the fact that he could shoot lightning from his hands. The feelings I had toward him, that inexplicable pull, didn’t match my dreams. His tongue wagging, being burned, torn away. Ugh.

I tried to remove that picture again. Maybe there was another way. There could have been more in the diary. Maybe I should have kept reading it. I wondered who had it. Probably Ruby. I couldn’t remember seeing it after I woke. The last time had been the night Chevelle had tossed it aside, when he’d held me as I wept…

Uh, there were so many images I had to ban from my mind these days.

And then inspiration hit. Surely we were still close enough…

I closed my eyes and concentrated until I found what I needed. This new talent seemed better all the time. I was in the mind of one of the large mountain lions I’d left in the castle, seeing through its eyes. It wasn’t as easy as the others, harder to stay focused here than in the horses. He didn’t cooperate as well as I would have liked, but I was able to get him to move from his comfortable spot… where was he? I tried to look around but the cat became distracted by the sight of blood and I had to focus harder to keep him moving. Eee, hope that was whatever Dree was feeding them and not Dree… He’d been lounging high on a ledge, in the throne room I thought. I wasn’t sure how to get where I was going, still confused about the layout of the castle. But I thought I knew where to go – Ruby’s room.

As we wandered through the corridors my head began to ache slightly. The castle was pretty empty, but I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the presence of the cats. I tried several rooms, but most of the ones that were open held nothing of interest. I was wondering how I would ever find it when I came to a set of double doors that I’d never seen before. They looked more ornate than the others, which showed promise. With some effort, I reached a heavy paw up to pull down the lever that released the latch. The cat was bigger than I’d realized, its weighty body pushed the door right open.