A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(15)

“And you confessed,” I add, just now remembering that part. “You confessed so St. Sebastian wouldn’t get into trouble.”

“Well, it’s not like Delphine’s father was going to yell at me,” Auden replies with a charming dimple.

I don’t think he knows that I also remember the bruise he had on his cheek after his own father got done with him. I move away to another case, pretending to be absorbed in the shallow dishes and bone knives inside. Auden follows me.

“Proserpina,” he says quietly, and the sound of my full name is so lovely in his voice, I have to look up. “Why did you come here? Why did you come to Thornchapel?”

Is he joking?

“This is every librarian’s dream,” I answer quickly. This is the line I’ve been feeding everyone—my startled roommate, my former boss at the University of Kansas, my ex-girlfriend/Domme. It’s true, even if it’s not the entire truth about why I agreed to take the job. “You have an untouched library, and I could be the first person to learn its secrets. It’s like an untouched canvas to an artist, or a new dig for an archeologist. How could I resist?”

He studies me, hazel eyes kaleidoscopic under those long, dark lashes. “But there must be something else,” he murmurs. “Something else to make you want to uproot your life and come all the way out here.”

The trouble with being hopeful, with feeling like everything is possible, is that it can sometimes come at the cost of dignity, which is a trait I’m reluctant to sign away, even when I’m being forced to kneel with a gag in my mouth. The need for dignity is partly why I’m trying to resist the pull of Auden, not to mention the lure of the glossy group outside.

If I tell him about the convivificat and all my secret hopes about my mother, does that make me less? Will Auden think I’m foolish or deluded? Will he look at me with pity?

And does it even matter?

He might know something about my mother or the note that can help. I’m here for her, or at least, I’m here about her, and even if I’d planned on waiting until longer than my first afternoon here to ask, there’s no point in being coy about it.

I relent, and surrender my dignity, as hope so often demands.

“Actually,” I say, reaching into my skirt pocket. “There was one other thing.”





Chapter 4





Auden takes the piece of paper from me and steps a little closer to the wall of windows, which sends light glowing over his hair and face, catching on his long lashes and along the sculpted cut of his jaw.

“It . . . revives?” he asks, peering down at the paper. His brows pull together. “No, it wakes.”

I don’t bother asking how he can just whip out a random Latin translation, because everything about Auden screams boy who learned Latin in school. But I do register a tiny tick of disappointment at his genuine confusion; he’s never seen this before, which means he doesn’t have the answers I need.

“It quickens,” I say, trying to sound like that’s a totally normal thing to be written on a piece of paper and mailed to me. “Or that’s what my friend in the Classics department told me at least.”

Auden glances up at me, head tilted. “And you got this in the mail?”

“Yes. It was mailed on my birthday.”

“Happy belated birthday.”

“Thank you. It was mailed from here.”

His brows pull together even more, making a little crease between them that I’d like to lick. And then be punished for licking. “Mailed from Thornchapel? You’re not saying that one of us could have written this . . . ? I mean, I suppose we could have, in a technical sense, but why?”

I’m already shaking my head. “It wasn’t one of you. At least, not one of you who wrote it. That’s my mother’s handwriting.”

Auden’s lips come together and then part. “Poe.”

“I know. I know.”

He angles the paper in the weak sunlight, bending over it. “I can’t tell how old this paper is.”

“It’s got a high cotton content. It wouldn’t show its age for at least another few decades.”

He nods to himself, eyes still scanning the paper. “Meaning it could have been written the day it was sent or twenty years before.”

“Exactly.”

“You can tell it was underneath another paper she’d written on—there are indentations of other letters on here. S-e-c-r-a-t-i-o-n . . . ?”

I’ve already been down this river of thought. “Either obsecration or desecration is my best guess.”

“And then here’s an L and a C. Capitalized, it looks like. Underlined too.”

“Short for limited liability company? Library of Congress? Lacuna Coil?”

Auden’s lips twitch. “Lacuna Coil? Really?”

“My point is that those letters could be anything. An abbreviation. A call number. A test to make sure her pen works.”

Auden makes an mmm noise.

“I have to ask, Auden. Does any of this seem familiar to you? Have you heard or seen anything about my mother recently?” I rush through it, hearing how desperate I sound. How naive.

But when Auden looks up at me, there’s no pity in his eyes. If there were pity, I might have left. I might have cried.