Quill of Thieves

Chapter 3

Three days had passed since Imogene had taken her last breath.

Three entire days of pouring over hoards of books, and, when that hadn't been enough, two days of hounding Eilibir's healing ward for any and all medical journals. Still, Sebastian had no answers to show for what had happened. There were written records of muscle rigidity, people going as stiff as a board, spasms that would cause a person's muscles to jerk unexpectedly. But to lift bodily off the ground?

Sebastian slammed his latest book shut.

Perhaps if his mother's muscles had locked tightly enough to generate just the right amount of friction...and the wind, his brain reminded him in a voice that sounded oddly like Abel's, how do you explain that wind?

The book flew across the small table and fell to the floor. It landed with a thump that sounded as hollow as his head felt.

This whole experience felt like an extended nightmare. Sometimes, he thought that maybe he really was trapped inside of one. It would explain what he had felt since the day before, at least: that with each shift of the leaves in the breeze, with each echoing cry of the wind whistling through the cracks in the house's floorboards, he was being called.

Called by the rumored singing Spirits of the Eyelesene Glaciers.

And it always shoved him westward. To Halorium. The capital city on Mount Halum.

Though he wasn't sure of much these days, he was confident in his knowledge of geography.

A soft breeze ruffled his unkempt, wild curls, and his body reacted so suddenly that he nearly toppled right out of his chair and onto the floor before he realized that someone had simply opened the front door.

"I finally caught some game," Abel announced, a small pot held in her arms. "It was a squirrel, but it made a surprisingly passable soup."

Sebastian rubbed at his eyes before turning to look at her. Her long, auburn hair was loose, her amber eyes narrowed as she glanced around his surroundings. He knew what she would see: shutters, usually opened to welcome the sunshine, were now closed and secured; Imogene's tidy bookcase thrown over the empty armchair, its books strewn around the floor; the stew Abel had brought him the day before still lay untouched by the sink.

His arms crossed under her scrutiny. "I'm perfectly fine."

She placed the pot directly beneath his nose. "No, you're not." She shoved the ladle into his numb fingers, moved a ragged book off the last remaining chair, and tossed it onto the floor in a motion of one who cared little for academia. Her eyes snagged on the other books already gathered there. "You scattered your books everywhere. On the floor even." She appraised him with a haughty expression. "You've lost your damned mind."

"So what if I have?" It snapped out of him in such an atypical tone that he was sure Abel flinched. He tried to lower his voice. "I've lost everything else. It only stands to reason I'd lose that as well."

Abel met his outburst evenly. She toed a rather useless book titled Elements of Fables and then knelt and began to pick up the discarded books. It was hard not to gape at her. Sebastian could count the number of times she'd even held a set of books on one hand.

"You can't study this away, Bash."

Sebastian watched as she stacked the books into neat piles and placed them back onto Imogene's shelves. "Thank you," he muttered, "for the soup."

She grinned at him over her shoulder. "I salvaged what I could from my brothers. Nearly got my wrist bitten cleanly through the bone for it."

"For a girl with such a pleasant face, you sure can be a gruesome foe."