Quill of Thieves

Chapter 5

Abel hadn't woken in three days.

Looking back, Sebastian wasn't quite sure how he managed trekking up the remaining kilometers of the mountain while supporting Abel's deadweight. It wasn't that she weighed particularly much, but Sebastian knew he wasn't the strongest of men. Perhaps it had been mere adrenaline and determination that had finally gotten them both to Halorium.

Whatever it had been, he'd done it.

The first village on the outskirts of the capital sprawled before him, the thatched roofs covered in blindingly white snow. Not too far, he could spot the enormous fortress that jutted intimidatingly from Mount Halum. With Abel in his arms, he tried to take it all in, but it was difficult to muster a sense of accomplishment. Not with the way Abel's breaths rattled in her chest.

"We're here," he muttered to her. "I've got you."

Once he found relatively cheap lodging at some dodgy little place called Fleetfoot's Inn, he put Abel in the small bed in their even tinier room. He slumped on the ground next to her, counting out the remainder of the coins that he'd made from selling Imogene's possessions before he'd left Eilibir. There wasn't much. Especially not if Abel needed a healer.

What had he dragged Abel into?

It took an embarrassingly long time for Sebastian to light a meager fire in the ashy grate before he went off in search of the one person he had a chance of knowing in Halorium who could possibly help them. Hopefully without a payment requirement.

He fingered Norham's letter in the pouch strapped to his waist and walked down the claustrophobic staircase to the thick-waisted innkeeper who sat behind the bar.

Nerves settled in the pit of his stomach, and his elbow slipped in some amber residue atop the bar. Sebastian scowled at the wet mess on his sleeve. "Ugh!"

The innkeeper ignored him.

"Uh. Hello, sir? I was hoping you could direct me to the public vaults of the Halorian Library?"

The innkeeper sipped from a rather large tankard and peered over its rim at Sebastian like he was nothing more than a fool on a fool's errand. Which was ironic, considering he was the one who didn't seem able to keep his inn in sober-working order.

The older man huffed. "Yeh think a scruffy son like yehself can get into the Ice Fortress?"

Sebastian was certain the man guffawed into his drunken tankard as if to mock him. With a frown, he pulled out the letter Norham had written for him and held it out. "I'm meant to deliver this to Mister Lambert. He used to work at the library. He may still."

"Hollace Lambert, yeh say?" The man finally set down his tankard with an unnecessarily jarring bang. Some of its contents sloshed over the sides, and Sebastian deduced it had probably been the innkeep himself who had made the previous mess his clothing had sopped up.

The man's eyes narrowed, bleary gaze studying Sebastian from his tangled, windswept hair down to the muddied, sloshing boots that scuffed across the wooden planks of the inn's floors. "What's a boy like yeh wantin' with the Master Scholar of the library?"

Sebastian balked. "Master?" The innkeeper's accent was thick; perhaps he'd misunderstood. Then again, trust Norham to leave out the most important details of a journey. In fact, Norham was probably having a right laugh about it all. "You mean Mister Lambert is in charge of the entire library?"

The old man snorted. "Yeh ain't worth Lambert's time. Only the top o' top get in." He grabbed his tankard and turned his back on Sebastian. "Yeh won't even make it past the Iced Guards."