The Queen's Librarian (15 page)

Alex, still dripping but drying off so quickly steam was actually rising from his coat, cleared his throat and tried again. “
Well
, it… probably doesn’t mean anything?”

Lucas ignored Cráwa’s snort of smug disdain and stared at Alex. It was as though Lucas was standing on the other side of a clear pane of glass, peering in from a torrential downpour and into an idyllic scene of late-summer daydreams. The rain didn’t even taper to drizzles in between; it merely reached the boundary of Orchard Downs and… stopped. Lucas could actually see the delineation in the sky, where the thunderheads butted up against an invisible straight line and made way for downy white puffs over crystal-blue.

And no, Lucas most definitely
was not
remembering his offering last night right before all hell broke loose, and how he’d very carefully specified Orchard Downs when he’d asked for the blessing of the Green Warden. And he very deliberately was not noting the fact that the impossible rain-sunshine line sat directly on the boundary of Orchard Downs. Nor was he remembering how Mister-Scontun-who-probably-wasn’t-Mister-Scontun had promised no rain like it was some sort of token of trust for his intended upcoming trade.

Lucas chose instead to remember all of the filthy things Alex had done to him in the inn’s bed before all of that… stuff had happened. Because clearly he had a choice between “imbecilic nutter” and “imbecilic degenerate,” and he’d had much more experience with the latter. Which did not, unfortunately, alter the fact that the former was not going away.

Bramble was happily rolling in the grass—good God, the
dry
grass—and alternating between yipping excitedly at nothing and peering about with hopeful eyes as he exposed his belly.

Lucas wondered if perhaps Cráwa might happen to have a very strong tonic in one of his magical pockets. One for youngish estate masters who thought they saw weather behaving as though it belonged in a neat, linear box.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Lucas echoed Alex numbly then merely watched as Saffron apparently got tired of being wet and decided to stop waiting for Lucas to rectify the situation. She blew a misty spray from her nose and sauntered past him and over to the sunny side of the… line-that-couldn’t-be-there-but-was. Lucas would swear she rolled her eyes at him.

“Right,” Lucas said, then he couldn’t decide between a nod and a shake of his head, so he did both and made himself a little dizzy. He followed Saffron over the impossible line between storm and warm summer day then wiped at his glasses to clear the lenses of dripping water. “So,” he said to Cráwa with a shift of his shoulders that was trying for resolute but probably only managed
you win, I’m now as screwy as you: a Daimin hunt it is.
He cleared his throat and wrung out the left tail of his coat. “Where do we start looking for this book, then?”

Chapter 7

T
HEY
had just finished chatting with Mister Dodd on their way past his barley fields—a chat during which Lucas hummed vaguely at Mister Dodd’s enthusiasm about the weather and during which Mister Dodd asked concernedly after Lucas’s health when he noticed the apparent greenish tint to Lucas’s pallor—when Dorset broke off whatever argument he was having with Cráwa and reined his horse to a halt. Thin-lipped, he stared as Cráwa continued his straight-backed sedate pace, while Dorset vibrated in his saddle until Lucas and Alex caught up with him. They ambled along a little more leisurely, the silence somehow strained, but Dorset paused again when they reached the irrigation furrows that separated the Dodds’ fields from the Fenns’.

“He is off to the stables in Orchard Downs,” Dorset told Lucas.

Lucas’s eyebrows jumped up. “Parry?” He frowned. “Why would Cráwa be going to see Parry?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Dorset murmured slowly. “It would seem we do not share the same goals.” His gaze was narrowed at Cráwa’s back, before he turned his attention to the spread of the Fenns’ bean field and all of the Fenns and their laborers rising from their stooped positions to wave at Lucas.

Lucas waved back and shook his head as Bramble puffed a happy
woof!
and took off across the field. Mister Fenn always seemed to have something savory in his pockets when Bramble came to call. Which, of course, brought the guilt to the fore.

“Everyone’s probably wondering why I’m not helping,” Lucas said uncomfortably.

“No, they’re not,” Alex told him, a little sharp. “They wonder why you do in the first place. Most landlords—”

“Let them wonder,” Dorset cut in, gaze once again on Cráwa farther ahead, then he turned a pointed look on Lucas. “You are the youngest child of Addison Tripp, descended down the line from Booths Brinley. And you’ve honestly never heard of Booths Brinley.”

“No, I—” Lucas paused with a frown. “Wait, that’s what Cráwa always says—’the youngest child of Addison Tripp’. Is
that
why he always makes me present Laurie when it’s time to ask for an apprenticeship?”

Dorset didn’t answer the question; instead, he shook his head. “He said there would have been a history lesson of a sort when you received the book. Some sort of explanation and a caution to keep it safe.” He gave Lucas a probing look. “He didn’t seem surprised you didn’t have it, did he? And he keeps saying we’re wasting our time.”

Lucas could only give him a helpless stare. He wouldn’t know Cráwa’s surprised look from his die-useless-peon look—as far as Lucas knew, the only look Cráwa had was something that slid between disdainful and superior. Kind of like Cat. Frowning, Lucas turned to watch Bramble give Mister Fenn an enthusiastic greeting as he accepted his treat then rolled in the dirt and presented his belly for a rub.

“Lucas’s father died before he was born,” Alex put in with a shrug. “Perhaps the book was lost in the aftermath.”

“Not this,” Dorset said. He tilted his head at Lucas. “You’ve been through all of your father’s… things?”

“Very thoroughly,” Lucas told him. Because when one was watching all of one’s assets dwindle over the years, one took proper care to sift through every single slip of paper that might be a long-forgotten receipt of investment or previously unknown deed to, say, a convenient gold mine or a handy vault of jewels. Lucas had, sadly, never found anything like that. Unless one counted the ancient dish of peppermint sweets his father apparently used to keep in the back of his top desk drawer and which had disintegrated into vaguely mint-scented dust by the time Lucas had found them. But Lucas really didn’t.

“Hmm,” Dorset hummed then stared down at his hands for several moments. He nodded then turned back to Lucas. “And you don’t recall having traded a very old tome, or perhaps given one away to someone who claimed to be, oh, say, a unicorn trapped in the body of a—?”

“That was
one time
!” Lucas could already feel his cheeks heating with a furious blush. “And it wasn’t even a book, it was—God, Dorset, you know very well… and anyway,
Laurie
was the one who… it wasn’t… and I was twelve! What twelve-year-old
doesn’t
want a uni—you know what? No. And God, my
mother,
I thought she was going to
kill
me, and Laurie thought it was
funny,
and I swear I will never forget—” Lucas clamped his mouth shut and set his jaw. He cleared his throat and lifted his chin as he smoothed down his damp and rumpled lapel and looked down his nose at Dorset. Calmly, he mustered an arrogant tone to inform him, “No. We are not talking about that.”

Dorset was too obviously trying to thwart a grin, and Alex’s jaw was hanging.

Lucas set his teeth and gave Dorset a heated glare. “That was really low.”

“What did you trade?” Alex wanted to know. Lucas turned the glare on him, but it only served to make Alex redirect to Dorset. “What did he trade?”

It was a little too enthusiastic for Lucas’s comfort. “Aren’t we supposed to be trying to find
Prince Laurie
?” he snapped.

Dorset bowed his head in a conciliatory nod, though he was still very obviously trying not to smile, the massive… really-bad-but-still-respectful-swear-word Lucas couldn’t think of right now.

“I think, Lucas,” Dorset said with a fond smile, “that you are, perhaps, the best qualified to find your cousin.” He acknowledged Lucas’s startled twitch with another nod then jerked his chin at Cráwa up the lane, still plodding serenely ahead. “And I think you would likely make a better show of it, shall we say, out from beneath other watchful eyes.” He turned back to Lucas and Alex with a raised eyebrow. “Cráwa says he’ll be at Rolling Green before us, despite his stop at the stables. I have learned not to question such ridiculous-seeming statements. I suspect he did not question your Daimin’s method of travel because he is somewhat familiar with it himself.”

Lucas’s eyebrows shot up. “You think he uses portals?”

“Not as such.” Dorset shrugged. “I don’t know much about magic, except that those who have it keep its secrets to themselves. Which is why I see no reason why we can’t have our own.” He nodded sharply. “I think we should decide where the best place to look for this book will be, so that Cráwa and I can be looking elsewhere. I would very much appreciate it if, should you find anything promising, you would find a way to communicate that information to me,
also
out from beneath other watchful eyes.”

Well. That had kind of sucked all the optimism out of the situation.

“You honestly think Cráwa would put Laurie in danger to keep the book away from that man?” Alex asked.

Just hearing it voiced made Lucas’s stomach drop.

Dorset held out a hand, palm up. “I think that Cráwa and I are both entrusted with the safety of Her Majesty’s Realm. I also think, however, that our ideas of ‘safety’ do not always coincide.” He paused and set a hard look on Lucas. “I want Prince Laurie safely home. Very, very soon.”

Lucas gulped but nodded. Because he wanted Laurie safely home too. That way Lucas could kick his arse for scaring them all and for making Lucas acknowledge that Daimin truly did exist and one of them had apparently stolen his cousin—probably by luring Laurie and his fluffy head away by jangling a set of keys at him and saying, “Ooh, look, shiny!”

“To that end,” Dorset continued, “I think it might be best if you were to find this book, if there is a book to be found, away from watchful eyes, so that we might decide ourselves how best to keep the Realm safe.” He sighed. “And if there
is
a book to be found, where do you suppose it might be?”

Lucas frowned and thought about it before shaking his head with a shrug. “I took most of the valuable books with me to the carriage house. If this book exists and is somewhere at Rolling Green, it’ll likely be there. I’ve never sold any of the books my father left, and I especially wouldn’t sell one without knowing what it was, and I tell you, I have never seen a book like the one Cráwa describes.”

“If he had, he’d likely still be translating it,” Alex agreed.

“Right.” Dorset straightened in his saddle. “Then perhaps Cráwa and I will start at the main house, yes?” He twisted a sideways smile at them before giving his horse a little prod. “Come along, then.”

Lucas and Alex stared after him for a moment then turned to peer at each other with matching sighs. With a few clicks of his tongue, Alex got his horse walking again, and Saffron amiably followed along.

“So,” Alex said as he threw a dazzling smile at one of the Fenn daughters as they passed her in the field, “about this unicorn busin—”

“No,” Lucas cut him off. No way was Lucas about to recount how he’d fallen for that one. Or what he’d traded.

“Aw, c’mon, it can’t be—”

“
No
.” Lucas pointedly looked away from Alex and whistled for Bramble with a parting wave to all of the Fenns.

“
Luuuucaaaaas
.” All singsong and seductive. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Damn it,
how
did Alex
do
that? One second, Lucas’s libido was being its good little self, all quiet and minding its own business, and the next it was panting at the edges of his consciousness like an eager puppy. Didn’t it understand they didn’t have
time
for this? There were such things as priorities! Wandering off the road for a quick and dirty shag would be wrong. Fun, but wrong.

“It’ll be fun,” Alex murmured, all sex and seduction, like he’d been reading Lucas’s mind, which he probably could without much trouble, because Lucas wouldn’t be surprised if HORNY! was flaring across the abruptly warm skin of his forehead in big, obvious heat-flushed letters.

No, no, no, it would
not
be fun. Because there was a book to find and a cranky magician to avoid and a cousin to rescue and… well, Lucas was sure there was more, because there always was, but he couldn’t think of anything right now, because all the blood in his brain was mutinying in favor of more southern climes and it was getting harder to—

Heh. Harder.

“You could do with a distraction,” Alex asserted. “And Cráwa’s gone and Dorset’s already way up ahead. No one will suspect a thing.”