Page 134 of A Tribute of Fire

Who would leave a bird to protect an important resource? It made me question the intelligence of the people who ran security for the library. “I’ve been around birds before,” I said confidently.

“Not like this, you haven’t.”

I dismissed his claim. Kunguru was delightful. I still had some crumbs of the pasteli in the cloth Jason had given me. Surely the geese could be bribed. “I’m not worried.”

He grinned. “You’re going to regret saying that.”

There had been a lot of things I’d done tonight that I was regretting, but having confidence in myself and my abilities would not be one of them. “I’ll feed them. And if they’re unruly, I’ll just ... I don’t know, kick them.”

“Good luck with that.” He was treating this like he was sending me off to my doom.

Was he trying to intimidate me? Why? Was he afraid of what I might find in the library? That couldn’t be it. If his goal was to prevent me from finding information, he could have just refused to bring me here. Or he could have yelled for the patrol, alerted them to our location.

No, it was something else.

Maybe it really was just the geese.

His reaction still seemed silly to me, though. “I’ll be fine.”

Jason folded his arms against his chest and leaned against the column. “Do you want me to come with you?”

I didn’t want him to see what I would discover. The problem was that I didn’t know what I was looking for, and given the size of the library, I had no idea where to even start. Maybe he would, but I doubted it. He didn’t strike me as the reading sort. This was probably the first time he’d ever been near the library.

“No.”

“I’ll stay here and keep watch,” he offered. It was kind of him. He could have left me, and if a patrol had appeared, I would have been on my own. Stuck fighting my way through another group of angrymen. It would be better to avoid that sort of situation, and his acting as lookout would help.

I put my hand on the column, peering out into the darkness of the street, ready to dart out when his voice stopped me.

“If I were a gambling man, which I am, I would wager that you’re going to lose this fight.”

“With the goose?” I clarified, not knowing if he meant my internal struggle to stay away from him.

He nodded.

I made a scoffing sound. “You don’t know me at all.”

“Oh, I know how capable you are. How intelligent and clever. But you are severely underestimating your opponent.”

“Fine, gambling man, why don’t we make a bet?” I was seething that he thought me so inadequate a fighter that I would be taken down by a bird. Why was my pride so wounded? I suspected that it was because his opinion mattered to me.

It shouldn’t have, but it did.

“What do you want from me if you’re successful?” he asked, and my blood sang in response, telling me precisely what sort of boon I should require.

“If I defeat the geese, I get that dagger you carry in your belt.” It was a beautiful piece, well crafted. I assumed he’d won it in some gambling den from a nobleman.

“Done,” he said.

But he didn’t say what he wanted in return. “And if you win?”

A slow smile spread across his face. He moved closer to me, his face moving down to be a whisper away from mine. His lips were so close, but not quite touching. A feverish longing filled me.

“My terms have not changed. You know what I want.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I did know what Jason wanted. It was the same thing I wanted.

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