Page 63 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

“I mean, I knew you were a Devereux, but you never spoke about your family, and they never mentioned you.” She winced. “Everyone has always assumed you were a distant cousin or something, not that your father was the brother of the current ruler of House Devereux.”

“Like I said”—I shrugged nonchalantly—“they never really paid attention to me, so I’m not surprised I was never mentioned.”

“I’m sorry, Roth.” Her expression softened. “That couldn’t have been easy growing up.”

“It was lonely and frustrating,” I admitted. “But it could have been worse. They were never intentionally cruel, and no one has demanded that I return. Though if you’re hoping I can help improve relations between House Harker and House Devereux, I don’t think I’ll be of much help.”

“That’s fine,” Samara said. “I’m leaving House Devereux as a bit of a wild card in all this but leaning towards them not being allied with Velika. Though they likely won’t help us against her either.”

“I think that is a correct assessment to take for now. If . . .” I swallowed. “If you’d like me to reach out to my parents to arrange a meeting, I can do so.”

“Thank you.” Samara reached for one of my hands andpulled it away from her hair so she could kiss my palm. “I don’t think that’s necessary right now, but we’ll see what the future brings. But I will never ask you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

She released my hand and eyed the pen that was resting next to some notes I’d been taking. “Can you show me how you enchanted your pen? I’d like to do the same. It’ll help with translating the Harker journals.”

I leaned over her and picked up the pen, turning it so Samara could see the tiny glyph carved into the wood and the small sapphire gem embedded into the pen just above the glyph. “It’s a combination of ‘recite’ and ‘write.’ You can use this one. Just feed it some of your blood, and when you push your intention into it, keep in mind the language you’re dictating. The casting itself is simple—the harder part is keeping track of your thoughts and only pushing out the ones you want written down.”

“Got it.” She took the pen from me, lifting her head out of my lap, and sat on the edge of the settee as she reached into her bag and pulled out a journal. I closed my eyes as she snagged a book off the top of the leaning stack I’d been eying earlier, but when no crash sounded, I cracked one eye open to make sure it still stood.

Samara chuckled as she flipped open the book she had grabbed to reveal a blank page. “You know, Alaric has that same exact expression on his face more often than not when he’s in here.”

“I can only imagine,” I said dryly. Alaric loved order while Samara apparently loved chaos. Their relationship was going to be interesting, especially with Kieran involved, because he enjoyed causing trouble.

Where I fit in, I wasn’t exactly sure yet, but I was finding myself more and more curious to figure that out.

“Which journal are you starting with?” I asked, opening both eyes and squinting at the book.

“Rosalyn Harker’s,” Samara said. “I’ve already scanned through most of my mother’s journals.” Her voice tightened for a moment before she steadied herself. “Any important information we need to know, I’ve compiled into notes, but I’m not ready to dictate it word by word just yet. I need some . . . space. So I thought I would start at the beginning.”

I didn’t know how to comfort her. Samara had rarely spoken about her parents when we’d been at Drudonia. I didn’t talk about my parents because we weren’t close and our relationship was one of distance and frustration, but Samara didn’t speak of her parents even though she had loved them with her entire heart, and I had no doubt they had felt the same. I had no idea what that type of love was like.

Or how to comfort someone who had lost it.

What would Kieran do?

I raised my hand and patted her on the back. Awkwardly. How did he do this in a non-awkward manner? Was that even possible?

“What are you doing?” Samara looked over her shoulder at me, her fingers resting on the page she’d opened.

“You were sad,” I said helplessly. “I was making you feel better.”

I patted her on the back again.

She smiled, and I let out a breath.Look at me. I did it.

“Thank you.” Samara leaned back to kiss me on the cheek before returning to the journal.

“What does that say?” I peered over her shoulder. Not only was it written in a language I wasn’t familiar with, but the words were mangled, sometimes crushed together. Other times, they were spread far apart, but I was fairly certain it was the same two words written over and over again.

Samara raised a finger to her mouth and dragged it over afang, then let the drop of blood that welled fall onto the glyph etched into my pen. It immediately absorbed the blood, and she released the pen so it hovered over the blank page of the other book as she wrestled with her thoughts.

“This is the first page. There are no dates on any of the pages, so I have no idea how long Rosalyn was lost in her early days as a Moroi before she regained enough of her humanity to write, but the first half of this journal is just these two words written over and over again.”

After a few seconds, the pen slowly started to move, and two words in the common tongue appeared on the page.

I hunger.

Chapter Twenty

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