Page 9 of Deven and the Dragon
“Not a problem. We’ll find you something to wear for supper if need be. Several of the maids are very skilled seamstresses.” Andrei added, “A supper at which you’ll be eating, not the other way around, I hope you understand.”
Deven had to laugh at that; apparently Andrei didn’t see the need to follow Deven’s rule. Andrei smiled, and the tension was broken.
At the top of the stairs, a corridor led off in two directions, going on for what seemed like forever to the right and turning sharply a few feet down on the left-hand side. Andrei led him to the left. Just around the bend, a young housemaid in a neat black dress was leaving one of the rooms, duster in hand. She curtseyed and shot Deven a saucy smile, her blue eyes gleaming.
Deven bowed and gave her one of his very best slow smiles in return, winning a coy glance from under her long dark eyelashes. Well. Fuck. If the council had hoped to remove him from temptation, they hadn’t really thought it through.
She rustled off in a flurry of petticoats, and Andrei led him into the room she’d left. “Your accommodations. I hope they’ll suit?”
Deven gaped at the nicest room he’d ever been in. A huge bed with fluffy pillows piled at the top, a wardrobe with an inset full-length mirror, a table and two armchairs before the tall fireplace, and best of all — two of those enormous windows Deven had seen from Ridley, catching glints of the sun and shining like fireflies. Andrei’s presence restrained him from dashing over and pressing his nose against one of them like a rube, but he promised himself that’d be his first move when he was alone.
“I’m grateful for your hospitality,” he managed. “It’ll suit extremely well.”
“Good. Then I’ll leave you to settle in. There’s paper in the desk there,” and he pointed at an elegant piece of furniture in the corner that Deven hadn’t even noticed amidst all the other splendor, “if you’d like to write that note to your aunt. I’ll have someone come to collect it and bring you downstairs in an hour.”
And with that, Andrei was gone, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
Deven waited until he could no longer hear Andrei’s retreating footsteps, and then ran to the nearer window. Below him the river wound through verdant hills like a silver snake sunning itself, and when he craned his neck to peer straight down, he caught a glimpse of flowerbeds in a riot of red and orange and pink.
There was no ale to pour, no floors to clean, and no stable tack to oil and organize. He whistled as he took advantage of the attached bath, turning the hot and cold taps on and off a dozen times simply because hecould. There were more towels than he’d ever seen in one place, and not a one of them had holes or stains. Deven was grinning irrepressibly as he wrote the note to Phina on paper finer than he’d ever touched.
The life of a sacrifice was nothing to complain about. If only he hadn’t been there on false pretenses, it would have been like a holiday.
When he followedthe footman who’d come for him through the hall and into the library, Deven went from impressed to dumbfounded. He nearly fell on his knees and thanked God then and there, except that he didn’t need a reputation as a madman quite this soon after his arrival at the castle.
The library was magnificent enough to drive all other thoughts straight out of his head. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, filling every wall except for the spaces occupied by tall, narrow stained-glass windows. The effect was rather like being in church, except that Deven had never particularly enjoyed church. There was only one book, and while the stories in it were entertaining enough, one wanted variety after a while.
Thiswas variety, in every way: in the books’ shapes and sizes and colors, and, as he saw on closer examination, topic and language too.
Some of the spines bore an entirely different alphabet, let alone language. He thought perhaps it was used in the east, somewhere, but couldn’t dredge any details out of his mind.
No doubt those details would be in one of these thousands of books, if he could find some he would be able to read. Bloody hell, what if the dragon didn’t let him read these books? His fingers itched with the desire to pull one, any one — that bright-blue volume with gold lettering would do, or the burgundy leather tome beside it — from its shelf, sink into one of the plush velvet armchairs scattered about the room, and stay there until old age claimed him.
“Sir?” Deven started and turned. He’d forgotten the footman was there. The man was gazing at him bemusedly, blond eyebrows raised.
Fred, that was his name. “Fred, I’m sorry,” Deven said. “I got distracted. You were showing me about? We can move on with the tour, if you like.”
It felt like those words were physically yanked out of his solar plexus with a pair of pliers, and apparently the effort showed. Fred smiled and shook his head. “Seems like you’d prefer to stay here, sir. The rest of the tour can wait. I can come back for you in a few minutes, once luncheon’s ready?”
Deven glanced back at the nearest shelf, terribly torn. “I don’t want, um, His Excellency to — d’you really think he wouldn’t mind if I looked at his books?” These kinds of books, in Deven’s experience, were jealously guarded by rich folks, and definitely not for the likes of him. He owned as many books as he’d been able to get his hands on, but they were old and tattered, and he was only able to buy more when he could find them all but being tossed in the trash.
“Not at all, sir,” Fred said easily. “You’re his guest. He’d be pleased you’ve found something to amuse yourself, I’m sure of it.”
Deven looked long and hard at Fred, seeking any sign he was being made a joke of, or set up to take the dragon’s wrath. But Fred seemed perfectly sincere. And so certain, too, that he knew just what the dragon would want Deven to do.
Fuck it. There were more books here than Deven had ever imagined in one place, and if he got thrown out on his ear before lunchtime, at least he’d get a few minutes to gawk. His mission — his heart sank down again. Fuck, he had a job to do. But that didn’t mean he could turn away fromthis.
“You’re really certain?” Fred nodded. Well, then. “Thank you, yes,” he said, already turning back to the shelf as if drawn by some kind of spell. For all he knew therewerebooks of magic on these shelves. A shiver of delight went down his spine. Why not, anyway? Dragons were made of magic, weren’t they? Why wouldn’t they have magic books?
He didn’t even hear Fred leave, he was so absorbed in the first book that caught his eye. It had a purple binding — purple, of all the extravagant things. The rich cream paper smelled of intrigue and secrets, and the text was in some utterly impenetrable language. Deven stroked it reverently and then slid it back onto the shelf, moving along until he found some titles that he could actually read.
A Chronicle of the Peloponnesian Warcaught his eye, and he pulled it down and flipped through it. Dozens of maps and woodblock-print drawings of statues and famous landmarks were interspersed throughout hundreds of pages of dense text.
Deven smiled, dropped into the nearest armchair, and lost track of the world around him.
Chapter Five
Half an hour. Half a bloody hour, and Deven hadn’t so much as shifted, except to turn the pages of his book.
