Page 97 of The Black Table
Or half-sarcastically, anyway.
Because up close…
Strong jaw. Straight nose.Cheekbones.
…up close he’s not so bad.
All at once, Kingston moves, pulling out his chair with his left arm and settling in. I fold his coat and drape it over the back of another chair, almost reluctant to let it go, and take my seat. From his bag, he produces the folder of papers from Emrys.
My heart sinks.
It’s in terrible shape. Not physically—the facsimiles are good, well rendered and crisp—but the lettering is…well, it’s barely lettering. Serpentine, rippling, almost curlicues—there’s no sense of individual letters, let alone words.
Kingston must share my dismay, because his golden eyes go wide. “This is…”
“Awful,” I agree.
He presses his lips together. “I was going to saychallenging.”
I blow out a breath, not quite hard enough to be a snort. “All a matter of perspective, I guess,” I say, throwing my hair over my shoulder to lean closer. Then I frown. I grab the first sheet of the stack and pivot it around, so that it’s facing the opposite way.
“What are you doing?” Kingston says.
“I’m trying to read it,” I say. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“You’re reading it upside down now,” he says, and rotates it around with his left hand. “There.”
A small burst of indignation flares at the base of my neck. “No”—I turn it again—”thisis the right way.” I give it another turn. “Thisis upside down. For me,” I add. “For you, it’s right ways up.”
A frown, definitive and firm, draws across Kingston’s handsome face. “I don’t think that’s correct.”
I set my jaw. “Well, I do.”
He blinks at me. Then again, leaving his eyes shut a fraction of a second longer than necessary. Exhales hard—hard enough to be a snort, if you ask me.
And starts writing.
“Kingston!” I cry, almost forgetting we’re in a library—albeit an all-but-abandoned part of it. “What are you doing?”
He barely looks up. “I’m transliterating,Gwenna.”
I don’t care for the way he says my name. Certainly not for the way itfeelsto hear him say it.
Not one bit.
I clutch my pencil, throat suddenly dry.
“But…” I crane my neck at the paper. “But it’supside down. For you, I mean. It won’t make any sense.”
“Itwillmake sense, because this is the correct way to read it.” He all but slams his pencil down and looks me dead in the eyes. “Look. You can help, or you can leave, but I will not waste my time arguing with you. Do you understand?”
He’s so sharp, almost harsh, that I temporarily forget how to speak.
But when his eyes meet mine, they’re not hard with fury or even annoyed.
They look…desperate.
It’s too intense. I blink first. Look away. Heat crawls up myneck, and I take an inordinate amount of time tearing a sheet from my notebook, arranging it to write on.
