Page 50 of Unrivaled
“He’s right,” Luca told me, his hand flying over the paper.“It’s fine.I wish I could stay for longer, help you write them.I’ll just jot out a query message template for you to?—”
“This is good, Isolde,” Chay said, with a sigh.“What’s in it?”
“Water,” she said, without looking up.
“Good stuff.”
A smile tugged at Luca’s mouth.“I’m glad they’re looking after you,” he said, his eyes glued to the letters forming in front of him.Names, locations, places to begin.It was a fully-fledged plan that it would’ve taken me moons to put together myself.“I’ve missed you, Audrey,” he said, reaching for another piece of my scrap and flipping it.This one I’d used both sides of.He quickly got another.“I didn’t think I’d arrive to find you’d learned to fly in my absence.”
“You didn’t know I had wings,” I said, before I’d thought it through.
He paused for a moment to look up at me, his expression unreadable as he studied my face.I didn’t know what he’d see there.I didn’t know how I felt.Not surprised.Mayhap a little pleased, that for once I wasn’t being patronized.But how little, and how late?
“I don’t know what’s worse,” he said.“That you’re right, or that you knew how I felt all along.”
Would he rather I not know?
Swiftly, following that thought:I would’ve rather not know.The reality of that shamed me.
Chay stood and put down the empty cup noisily.My heart sat at the bottom of my hollowed-out ribcage.“Time’s up, old friend.Where are you staying?”
“I’m bunking with a few friends,” Luca said, quickly scratching out the template.“Third level, west wing.If you see me tomorrow, no you don’t.”
He put a quick line through a word and rephrased it to something similar, muttering something, still writing as he stood.“Use this as your basic letter to approach people.Modify tax rates and stall cost as you decide on them.Keep them low, you’ll get it back, but make sure it’s enough they take you seriously.You want to be clear, but not blunt.You don’t have time for multiple back-and-forths.People need to trust they can leave their location late summer with carts of goods and be looked after when they arrive.There isn’t time for negotiations.”
I nodded.He put the quill in the inkpot and I clasped his hand firmly.“Thanking you,” I said, my head full of buzzing bees and possibilities.
“My pleasure,” he said, and sounded a little surprised.“I’ll try to visit.Don’t mention my visit to anyone, including me, if you try to write me.”
He thought our letters were being intercepted.“Wait—the messenger birds.”
He shook his head.“I’ll look into it and get back to you,” he promised, heading out the door.“Thanking you both,” he said to Chay and the sharp-eyed Isolde.
Chay left with him.The room suddenly felt empty and peaceful, but my head kept on buzzing.
“A special market,” Isolde said bitingly.“As if the tourney isn’t bad enough.”
She was right.The idea of overseeing marketsandsocial eventsanda tourney almost gave me a nosebleed.“We aren’t going to rebuild this place just you and I,” I reminded her, hating the thought of it, but seeing the brilliance.“Mayhap I can get a clockwork replica of myself made to host some of the events.”
“It’ll have more soul than you by the end of those twelve days, knowing how much you love to socialize,” Isolde said, dryly.
I winced at the reality of her comments, blowing out the candles and heading toward my bed.
It wasn’t until I’d burrowed beneath the layers of blankets that I realized I hadn’t considered how my father would react to Luca’s grand scheme.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
CHAY
I have support from the King’s Advisor to leverage his resources to scour our own ranks.If there’s a traitor to the Academy, they must be stopped lest they reveal our secrets and undermine all we’ve worked for.—in a letter from High Magelord, Bearer of All, Gautier the First, to the First Guidelord, Luis
7thDay of Winter’s Son Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 271
La’Angi Keep
The gleam in my acquaintance’s eye haunted me when I tried to sleep.I’d dropped the bar over the door to Audrey’s tower to keep him out, then walked beside him to make sure he wouldn’t try to snake his way back in.And he’d said to me, “She’s running this whole city, Chay.”
