Page 57 of Heir to His Court

“I've grown,” was all I said.

“You're almost as tall as your mother. And as striking.”

“No one is as beautiful as Muriel.” Except Raniel.

Embry spread his hands, then shrugged. His smile faded. “You found the book. And passed its criteria.”

“That's what it was? A test?” I said the word like it was a curse.

He nodded. “Walk with me, little sister.”

I obeyed, because there was no point in refusing for the sake of stubbornness, and we joined the mill of people strolling across the plaza.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked.

“Ninephe.”

He smiled again as I glanced sideways at him, realizing he had dimples. He really was a beautiful male, but I'd always been so enamored of his father I hadn't noticed. Plus I’d been a. . .testy teenager.

“The book is a tool,” he said. “But it's also a weapon and cannot be given lightly. It cost me to make it.”

I almost stumbled. “You’re its maker?”

“Of course.”

“There's no of course about it.” Raniel's son had commandedthatkind of power? “How in all the hells did you fall tome?”

He glanced at me, then away again. “Did I?”

Taking a deep breath, I let it go. I knew that tone, the tone assuring me I'd get nowhere pursuing that line of questioning.

“What does the book do?” I asked.

“Alawarre didn't tell you?”

I hated the arrogance of Gautier males. “I want you to tell me.” We halted in front of a rectangular pool filled with lotus blossoms and gazed at the water.

“If you ask it a question, it will answer.”

I frowned. “Truthfully?”

“Of course.” He bit off the words like an academic who’d just had his research questioned.

“Right.”

“I find shortcuts distasteful. Students need to be made to earn knowledge or they don't value it, but there are acceptable—barely, in my opinion—mitigating circumstances in your case. So the book, if asked a question, will extract a different kind of price. Not effort, but blood—though that is also effort in its way.”

The professor’s affable smile was a mask, I was coming to understand. No one nice made a book that demanded blood to answer questions. But maybe I only thought that because I’d never gone to grad school.

I sighed. “You prove you are of Juhainah's bloodline. Why is it always blood with the Dark Fae?”

“You’re not notably lacking such traits.” He bumped his shoulder against mine, the gesture so companionable it took me aback. It was as if he was Numair or Juliette. . .even Danon when he'd been much younger. Before my older brother went grim. Before our mother died.

“I give the book my blood, ask it a question, and it responds. Who, or what, is issuing the response?”

“Can't you guess, little sister? It's me.”

“You're dead.” Maybe if I said it enough times. . .?

---