Page 11 of Heir of Autumn
“That’s not it,” I said, taking a step forward. He predictably took a step back. “You’re getting something else out of this, aren’t you?”
Evander bared his teeth. “Fine,” he snapped. “I want to see that blasted unicorn that you’re looking for. I’ve never met one, and I would love to. Dearly.”
“What?” I asked, annoyed, angry. “Were you eavesdropping on my conversation with my friends? What the hell, man?”
“Your friends?” he asked mockingly. “Don’t be preposterous. I left one of my scrying butterflies in the library. Clever little girl. She must have followed you into the portal where you were having your conversation with the unicorns. Gods, Lochlann. Three of them! How fortunate you must be.”
I forgot my anger for a moment, placing my hands on my hips, puzzled by this sudden shift. Evander Skink, jealous of me, for once?
“Hold up. What’s this about you and unicorns, anyway?”
Evander held his fingers to his chest, flabbergasted by such a ridiculous question. “I am a creature of hedonism, extravagance, and excess, Lochlann Wilde. Look around you.”
I looked around at what seemed to me like very generic rich-people decor. Kind of tacky, too. I nodded politely. “It’s, um, very nice.”
“Yes. It is, indeed. It doesn’t matter if it’s where I live, the eidolons I summon, or my own face. Beauty at all times, and at all costs. And what in all the known cosmos can be more beautiful than the purity and radiance of a true unicorn?”
“Gods above and below,” I said, rubbing my face with both hands. “I always knew you were an asshole, but I never knew you were batshit as well.”
He wagged his finger. “Ah, ah. Batshit for beauty. Please,” he said, turning his lips up and sulking, hands clasped prayerfully. This must be how he looked sucking up to his own presumably wealthy parents. “Please, Lochlann. I would be such an asset on your journey. Take me to meet a unicorn. You met three of them, and I have nothing.” He looked down at the tome in his arms. “Nothing but a stupid book.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, disbelieving that I was going to allow this to happen. But Evander was right. Having him along meant doubling our firepower at the very least. We really would flatten all opposition. Plus we could get this Wispwell business out of the way faster. After that, there was still the Verdance to look forward to. I held out my hand.
“You do anything backhanded,” I said, “and I swear I’ll have Sylvain split you in half.”
He took my hand and shook it, grinning. “You won’t regret this. Oh, and I’d love for Sylvain to split me in half. But in all seriousness,” he said, handing me the blue book. “Thank you for taking me along with you on this most wondrous of adventures. I’m sure we’ll have the loveliest time. We might even become the best of friends.”
I nodded grimly, keeping my face straight, keeping my cool. If worse came to worst, I could always try and drown him. Right?
5
I saton the edge of my bed, thumbing through a book I’d laid open across my thighs, absently naming every illustrated creature as I turned the pages.
“Let’s see. Mandragora. Manticore. Has to be in here somewhere.”
The mattress dipped behind me as Sylvain pounced on it, my attention-seeking eidolon. He rubbed my shoulders, the side of his thigh brushing against my back. I could tell what he wanted, but I wasn’t about to give in that easily.
I cleared my throat and kept on turning pages. This was important research, after all. He snuck a peek at my book, his head so close I could hear him breathing, smell the scent of flowers and fresh grass that clung to his skin like cologne.
“A book? Pah. When will you ever accept, oh summoner, that not everything can be learned from a book? True knowledge and learning comes from experience out on the field. Even your Doctor Fang would say so.”
I quirked an eyebrow, turning my head far enough to show him how unimpressed I was. “And when are you going to stop pretending that you don’t like reading? You’re a bigger nerd than I am. Not that there’s any shame in that. Smart guys are sexy.”
And it was true, too. Sylvain had even read a book all about the Wispwood’s history, and even an extremely boring clunker that listed all its rules and regulations. I could honestly leave a hundred-page manual for a washing machine under the bed and he would sniff it out and inhale its contents within an hour.
He scoffed, lowering himself so that his chin rested on my shoulder. Yeah, I knew exactly what the man wanted.
“What is this exhausting tome about, anyway?” he murmured, every word he spoke digging his chin into my shoulder. Another small, insistent reminder that he very much wanted to bump body parts and was only pretending otherwise.
I slipped a finger between the pages to save my place and shut the book to show him the cover. “It’s Ermengarde Frost’sTreatise on Mythical Animals and Creatures,” I told him, not that he couldn’t read it on his own. “She’s the leading authority on mythozoology. She knows everything that needs to be known about creatures we might encounter in the arcane underground.”
Sylvain nodded, chin kneading my shoulder yet again. “I suppose I can see how that might be useful. And so you’re reading up on all the sorts of beasts we may find in the Oriel of Water, I presume?”
“That’s right,” I said, going back to page-turning. “And there it is, just what I was looking for. The entry on merfolk.”
My finger lingered on the first line of text, the letters all blurring together. I was much too distracted by the accompanying illustration, one of a leanly muscled man with the bottom half of a fish and the top half of what could very well have been a supermodel.
“Damn,” I breathed.
