Page 66 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
I duck in through the entrance, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting after standing in the bright morning sun outside. It is a tent that looks preciselyJulian, just as I would have imagined it, though it’s filled with so many things it seems he plans to be here for months, not weeks. There are two wooden bookshelves erected along one side of the tent, and along the opposite side a huge map is hung from the ceiling, a map of Aureon and the lands beyond. It’s covered in dozens of notations, scrawlings and scribblings in a delicate, spidery handwriting, and in places, lines of yarn connect differentlocations. There’s also a large dining table, which at the moment is covered with more books, along with crystals and herbs and vials of liquid in an array of colors. Some of the books open on the table are as large as a horse’s head, with worn golden pages and faded ink and cracked leather binding.
“How are you, my dear?” Julian asks. He pushes his glasses up on his nose, his hands shaking ever so slightly. He seems quite frazzled.
“Did I come at a bad time?”
“No, no, all is well. How about some tea?” His words attempt to assure me, but there’s a ring of falseness to them.
“Sure. Thank you.”
He gestures for me to take a seat in a leather-backed chair closer to the entrance, and he hurries off to the back of the tent to retrieve a tea kettle, herbs, and two mugs. I am wondering how he’s going to heat it up, and if perhaps he forgot about that important step, but then he sets the kettle down on the table in front of the chairs and points his finger at it, and a moment later steam begins to rise. I forget sometimes his mastery over magic of all kinds.
Julian hands me a steaming mug of tea, then sits down next to me in the second winged-back chair. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I would have assumed you’d be preparing for your challenge with Toryn tomorrow night.”
It seems everyone has heard the news by this point. No doubt Toryn himself had spread it widely. I blush. “Hiding, to be honest.”
Julian’s eyes widen.
“My grandparents apparently want to marry me off to barbarians from across the sea… as if I’m their property!” Even the thought of it makes that same blaze of heat run through me again.
“Barbarians? From where?” Julian asks. “Oh, and that’s dreadful, of course,” he stammers.
“They wouldn’t say. But they looked different from anyone I’ve ever met in my travels.” I keep hearing Kildari’s words, seeing the way his eyes moved over me like I was already his. A shiver runs over me.
“Different? How so?” Julian leans forward in his chair, eyes bright.
“Very tall. Runic tattoos. Black hair. Wearing all leather.”
Julian’s gaze goes distant a moment and then he turns and walks to the massive map a dozen feet away. “That sounds like the islanders of Vinorjia. It’s an island nation to the south, formed of hundreds of small islands.”
“That’s… interesting,” I say. “I have no idea how my grandparents got to know them, or why they invited them here.”
“Interesting indeed…they do not typically come to Aureon, claiming to mistrust all mainlanders. That’s likely why you’ve never noticed men like them before.” Julian frowns, his eyes moving back and forth over his map.
“I hate to impose, but can I stay here a while? I need to be getting ready for my challenge, and I can’t do that if my grandparents are trying to show me off like a prize pony to their guests.”
“Of course…” He says it absentmindedly though, his gaze now back on the table with all the books.
“Are you researching anything interesting?”
He pulls his gaze back to mine. “Just looking into some of the family trees of Aureon.” His tone is off again, as if he’s distracted. “I—I find it fascinating, all the different types of magic that tend to run within a lineage. Why it is that those within the same family often possess the same type of magic as their forebears… while others develop a completely different type of magic from the rest of their kin.”
“I have a feeling my magic isn’t anything like my parents’ magic,” I say, the thought coming out of my mouth as I’m thinking it, a forlorn feeling sweeping through me. “If they even had magic.”
Julian cocks his head to the side. “And what makes you think that?”
I take a sip of my tea, now that it’s finally cooled down. “I’m not sure… something in my gut. Surely there aren’t a bunch of humans running around who can wield fire.”
“There are plenty of human mages who wield fire,” Julian responds. “But I agree, there seems to be something different about your specific magic.” He looks at me in that way he’s prone to do, as if I am a fascinating puzzle box he’s dying to unlock.
“It would be nice if I could ask my family.” I chew on my lower lip for a moment. “But my grandparents seem to want nothing to do with me unless I’m a bargaining chip for whatever plans they have.”
There are footsteps right outside the tent, and my head whips around, worried they’d sent someone after me. But when a voice calls out, I let out a sigh of relief.
“Cillian, you scared me,” I say, opening the tent flap to let him inside.
“Greetings, Professor, pardon the intrusion,” my cousin says, bowing to Julian.
“No trouble at all,” Professor Julian says, only half his attention on the new guest, the other in the book he’s standing over, flipping pages.
