I touched just his hand with mine and squeezed it in hopes that it would be construed as a gesture of sympathy. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I thought of warm beaches and salty air. Those thoughts quickly changed to how I’d felt when Hawke had kissed me.

The taut lines of Hawke’s expression smoothed out as he stared out the window. He blinked, not once but twice.

Lifting my fingers from his, I clasped my hands together, hoping that he hadn’t realized that I’d done something. He stood there, though, as if he’d been struck immobile. I lifted my brows. “Are you okay?”

He blinked again. This time, he laughed softly. “Yes. It’s…I just had the strangest feeling.”

“Is that so?” I watched him closely.

Hawke nodded as he rubbed the palm of his hand over his chest. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”

Now I was starting to worry that I’d somehow done something other than relieve his pain. What, I wasn’t sure, but if my gifts were evolving, anything was possible. I reached out with my senses once more, and all I felt in return was warmth. “Is it a bad feeling? Should we find a Healer?”

“No. Not at all.” Hawke’s laugh was stronger then, less uncertain. His eyes, now a warm honey, met mine. “My brother is not dead, by the way. So, no need for sympathy.”

Now it was my turn to blink repeatedly. “Oh? I just thought…” I trailed off.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to visit the garden?”

Thinking it was far past time for me to lock myself away before I did yet another reckless thing, I shook my head. “I think I would like to go back to my room now.”

He hesitated for a moment but then nodded. Neither of us spoke as we made our way. Apparently, Hawke was trying to figure out why he felt…happier, lighter. And I was left wondering what exactly had happened to his brother to cause that kind of reaction, especially if his brother was still alive.

Chapter 21

It took less than twenty-four hours for me to, yet again, do something utterly reckless. This time, however, I may end up regretting it. Of all the ways I’d thought I might die, it had never occurred to me that it could happen while borrowing a book from the Atheneum.

There were far more dangerous things I’d done in my eighteen years of life, times where I would’ve been more likely to die in the process. Utter heaps of examples where even I had been a bit surprised that I’d walked away with my limbs and life intact. But here I was, one wrong step away from plummeting to my death, clutching the supposed diary of one Miss Willa Colyns, the book that Loren and Dafina had been talking about. Obviously, the book would most definitely be the type of reading material Priestess Analia would expressly forbid. And if I were caught with it in my possession, it would be yet another reason for her to believe that I wasn’t respectful of my duty as the Maiden.

So, of course, I had to read it. I’d been so very bored all day.

I’d already read every book Tawny had snuck me at least three times, and I couldn’t bring myself to read another too-familiar page even one more time. She had yet again been commandeered by the Duchess and the Mistresses, and I knew I might not even see her the following morning. So, I had another day of staring—uninterrupted except for my training with Vikter—at four stone walls. And the longer I stayed in my room with nothing to occupy my mind, the more I thought about what Hawke had said about all the rights that had been stripped away from me.

It wasn’t like I didn’t already know that, but it wasn’t something that others appeared to even acknowledge. Maybe it was because they were with me constantly, so everything had become the norm. But to Hawke, who was new, none of this was normal.

And that was what led me to travel unaccompanied through Wisher’s Grove to the Atheneum while Hawke stood outside my chamber door, thinking I was inside. Vikter was…well, I had no idea where he was. I had a feeling based on how tired and sad his eyes had looked this morning, that he’d been called upon the night before to take care of one of the cursed and hadn’t invited me.

I also had a feeling that he wasn’t going to involve me going forward, which irritated me. Of course, I planned to discuss that with him the first chance I got. I wouldn’t be cut out when I could help people. And he would just have to deal with it.

But right now, I needed to focus on not dying, or worse yet, getting caught.

Cold night air whipped around me as I stood plastered against the stone wall, praying to any god that the foot-wide ledge I stood on wouldn’t cave under my weight. I doubted when it was built that they had taken into consideration that, at some point, an entirely stupid Maiden would find herself standing on it.

How had this gone so terribly wrong?

Sneaking into the Atheneum hadn’t been hard. With my shapeless black cloak, my trusty mask in place, and my face hidden under the hood, I doubted anyone on the streets of Masadonia had been able to tell if I was male or female, let alone the Maiden as I hurried down the alley toward the back entrance of the library. Moving along the grid of narrow halls and staircases without being seen was easy, too.

I knew how to be like a ghost when needed, quiet and still.

The problem started when I found the leather-bound journal of Miss Colyns. Instead of leaving and going back to the castle like I knew I should, I’d ducked inside an empty room.

I just…I had been going stir-crazy in that room and had dreaded going back. And the thickly cushioned settees called to me. The stocked liquor cabinet, something I found odd to discover in a library, confused me, however. But I’d sat by the large windows overlooking the city below and cracked open the worn book. My cheeks had been scalded by the end of the first page, having discovered what occurs when someone kisses one not on the mouth or on the breast like…like Hawke had done before he knew who I was, but some place far more intimate.

I couldn’t stop reading, practically devouring the cream-hued pages.

Miss Willa Colyns lived a very…interesting life with many, many other…fascinating people. I had gotten to the part where she spoke of her brief fling with the King, which I could not even begin to picture, nor did I want to, when I heard voices outside the room—one in particular I’d never thought to hear in the Atheneum.

The Duke’s.

Hearing his voice meant that I’d been so caught up in the diary, I hadn’t even realized the sun had set.