boy reached down, drawing the gravebone stiletto he kept at his belt. The crow on the hilt seemed to peer at Mercurio with its amber eyes as the boy raised the blade and pricked his fingertip.
Blood welled from the wound, a tiny bead of scarlet against the boy’s pale skin. Jonnen frowned, whispering beneath his breath. As Mercurio watched, the blood lifted off the boy’s fingertip, up into the air. It shaped itself into the likeness of a tiny crow, flapping little wings as it performed a slow circuit of the old man’s head.
“Impressive,” Mercurio said.
“Magik died when Anais did,” the boy said. “It was reborn with him, too.”
Jonnen shrugged his thin shoulders.
“And part of him is alive in me.”
If he squinted, Mercurio fancied he could see a moonlight radiance on the boy’s skin. A power, thrumming just beneath his surface. It had been strange enough raising a girl with the fragment of a dead god inside her. He had no idea how he’d manage someone with the shard of a living god inside him. But in truth, last darkin or no, he liked Jonnen. He could see the Corvere in him. The her in him. And Daughters knew there was no one else he’d trust to raise a demigod with as much lip as this one had …
“Here thou art,” came a voice behind them.
Jonnen started, and the droplet of blood fell, spattering upon the floor. Mercurio turned to the Athenaeum doors, saw a beautiful woman swathed in black. Her hair was bone blond, rolling in thick waves about her shoulders. Her skin was albino pale, perfect as the statues that had stood in Godsgrave’s forum. Pink irises and blood-red lips.
It made sense she’d use her magiks upon herself as soon as she realized how much they’d grown after the Moon’s rebirth. But still …
“The weaver knows her work,” he sighed.
“A pity, then,” Marielle replied with a beautiful scowl, “that the Lord of Blades doth not. The king of Vaan awaits reply to his missive. The four factions at war in Itreya’s ruins all seek suit from us. I have heard whisper that a new Magus King has arisen in Liis. All the lands are chaos. Dawn and dusk now stand but twelve hours apart, the Moon ascends his new throne every night, the Mother is freed from her prison. And we have not even decided what shape her new Church shall take.”
Mercurio dragged his hand back through his hair. Drawing deep on his cigarillo, he sighed a plume of gray. “I’m too old for this shite…”
“I concur,” Jonnen said.
“Well, the joke’s on you, you little bastard.” The Lord of Blades waggled his smoke, rubbed his aching arm. “Odds are good I’ll be dead soon.”
“I think you will be here for a while,” the boy replied, watching him with eyes deeper than his nine years should’ve rightly allowed. “You have much work to do.”
Mercurio glanced to the dark above. The library around them.
“You think she’d…”
Jonnen shrugged. “The Mother keeps only what she needs.”
The Lord of Blades looked to the weaver and sighed. “We’ll speak on it after evemeal. You have my word.”
Marielle pursed her lips and bowed. “As it please thee.”
She left with a silken swish of night-black robes.
Mercurio turned to the echoing dark, cigarillo hanging from his lips. Listening to the choir and breathing the gray and savoring the ache in his heart. Finally noticing the boy still looking at him from the corner of his eye.
Jonnen nodded to the empty shelves. “What will we fill them with?”
“Do you not have lessons to attend?” the old man asked.
“Do you not have a walking stick to find?”
“I mean it, you little bastard. Off with the fuck.”
“What have you been doing, spending all your time down here alone?”
Mercurio looked out to the empty shelves and dragged on his smoke.
“Keeping a promise,” he finally said.
The boy nodded, eyes downturned. Toes scuffing, he made his way over to the mighty double doors leading out to the Mountain proper.
“I miss her, too,” he said.
“Out,” Mercurio growled.
Jonnen faded into the shadows on soundless feet.
Mercurio turned to the chronicler’s old office, shuffled inside trailing a thin finger of smoke. He sat down at the mighty oaken desk, rubbed at his rheumy eyes. And taking one last drag, he crushed his smoke and tugged out a stack of white parchment from a thick leather folio. The topmost was marked with his bold, flowing hand.