was out of sight from the servant’s keen eyes before she opened the letter.
The message was sparse:
Evadne—Meet me at the Gilded Owl this afternoon. Come whenever it is most convenient for you.
There was no signature. Only the stamp of a winding basilisk in the bottom right corner.
Evadne had seen this mark before. She remembered the strange message she had found in the commander’s satchel her first night as a servant.
Who was this person, and what did they want with her? How did they know her name? Why did they desire to meet with her?
A tremble went through her as she tucked the letter into her belt. She did not have time to dwell on it, to wonder if she should meet this enigma, and she found Damon sitting at the desk, writing painstakingly in a scroll with his right hand. He startled at the sight of her, as if she had caught him doing something criminal.
“Have I come too early?” she asked.
“No, no,” Damon said, but he sounded flustered. He uttered a charm to dry his ink, which sat crooked and miserable on the papyrus, hardly legible. And then he rolled the scroll up before Evadne could make out a single word he had scrawled. The scroll handles were gilded, and they caught the sunlight, as if they had just swallowed a secret.
“Here, sit, Evadne.” Damon rushed to stand. He smeared ink on his face as he gathered the gilded scroll in his arms, bearing it into his bedchamber.
Evadne tried to douse her curiosity as she sat, the chair still holding his warmth. It was apparent he had been working for a long while, she thought as she rearranged her desk the way she was coming to prefer it, opening the charena scroll.
Damon returned to her. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and he looked tired as he arrived to stand on the other side of the desk.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asked, concerned.
“Hmm? Yes. A few hours,” he said, preoccupied. He drew his hand through his hair and sighed. “Shall we begin?”
Evadne opened a pot of ink and prepared to write. Damon began to pace, seemingly aimless, but she knew he was sorting words and thoughts, preparing to speak his enchantment into existence.
He finally came to a stop before his window. She watched from beneath her lashes as he raised his hand to a ray of sun, as he studied the way the light illuminated his fingers.
“A Song of Firelight,” he said, and Evadne wrote everything that spilled from his mouth, capturing the random words and pressing them into the papyrus. He was trying to describe the essence of fire, as if he had never encountered it before.
He began to pace, still seeking the right words, the right bones to build his enchantment, and eventually he came to a stop before Evadne.
He ceased speaking; she looked up at him. Damon was watching the way the sunlight touched her hair, the golden pins at her shoulders. At last, his eyes dropped down to the parchment, where her handwriting was drying.
“Scratch all of that,” he said, with a growl of dissatisfaction, and he began to pace again.
Evadne wanted to argue, but she did as he wanted, drawing a line through them.
She soon realized that Damon was not easily satisfied. Word after word, phrase after phrase, he spoke and then told her to scratch, as if nothing was good enough, and she began to worry that they would not have the enchantment ready in two days, as he hoped.
By the time the light aged into afternoon, Damon had perfected the first half of the song, with three more stanzas remaining to create. Evadne’s last quill finally snapped, and she thought it must be providence, because she was hungry and weary.
“That was my last quill,” she announced, groaning as she stood. “I suppose I should go to the Gilded Owl to purchase another bundle? And we should probably eat something.”
Damon collapsed in his chair and leaned his head back. Arcalos was not in his room today; Evadne wondered where the dog was, shocked by how much she missed his sleeping presence.
“Yes,” Damon murmured, closing his eyes. “Let me accompany you, though. I do not want you to go alone.”
“No, you should stay here and rest,” she insisted, thinking of her mysterious appointment. “I remember where the Gilded Owl is. I will return soon.”
“You can put the quills on my tab,” Damon said, his words smudging together in exhaustion. “And go ahead and