The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,57

might your grandmother be?”

Agnes swallowed hard. “Ambrosine Byrne.”

The books fell to the floor with a thud. “You are Agnes,” he gasped.

Agnes blinked. “Um, yes.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t . . . you have the look of your father.”

“How do you know who I am? Do you know my grandmother?”

The man smiled like the question was amusing in some way. “Yes,” he said. “I know her.”

Relief stabbed through her chest. “Can you help me find her?”

“She has just left Ithilia,” he said. “Only hours ago.”

“Left?” Agnes said, her head spinning. “No. She can’t be gone. She said she would be here.”

“How are you knowing this?” Vada asked.

“Because she told me,” the man said. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am Matthias Byrne. Ambrosine is my mother.”

Agnes heard Vada mutter, “Holy shit,” but didn’t think herself capable of speech, though she agreed with the sentiment. She stared at the man who was her uncle and felt he was nothing like she’d been imagining the Byrnes. He seemed so mild mannered, so innocuous. Now that she knew, though, she could just make out Leo’s features in his long nose and the shape of his eyes. Their color, of course, was nowhere near as vibrant, and his chin was rounder, his lips thinner, his cheeks plumper.

He seemed to understand what she was doing. “Alethea got the looks in the family,” he said wryly. “Hektor too. I take after our father.”

This was her mother’s brother, Agnes realized with a start. She felt as if her brain should be keeping up better. Then she remembered Culinnon and took a step backward.

“I don’t want any trouble,” she said.

Matthias frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Vada stepped up. “We are hearing that you might not be so happy that Agnes has come to Pelago. Word is the Byrne brothers may not want Agnes inheriting Culinnon.”

Matthias’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. Then he began to laugh. “Oh, by the goddesses, did you find the right brother,” he said. “I haven’t been to Culinnon since Alethea died. If I never set foot on its shores again, it will be too soon. This is my home now.” He swept his hand out at the books around them. “And I would never judge someone based on their parentage. Believe me on that.” He turned his keen, clear gaze to Agnes. “Culinnon is all yours if you want it. Though I can’t say Hektor will be happy. But that isn’t for him to decide. He knows how things work.”

“I didn’t even know about Culinnon until I arrived in Arbaz a few days ago,” Agnes confessed. “I didn’t know I had uncles at all.”

Matthias’s kind face crumpled with sadness. “Xavier never told you,” he said, and Agnes shook her head.

“He never told me anything about my mother either,” she said. “I’ve only ever seen one picture of her. I don’t know anything about her family. I don’t . . .” Tears sprang to her eyes, surprising her. She felt helpless and stupid and lost.

“Come with me,” Matthias said, stooping to pick up the books he’d dropped, then leading Agnes and Vada through the maze of shelves until they reached a small office. A leather chair sat behind a desk covered in books and papers, a fountain pen tilted clumsily beneath a lamp with a green shade. There was a small sofa covered in papers against a wall filled with bookshelves and a hard-backed chair by a window with soft muslin curtains that looked out onto the university grounds.

“Please, sit,” Matthias said, gathering up an armful of clutter to make room on the sofa. Vada plopped herself down and Agnes perched on the edge of the chair. Matthias walked around behind his desk, moved a stack of books aside, and picked up a silver-framed photograph.

“This is your mother,” he said softly. “One year before she married your father.”

He held out the photograph and Agnes took it with trembling hands. Her mother was sitting at an outdoor table at a restaurant, a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She wore loose-fitting striped pants and a fur vest, her curls done up on one side and pinned with various seashells. She was laughing at something Agnes couldn’t see, as if someone just behind the camera had made a joke before taking the picture. A much younger Matthias with significantly more hair sat beside her, a shy smile on his face as he watched his sister. Beside him