so I could clear my head. Offhandedly, I wondered if he was using some form of low-frequency compulsion on me and that was the reason why I couldn’t seem to make my body not react to being in his presence.
“Just show me what you found,” I said, exasperated, handing him back the journal.
His smirk faded and he frowned instead, his eyes darkening. “It’s going to take a lot more time to make sense of what’s in here than I thought. At least, if you aren’t going to let me show it to someone who knows more about code and ancient languages than me,” he ended hopefully, one of his brows raised.
“I’m not.”
“That’s what I thought, so I’ll need more time, then.”
I knew he was all talk. “Did you manage to figure out what any of it meant?”
Draven’s sharp jaw twitched. “I did translate some of this entry,” he said, and flipped to a page written in the Melîn language he’d shown me before. “I dated a fae once. She taught me some of the language.”
He’d dated a fae? Even just seeing one in the mortal lands was pretty rare. They were nothing if not traditional and mostly kept to their immortal homeland of Meloran. How he’d managed to convince one to date him was beyond me.
“Okay?” I said, ignoring my impulse to ask him how he convinced a fae woman to bed him. “So, what does it say?”
Just then, I noticed the pen ink in the spaces between the lines of Melîn and in the margins. He’d written in the book! “You wrote in it?” I accused, my voice rising in pitch. “Why would you write in it?”
His gaze narrowed, taken off guard. “I’m sorry if I—”
“Don’t ever write in it again,” I snapped. “This is over 150 years old. It belonged to my father, and it’s all I have that he—”
I choked back the words. Realized I probably sounded ridiculous and was overreacting.
The breath tumbled out of my lips, and I bit the inside of my cheek. “Sorry.”
Draven moved to place a hand atop where mine were holding fistfuls of blanket, and my talon-like fingers relaxed at the touch. “I apologize,” he said. When I chanced a look at him, I found an earnestness in his stare I didn’t expect. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have written in it.” He removed his hand and I flinched. “It won’t happen again.”
“Okay,” I mumbled.
“Now,” he said, shuffling the journal and himself over so it was resting half on my lap and half on his. “Shall I show you what I found?”
I nodded solemnly.
“Here.” He pointed a long finger to where he’d written a translation under the original script. “This references the reversal spell you said he was trying to create for the original curses.”
“Alright,” I replied. It wasn’t anything we didn’t already know then.
Draven pointed out another section, and I could read the writing under it that he’d added. To get information. A group? Coven? He’d written. “This part talks about getting information from a group. The way it’s written implies the group is some sort of organization. A secret one.”
“Manifesto?” I thought aloud. The name popping into my head at the mention of a secret group. “I think my father was a member. Maybe even one of their leaders.” As far as I knew anyway. I only had what little documentation I’d found in Sterling’s office to go on.
Draven narrowed his eyes at the parchment, as though he could make the foreign language divulge all my father’s secrets. “Maybe.”
“Anything else?”
He pointed out one last section near the end. “Just this, but I’m not sure what it means, exactly.”
Under the original text was what he’d written in blue ink.
Don’t tell. Danger if he (maybe they?) learn. A leader in control? He will not allow… something. They will all die if… something… blood? Maybe history?
It made hardly any sense. “I know,” Draven said, picking up on my confusion. “I’m still working through that section.”
I had a feeling I may know who the elusive they were that my father was referencing, but I wouldn’t say it aloud until I had more proof. If I did and anyone found out, it would be my head on the chopping block. Because who would believe that it was our current leaders who were responsible for the deaths of so many?
Before I made any hasty accusations, I had to be sure. And I needed to know why.
“You’ll figure it out,” I told Draven, flashing him a smile I