perhaps one of their own. Someone who lost her mind. Your kind is … prone to madness. We were never able to find out exactly what happened, but it wasn’t our soldiers.”
I felt myself sinking. “Did any survive?”
“The bodies had been thrown into the river, so it’s hard to know. Perhaps.”
By now, Sourial seemed to have composed himself a little, his eyes faded to hazel. As he sipped from his flask, his rings sparkled in the candlelight.
But the sense of fear, of loss, was rising higher in me. Since Alice had gone missing, the logical part of my mind assumed she was dead. Otherwise, I would have heard from her at some point. A letter or a visit. Yet I just didn’t feel it. Easy to live in denial when you don’t have facts confronting you.
Breathing deeply, I reminded myself that I didn’t even know for certain that she’d been working here. She’d just disappeared, and all I had to go on was that Finn once saw her carrying cloth to the castle gates.
I crossed back to the table, pulled out a chair at a respectable distance from him, and poured myself a glass of wine. I wanted to get this all over with fast, so I could begin searching for clues. Tonight would be reserved for skulking in the shadows.
Sourial pulled a small book from the stack and opened it. Its yellowed pages gave it an ancient look, and each page had a single, hand-drawn letter on it. Clearly, the book had been made for children, but I supposed I had to walk before I could run.
I peered at the first page—a drawing of a faded red apple, the next a ball, then a cat.
“Do you know the alphabet?” He asked.
I cleared my throat. “Of course I know the alphabet.” Sort of.
“Can you name the letters?”
I wasn’t actually sure that I could, but I pulled the book into my lap, and started trying to name each one.
But half my mind was on the mystery of the murdered servants. As I tried to focus, I knew I was getting some of the letters wrong, and Sourial’s corrections only made me more flustered. We went through it again, and I tried to name the letters and sounds that went with them, but it wasn’t always intuitive.
Sourial had me go through it again, and again, until I started to memorize the letters and the sounds they made. Valuable as it would be to read, this wasn’t my priority right now.
I closed the book. “That’s it for tonight.” I rubbed my eyes. “It’s hard to imagine going from this to reading actual books with meaning.
He shrugged. “It’s not even ten yet.”
“Too late for me. And what is all this for?”
“For the job Count Saklas has in mind for you. You will need to seem closer to being his equal than you are now.”
“Hmmm. I don’t think there will ever be anything equal about us.” He was, after all, an evil being who belonged in Hell, and I preferred to think a bit more highly of myself.
My gaze flicked to the door. I wanted to ask where to find the Tower of Bones, but that would definitely arouse suspicion. So I stretched my arms above my head and pretended to yawn.
“Excuse me, Sourial. I’m falling asleep.”
He started to cross to the door. My blood was pounding as I thought of sneaking out.
But as he stood in the doorway, he turned to me. “Do take care not to let your curiosity get the better of you. You’re in a world you can hardly begin to understand. You are here because of the count’s dreams. You have some little role to play, to help him get what he wants. You will be playing a part; that’s all. But do not trespass on things you were never meant to see. You will only lose your mind.”
I wasn’t going to continue with the charade anymore. “I know what you are. Most people in Dovren know what you are. You’re a fallen angel. I can see that your eyes turn dark, and Samael’s turn to flames. Maybe you were never meant to mix with mortals.”
His gaze was piercing right through me, and he went inhumanly still. “Well, Zahra. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I heard that opinion.”
“Do you all live forever?”
“I don’t give away that sort of information without a price.”
“Fine, then.” I rose, my heart speeding up already. This was important information—did they have any weaknesses?