had done, but Veronyka didn’t mind. Maybe it was because she associated Ana with her grandmother, or maybe it was because some part of her missed the familiarity of it.
“What’s that you’ve got there? A Pyraean puzzle box?”
Veronyka looked down at the lockbox in her hand. “Puzzle box?” she asked, having never heard the term before.
Ana reached for it, and Veronyka reluctantly handed it over. With surprising deftness, Ana squinted and prodded, her hands—stained with decades of dirt across knuckles and under fingernails—sliding expertly over its dark, shiny surface.
“Aha,” she said, turning it so the front faced Veronyka, with the hinge on the other side. Rather than pulling up at the seam, Ana slid the front panel sideways, and something clicked. Then she opened the lid as easily as one would open a chest.
Veronyka’s eyes bulged, landing on the piles of papers inside. She reached for it, but Ana was already closing and relocking it. She guided Veronyka’s hand along the panel, showing her how she’d done it, and Veronyka nodded her thanks, her heart racing.
“Something valuable in there, I take it?” Ana said, noting Veronyka’s breathless excitement.
“I hope so,” Veronyka answered, clutching the box to her chest before hurrying away.
* * *
With the other apprentices already inside the barracks, Veronyka wandered the stronghold, uncertain, before deciding on the stables as the best place to be alone. Well, to be away from people, at any rate.
Xephyra nudged at her mind, telling her to come to the Eyrie, but even at night there were too many people about. That was where the Master Riders slept, after all, and she didn’t want to chance a run-in with Tristan.
Veronyka’s second favorite animal at the Eyrie, Tristan’s horse, Wind, welcomed her warmly—eventually. At first he was his usual prickly self, having taken her almost three-day absence rather personally. He kept turning away from her, bending his long neck so far he was practically looking behind himself—until she promised him apples for the next three days to make up for it. With a huff and a snort, he suffered her pats and affection, before slipping back into a doze.
Veronyka sank down onto the straw-strewn ground, placing a freshly lit lantern next to her.
This was the very stall Veronyka had hidden in weeks before, only to be found by Tristan—and soon after, the commander. She hoped neither would disturb her now.
With a shaky breath, she slid back the panel the way Ana had shown her and lifted the lid.
The golden light revealed a stack of papers—some thick and professionally inscribed, others covered in smudged charcoal or bleeding ink. While most were written in the Trader’s Tongue, some were in ancient Pyraean.
Veronyka frowned, lifting the papers to find some heavy with wax seals or tied together with string, while smaller scraps slipped out from between the pages. Surely some had been torn from books or collections, while others looked like personal letters or notes. Her mind spun as she took it all in, unsure where to begin or what to make of it. She glanced at the topmost page, which was an excerpt from The Pyraean Epics documenting the history of Nefyra and the First Riders. Underneath that was a square of paper so thin it was translucent, its messily scrawled words—part of a song or poem?—faded and difficult to decipher.
It seemed a strange assortment of papers, and Veronyka wondered what Val could want with them, especially when, upon further inspection, it was clear that her maiora had gathered them. Her grandmother had some training as a healer, so people were often coming and going from the back door of their Narrows apartment. That wasn’t the only reason people came to see her, though. She was a collector—a spy, Veronyka now knew—asking after people and places, hoarding bits of news and snippets of gossip. It had always seemed so arbitrary to Veronyka, because she couldn’t see past the surface details. Why should they care if the butcher’s son had gambling debts? But her maiora saw more, and like a seamstress with scraps of fabric, she would line up the edges and sew together their tangled threads into something new and whole.
The butcher’s son was eventually charged with murder, but most people—her grandmother among them—knew he’d been so desperate for money he’d agreed to dispose of a body for one of the most powerful gang leaders in the Narrows, then been caught and blamed for the crime.
“Guard your secrets like you guard your flesh and blood, Veronyka,” her