Pavel Kyiva.

The name clanged a forgotten bell in Astrid's memory. One meager thought that felt just frustratingly out of reach. On the tip of her thoughts. She stretched for it, but her gaze switched from the Monverta over to Sebastian, who watched her reaction.

"Abel told me something," he began, "about an Author's Monverta." His brows pinched as he stared at his bleeding hand. "Only someone of that Author's blood could use his or her book."

"But you used my mother's—" Your father's, whispered a voice. She forced it away. Like it truly mattered, anyways, in the grander scheme of things. "That night we blew it up and released the elements. You used it."

His voice came out choked. "I know."

Oh, gods. Astrid could do nothing but stare, the implications running wildly between them. "You are not my brother. We are not related. I have checked."

"And I think you're right about that, as well."

Gently, Sebastian reached out to take the book from her grasp.

It was only then she realized she had grabbed it at some point. She let it go without much of a struggle. After all, going to a book for answers was his forte. He laid it across his lap, eyes moving rapidly over the two words inked into it with his blood.

"I've been doing some research."

Astrid half-snorted in a crazed, untamed way. "That's hardly surprising."

Sebastian traced a finger over the letters. "Kyiva was a family name," he explained, "I found it in there." He inclined his mop of messy curls in the direction of the floor where those books and scrolls lay, scattered. "Pavel was an Author, the Kyiva line a direct offshoot from Guinivere Verilibros's genetic tree."

When Astrid looked, she saw the ruby leather-bound book with the familiar gold stitching: Royal Genealogies: the Power of Names.

That was when the name clicked. "The illicit love affair with a Soleitian priestess!"

Sebastian startled. "What?"

Astrid nodded. "Yes, don't you remember? Abel told us about it at the pub before she started hurling snowballs everywhere." She caught sight of Sebastian's complexion, certain the color of his skin was not a healthy one. "No need to fret, Bash. I'm sure the Author was noble enough for it to be all consensual—"

It looked like Sebastian choked on her words, pupils dark and wide. "The face of a priestess, he said."

"He?" Astrid asked, bewildered. "He who?"

"That Soleitian man." His wild gaze speared through hers. "The one in that portal."

Curse the Skies! Of course. How could she have forgotten? Not to mention he had just told her moments earlier that only someone of an Author's blood could use their Monverta. Gods, her softening heart must be absorbing her brain cells.

"This book—You think it's your father's, don't you?"

Sebastian's shoulders hunched into a pitiful shrug. "Maybe?" His exhale was heavy and slow. "What if this Pavel Kyiva is trapped in there?"

Her heart leapt. Not possible, her brain reminded her, but her adrenaline thrummed regardless. Impossible. "Pavel is dead, Sebastian. Not trapped inside his own Monverta."

His expression sharpened. "Dead? How do you know?"

It was her turn to flush. "I enjoy stories." She crossed her arms. "When Abel mentioned that watered-down snippet, it reminded me of one of my favorites: Faith of Desire."

When he gaped at her, she scowled. "It was actually a nonfiction novel, I'll have you know—"

"Historical fiction is not the same as nonfiction—"

She waved him off. "Regardless, it spoke the truth about the vows of priestesses and what the spirits did to those who broke them." She tried to soften her expression. "If this Pavel character truly did have an affair with a Soleitian priestess, the Spirits of the Eyelesene Glaciers would have forfeited both of their lives."

His face paled. "Meaning I wouldn't be here."

"I suppose, but you are here."

"Well, I must be related, at least." He placed his palm against the open Monverta. "Otherwise, my blood wouldn't have revealed anything."

"Perhaps Abel was wrong," Astrid pointed out. "You activated my mother's, let's not forget."

His nose wrinkled. "When you threw this book at me in the second task, it thrummed. Like it knew me. The other one was just empty. Nothing."

The thrum. She knew that thrum. Knew it intimately. But her mother couldn't have been that thoughtless, could she? Not when it mattered. Not like this. Using another, real Monverta and putting it right under the nose of Sebastian, the realm's most curious pain-in-her-arse. Davina would never. Unless—Unless it had not been approved by her mother. Both Master Lambert and Master Caius helped with the tasks' preparations.

Stay away from Lambert. It was his idea for that kill-switch.

"Tell me what you're thinking." Sebastian interrupted her rabid thoughts. "It couldn't sound any crazier than what's going through my own head."

Ribs clenching painfully, she knelt beside Sebastian, rocking back on her heels. "Well, there is one way to test this theory."

She had to know.

Without another word, Astrid pulled out a slim blade no longer than her pinky finger from the twists of her braids and slashed it across her fingertip.

Sebastian made a sound of protest as her blood welled to the surface. "Turn the page," she told him.

When he obliged, she stuck her bleeding finger into the new, blank parchment, smearing her own blood across it. She felt their breaths still between them, hovering over the book as they watched. And waited. Five seconds passed. Her bloody stain refused to move. To change. To do anything but be a splotch of failure that probably only spurred on Sebastian's ludicrous theories.

Dammit.

Sebastian lifted his head. "I knew it."

With a frustrated huff, she pushed her small blade into his hand. It just couldn't be possible. "Do it again," she demanded. "Ask it something this time. See if he answers."

The round, Adam's apple of his throat bobbed in uncertainty when he swallowed. But he held the blade in his grasp, released a shaky breath, and pricked the tip of his index finger.

Despite it all, Astrid couldn't contain her snort.

"You sliced a ragged river across your palm earlier, and now you go for a meager nick?"

"I could hardly write legibly with a gash."

"You won't be able to write anything without some blood."

Sebastian ignored her, his lower lip caught between his teeth in concentration. He knelt his neck over the book, brushing her bleeding finger out of the way. Beside her own stain, he squeezed his injured finger, calling forth the book's ink, and then scrawled two letters:

Hi.

Astrid felt like hitting him. "You can't be serious—!"

Her accusation ate itself because, as Sebastian's anti-climatic letters seeped through the parchment like a sponge, new words took their place.

Blood of thine blood.

The words shone scarlet, freshly wet, before disappearing once more.

The Quill is not here, son of Kyiva.

There was a jarring thump as the book fell from Sebastian's lap and onto the floor. Astrid stared at it, heart hitting her chest like a battering ram. The Black Quill? She jumped for the Monverta before it could shut, tearing the book's spine apart once more to stare at the fading words, willing them back into existence. Her pulse pounded in her throat. What had this dead Author known of the Black Quill's existence? The haunted voice of the mer-creature whispered to her now: only the quill will end this.

If only that pond demon had known just how true her words would soon become.

Astrid shot a look up at Sebastian. He was bent over in his chair, elbows on his trembling knees, head in his hands. She could hear his breaths from across the room. And she felt for him, she truly did, but underneath his shock, she knew he was as dedicated to gathering answers as she was. He was a scholar, after all. So, she didn't feel all too bad when she shoved the open book back onto his knees, jostling his elbows and forcing him back into position.

"Ask about the quill." She was careful to have it not sound like an order. "Ask it something more."

But she should have known Sebastian would be too intelligent for such ploys, even amidst his grief. "What do you know about the Black Quill?"

For a moment, she forgot to keep the suspicion from her expression. He is on your team! Her head quirked so sharply to the left that she swore she heard something crack. "What do you?" She narrowed her eyes. "It isn't a well-known bit of Authorship lore."

"I read about it."

Of course he had.

"In a book," he continued, "but..."

Astrid grabbed his sleeve. "But what?"

He looked away from her, down at Pavel Kyiva's book whose words had faded entirely. "The night I was led to your mother's Keep by that voice, the night we unlocked the elements trapped in the Monverta—"

It felt like an accusation straight from the Scribes' lips. "They were not trapped! They had been preserved—"

"Regardless," Sebastian continued, his fingers fidgeting with the edges of the book's pages. "My ma came to me in a dream. She handed me a quill." He hesitated, biting the inside of his cheek. It made Astrid's stomach swoop unpleasantly. "I recognized it because I had seen it before. All my life. Carved into my tutor's cottage in Eilibir. Even here, in Halorium, when I went to meet Master Lambert for the first time, the quill was etched into a wall."

Lambert.

Astrid growled, just low enough that she couldn't be sure if Sebastian had even heard her. She rearranged her emotions, fixed her facial features, and then leaned over Sebastian's knees to shut the Monverta with a determined snap. She placed it, instead, against Sebastian's chest, her hands holding it there as she blinked up at him.

"I think that musty librarian may have answers for us," she said. "Bring the book."

If going to books for answers was his forte, then demanding them was hers. Without giving him any further warning, because she wasn't quite sure what would come out of her mouth if she opened it, she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him from the chair.

Here we go, 'Thias, she thought. Time to call your bluff. 

- - -

Pretty sure there's a kiss in the next chapter, so y'all better prepare for it. Who will it be between? Leave your thoughts in the comments! :)