The basement was divided into the narrow front reception area and the actual stacks. The stairs in the front of the library led down to a small waiting room lined with a pair of oversized benches. Two book return slots were built into the wood-paneled wall on one side. The locked door that opened to a small office had a window in it where Malou had picked up books before for some personal research.

From what she remembered of the office, there was a large marble reception desk for two with easy access to two book lifts that were part of the automated circulation system that pulled, held, and returned books from the closed stacks. At the back of the office, there was an open doorway to the large back room where they were now.

Rather than having many bookcases along the width of the back section, long bookcases spanned nearly the entire length of the section from wall to wall, except for a narrow walkway along the width of the front room that allowed access down each aisle. Aaro and Senna would have to travel almost all the way to the office to get to the opposite corner where the entrance to the secret passageways was hidden in the floor.

This was a race between Malou and the Legionnaires. If she could keep the Legionnaires in the office for even a moment, then that increased the chance that Aaro and Senna would make it without being noticed.

Gavriel’s hand found her back and pushed her forward before she could hesitate anymore. He whispered, “If you announce your presence and go out with your hands raised, they might let their guard down. If they don’t, I’m right behind you. I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”

She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Are you planning to kill them?”

“Will it bother you if I am?”

“Malou,” Laure said before she could answer him, “the Legionnaires have entered.”

Her heart jumped to her throat, and she raced to the front. She had seconds to think of what she should say, what expression she should have, what emotion she should feign. What was her story? Why was she down here? How long had she been down here?

When she reached the entrance to the office, there was no door. It’d be so easy for the Legionnaires to pass by her and catch Gavriel, Aaro, and Senna. How close behind her were they? Would she be able to prevent the Legionnaires from seeing them?

“Hello?” Malou called out. Her voice sounded weak and unsure, but it served her well here. She swallowed hard, peered inside, and recognized the two Legionnaires. Everything in her body tensed. She said louder, “I’m just a student. Please don’t hurt me.”

As if that’d really stop them.

“Come out with your hands up,” one of them said as both Legionnaires rounded the reception desk. This had been the one who’d shot Brosch. Her codename was Adeyemi, her skin tone was a similar warm brown to Dorian’s, and she had dark curly hair with a temple fade. What stood out the most about her was a scar that ran from her nose to the top of her lips. She kept a hand on the handle of the rapier on her belt. “Tell us your name and where you’re from.”

Gavriel pressed into her back as if to remind her that he was there. That likely meant Senna and Aaro had made it past without being seen. Now to keep these two distracted.

“My name is Malou Valois,” she said. The name on her birth certificate sounded strange on her tongue, but she raised her hands as Adeyemi asked and stepped into the office just enough to encourage them not to pass her. “Our Head of Family is my grandmother High Court Justice Laïla Shenna following my grandfather’s recent death, and she will claim me if you need proof. I was just down here grabbing some books for Premier Casals. I’m her work-study.”

While they didn’t seem convinced, they didn’t seem skeptical either. They exchanged a short look, and the Legionnaire with the codename Zhou lowered his crossbow but kept his distance. He was shorter than Adeyemi by a hand, fair-skinned, and had black hair in a shaggy, grown-out crew cut. He hadn’t seemed to be a big fan of Juhnke, but he’d looked at Brosch’s dead body as if he was some broken plaything. The naturally upturned corners of his mouth had deepened into a sinister grin she’d never forget.

“You’ll have to come with us.” Adeyemi approached without unclipping the cuffs from her belt. She also didn’t let go of her rapier although she had to know the consequences for hurting a member of a patrician family was considered treason, which meant she was just trying to intimidate Malou. “It might not be safe down here.”

“Why?” Malou asked, tipping her chin up in degrees of condescension and taking on the inquisitive tone she’d heard her mother use when she used their family’s patrician standing to make others feel lesser. She stepped just enough to the side so that Gavriel would have a clean shot of Zhou once he realized what she was going to do the moment Adeyemi was close enough. She wouldn’t be going anywhere with them. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

Adeyemi’s face hardened, her eyes narrowing and her jaw clenching. She hadn’t liked Malou talking down to her, had she? Just as Malou had hoped. “We aren’t at liberty to tell you that,” she said. “You’ll be coming with me anyway.”

“I’m not at liberty to go with you,” Malou said. She lowered her hands and offered a too-pretty smile that her mother would’ve loved. Dearest Mother had taught her to act this way, but that didn’t make it feel natural. In any other circumstance, she probably would’ve just gone with the Legionnaire. “Unless you’re arresting me?”

Zhou snorted. “Just grab the girl. I’ll take a look around.”

Finally, Adeyemi removed her hand from the hilt of her rapier to grab Malou’s elbow. Malou had practiced this move thousands of times. A swift lunge forward as if going for a low inside, magic twitching in her thighs and her hand darting for the hilt of Adeyemi’s rapier. When she found her grip and pulled back, she angled the rapier out of its scabbard and tipped it up to Adeyemi’s chin as she released the magic from her muscles. Magic can’t be used to harm.

At the same time, she heard Gavriel’s crossbow fire from behind her and Zhou’s body drop. He’d been shot in the throat, and he choked on his blood as he groped at the bolt uselessly. It’d be so easy to thrust the rapier clear through Adeyemi’s throat, too, or even up through the bottom of her mouth. Malou had already killed Juhnke. What did it matter if she killed again? Especially someone who’d killed someone dear to her in cold blood?

Gavriel put a quiver through Adeyemi’s chest before Malou could make a decision. She dropped just like Juhnke, the look of confusion brief before the vacant look of death relaxed her features. Had he done that because she couldn’t? Had she just made Gavriel a killer as well?

He took the rapier from her, cleaned it off with his own gloved hands, and dropped it and his crossbow beside the Legionnaire’s body. Grabbing her arm, Gavriel pulled her into the back room again, all the way to the elevator. The door was still open.

“Laure, take us to the fifth floor,” he said, and Laure listened. He held Malou’s head in his hands. “Look at me. It’s okay that you hesitated. This wasn’t my first or even second time killing someone. And it’s okay if that makes you hate me or never want to speak to me again.”

“Never.” She shook her head. She wasn't being clear-minded. Of course, she hadn't made Gavriel a killer, and in fact, she was glad they were dead. She had stopped caring what Gavriel did to them as soon as she recognized them. There was just no going back from watching Brosch die.

His dark eyes seemed more reflective than normal. A brown dark that sometimes looked like the undisturbed surface of the ocean at night. Especially right now. “So you’re okay with your best friend being a murderer.”

“As long as you are.” After all, she was as much of a murderer as he was. The heaviness of this truth put a rock in her stomach. What does anyone do after they’ve killed someone? Where do they go from there? What about when they realized they’d kill again?

Gavriel chuckled and wrapped his arms loosely around her shoulders. She was just the right height to put her chin on his shoulder in return. “I’ll make an exception this time.”

“Then I will, too.”

He sighed, taking a moment to relax as the elevator reached the second floor and continued upward. When Malou closed her eyes, her mind went back to the letter Zeynel wanted to be delivered to Gavriel—the letter from her father. The one that told him to tell her everything. She remembered meeting with Haddou in the Room of Antiquities barely twenty minutes ago. Learning more about magic then having to use it to steal the Teir.

Giving her a squeeze, Gavriel said, “You almost gave me a heart attack out there.”

She almost apologized because she knew the feeling. She also remembered seeing him in that fox mask, one of the Legionnaires who’d killed Brosch aiming a crossbow at him. Quietly, she said, “That’s bold of you to say to me right now.”

What would’ve happened if she hadn’t decided to find him before hiding with the Teir? What if she hadn’t gotten there in time? Even thinking about it tightened her chest painfully.

He had nothing to say in response, just gave her another squeeze, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable between them. When the elevator arrived on the fifth floor where there were two large auditorium lecture halls, Laure told her the coast was clear. Malou went to check anyway and realized the fire alarm and sprinkler system had been shut off.

Laure said, “All of the Legionnaires are on the first or second floors. I believe it will take them around half an hour to find you up here based on how they’ve been moving through the other libraries.”

Malou relayed the information to Gavriel, grabbing her wet greatcoat and bloodied waistcoat from the corner of the elevator. “Laure says we probably have a half hour. I have a letter for you. We need to talk.”

He grimaced as he followed her into the corridor. “Yes, we do. Let’s find a spot to hide first. Or pretend to hide.”

In the middle of a corridor, a large double door opened into a short hallway with an identical intricately carved wood door on either side. This floor hosted two smaller lecture halls, the largest one on the floor above. Gavriel and she used to sneak into the one on the right every so often to watch her father’s stored holographic lectures. One, in particular, that was about the Teir and the future of the world.

As the door closed quietly behind them, the central bronze chandelier awoke gradually with soft light against the painted ceiling—a well-preserved fresco from the Erudite Era depicting what was believed to be the Muse bestowing crowns to the nine great rulers of the world. With an elaborately wood-paneled interior with bronze detailing, the two-story lecture hall had tiered seating, and at the lowest level, the stage was set with just a lectern.

Malou’s fingers slid over the smooth finish of the long tables as she took her time heading down the middle row, remembering the hologram of her father on that stage. Pacing back and forth with that big, bright smile of his that poked a shallow dimple into his right cheek, he’d often lecture about a prolonged period of never-ending war and devastation that predated the Erudite Era that he called the Era of Darkness that happened some 7,500 years before the current Tranquil Era.

Professor Lavrras Lamaire rambled with flair—laughter, dirty jokes, and a lot of wild, sweeping gestures. He glided around the stage with digressions and tangents, which always circled back into his main argument, always in black. A black shirt with a standing collar more common in Svara paired with a waistcoat embroidered with gold thread. He’d start his lectures with his sleek greatcoat still on and drew out the silence as he took it off button by button starting from the top. His presence required that kind of attention.

She’d seen his lectures so many times now that she had them all memorized.

“Malou,” Laure said in her ear. “My synchronization with the Teir is complete. However, I need to restart to finish the process. I’m not sure how long that’ll take.”

With the way Laure was programmed, Malou would still have access to the base personal assistant application that everyone else used, but since her father’s death, Laure was always in her ear. Malou had no idea what it’d be like not to have her, and she didn’t like the idea of being without her, especially right now. Checking the time with Zeynel’s pocket watch, Malou asked, “Did it complete just now?”

“I promise to be back as soon as I can,” Laure said, and Malou hoped she kept the promise. Why wasn’t Laure answering her question though? “Goodbye, Malou.”

The silence in the auditorium seemed to grow louder for a moment as if to emphasize that another person was leaving her, but Laure hadn’t gone anywhere. She’d be back soon—maybe in thirty minutes, at most a few hours. But why didn’t Laure know how long it’d take her to restart? Why had her father programmed Laure to synchronize with the Teir in the first place, and what exactly did the process entail that Laure would need to restart?

When Gavriel passed her, gesturing to the stage, she realized she’d stopped partway down the stairs. He said as she followed, “We could hide under the table in the first row, or we could crouch behind the lectern. The lectern might be the smarter choice if we’re pretending that we’re trying not to get caught. Though not sure why we’d hide here if that were the case. But, theoretically, if only one Legionnaire cleared this hall, we could possibly avoid notice if we circled the lectern opposite of them.”

Forcing Laure to the back of her mind, she asked, “Did you learn all that in your criminal activist course?”

“You guessed it,” he said and took a seat behind the lectern first. He wore something like a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he watched her sit next to him. “I’ve wanted to tell you…”

“The letter.” She found the envelope in her coat pocket, thankfully dry. She offered it to him. “It’s from Zeynel. I’ve been his messenger since Dad died. His new messenger was supposed to give this to you, but Zeynel told her to ask me where you were. I figured that meant he wanted me to know you were keeping something from me and decide whether to deliver the letter to you read or unread. I read it.”

He examined the envelope, his eyebrows raised at her. “Dedicated of you to get a new envelope and then tell me you read it anyway.” He started tearing it open and said, “So tell me how the fuck did Zeynel talk you into being his runner?”

“First, why don’t you tell me why Zeynel sent you a letter from Dad today—of all days—and handed it to me to give to you?” she asked. There was more to Gavriel being a Libertine, and she needed to know how it involved Zeynel or her father. “Does Zeynel know you’re a Libertine? Did Dad know?”

Gavriel’s hand tremored slightly as he studied the note. He put a fist to his mouth, bit into one of his knuckles. “I’m sorry for not telling you, and I don’t have a particularly good reason for why I didn’t except that I was trying to protect you. So please don’t get mad. Lavrras was considered an Ambassador in the Libertines. He oversaw all our operations along with the other Ambassadors…like Leonore. This was his codename.” He flipped the note to face her.

Malou had to take a breath at that, but she nodded to encourage him to continue. No wonder her dear mother never had time for her. That was why she hadn’t come back to campus.

“Long story short, Lavrras offered to sponsor me if I’d protect you.” Gavriel set the note between the two of them and sat back on his hands. “I figured it was because we were around the same age and I was a street kid desperate for a way out of that life. Easy decision. I’d make it again. After Lavrras died, Zeynel somehow convinced me to spy on the Libertines for him. To protect you, more or less. Also convinced me to keep it a secret still. I do regret that. Do you think Zeynel kept the letter from me so I’d keep the secret?”

She sighed, then turned her greatcoat over to find the bloodstains. “I want the long story, too, but later. I don’t know if Zeynel would really do that. Dad was his best friend, and I don’t think he’d break a promise to him even after he died. But I’ve been rethinking my opinion of Zeynel lately, so I haven’t necessarily ruled it out. It’s equally likely that Dad might’ve asked him to hold onto it until this moment, too.”

“The moment the Sea Legions show up out of fucking nowhere to round us all up?” He snorted.

“Are all criminal activists this self-centered?”

“Yes, we go over that in the 200-level.” He gave her a look.

She lowered her voice. “They’re after the Teir. A lot of the messages I delivered for Zeynel were between members of the Blind Collective. The last one was Professor Brosch.” She pressed her palm against her forehead. Her sigh this time was way heavier than the last. Maybe that was why Gavriel cut his story short, too. “There’s a lot more to it than this, but I retrieved half of the Teir from Brosch while I was at the Valois Manor and returned it to Zeynel. On Seconday, he had a call with a Sea Legion commander who basically told him to hand it over or they’d take it. He told them no, but he was just going to leave it in the Room of Antiquities anyway. I stole it almost right after that.”

Gavriel scrutinized her, his brows furrowed as if he didn’t believe her. “You did what now?”

She dug out the Teir’s silver box with her heart in her throat, unclipped it from her chatelaine, and offered it to him. She thought she’d feel a bit of reprieve telling someone, but there was none. Maybe it’d been a bad idea to steal it after all.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, probably to himself. When he cracked it open, she didn’t bother stopping him. He had as much right to see it as she did, and she’d done the same thing after she’d gotten it from Brosch.

That heaviness filled her chest this time. She couldn’t just let them have it after everything. Brosch hadn’t hid her under his floor only to have it taken by force later. He hadn’t died protecting it only to have it end up in their hands anyway. She could still see his dead body in her mind. She’d never forget it, even after killing the one who’d ordered his death, and certainly not after being responsible for the deaths of the one who’d put the bullet in his chest and the one who’d looked disappointed that he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger.

Rather than any sense of release from their deaths, she discovered that her guilt and anger were equally bottomless and bothersome emotions. Not one of them deserved to die; even if the Legionnaires were convicted violent criminals, they also had friends and families and lives they had every right to enjoy. At the same time, the Legionnaires hadn’t given a thought to how Brosch was loved. Why should it matter to her when it hadn’t to them? That made her no better than them, but she didn’t care anymore.

So what if she was a terrible person? Terrible people got to kill without remorse. Not only did she have a vague “someone” to blame for her father’s death now, but they were also coming after what he’d died to protect. She’d kill them all if she had to.

“I’m positive that they killed Dad,” Malou said. “I think they’ve killed every member of the Blind Collective who hid it after him, too, all the way up to Brosch. The commander said the empire needed it to handle the Libertines, but that can’t be all. They only want to catch Libertines here to justify their presence and cover for stealing the Teir, not the other way around. They want the Teir for something else. The issue is that I’m not sure what that something else is or who they are—”

“Malou.” The muscles in Gavriel’s jaw tightened as he turned the Teir’s box around so she could see the two lenses. “The only way Lavrras would know to give this note to me on the day you stole the Teir would be if he used it, and the only way to confirm that is by using it as well. Maybe we can start with that?”

She swallowed. Seeing those two lenses brought her back to Zeynel’s office when he’d told her to wear put it on, so you know if I’m telling the truth. He had been telling the truth, just not all of it. Maybe this was the only way to get the answers she needed.

Surprisingly, her hands didn’t shake as she put on the lenses one at a time as Zeynel had instructed her back then. Except for this time, she didn’t resist closing her eyes a moment after. With both in, a spark of magic shot down her spine. Then letters dashed across her vision as if projected against a translucent screen.

DO YOU WISH TO ACCESS THE TEIR?

Was this why Zeynel had kept asking her what she was seeing? She focused through the text to Gavriel. “It’s projecting text against the lenses, I think. Asked if I want to access the Teir.” Her voice was steady when she answered, “Yes.”

YOU ANSWERED YES. LOADING…

Gavriel folded his arms over his chest and straightened, a vague smile of reminiscence playing on his face. “You remember the end of Lavrras’s last lecture? ‘The Teir is a prophet. It will destroy everything we know if we do not protect it.’ Or something like that. It’d felt like hyperbole back then, but now it feels too real and all this time we’ve been working against each other rather than with each other. No more secrets.”

He was right, of course. If she’d told him about the messages she’d been running for Zeynel all this time, he wouldn’t have let her go so long trusting him on faith alone. She would’ve had someone to talk to about what was happening with the Blind Collective. He also would’ve been better prepared for the arrival of the Sea Legions.

LOADED. WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?

Her question could wait for a moment.

“There’s something else,” she said, turning over her waistcoat now and finding visible blood on it just like her blouse. The water from the sprinklers must’ve washed off what blood had gotten on her dark greatcoat, but she still had to get rid of the other stains. With magic like static between her hand and the fabric of her blouse, she imagined the bloodstains fading into the white until it was as if they’d never been there. “Dad told me not to tell anyone, and I may have taken him too seriously. No more secrets, right? He taught me how to use magic.”

Gavriel watched her work for a few long moments. “I felt you downstairs before I saw you. And in the basement, as soon as you moved in on the Legionnaire, I was already aiming at the other one. I just knew you were in danger and that I had to protect you. Was that your magic?”

Maybe he’d gotten the same feeling she had earlier, her body moving to protect Gavriel before she’d fully registered that he was in danger. Something to ask Haddou.

“I was using magic,” she said, removing the stains on her waistcoat as well, “but I don’t think that’s what you were feeling. Did you feel anything in the elevator?” She put it back on over her head, then slipped on her greatcoat.

Gavriel looked up as the auditorium lights automatically turned off with a gradual fade, no longer detecting enough movement to remain lit. “In the elevator? No. It’s not like we were in danger. I don’t think the Legionnaires shooting at Syn and Senna even noticed us. Not Syn—Aaro. Were you using magic then?”

“Yeah. A lot of it.” Probably more than she should’ve, in hindsight, but she felt like she’d stretched past her limits and that she was stronger for it. Like she could do more now. She reached for Gavriel’s letter. “I didn’t get a new envelope. That would’ve been silly. I’ve got at least five ways to read messages in an envelope like this without anyone being able to tell. Is it alright with you if I make his message disappear?”

He put a hand on the back of his neck and blew out a long breath. “Yeah.”

Sometimes she forgot how much her father meant to him, too. Maybe Gavriel hadn’t had a lot of time with him, but from what Malou knew, he’d been much like a father to him, too. Neither of them really had anything of his to hold onto. They were both grasping at a specter of him. Half a specter of him, really, since he’d kept secrets from them both.

“So the Teir is magic then,” he said.

“It’s magic, though I’m not certain what about it is magic. Should I ask whether Dad consulted the Teir about the letter?”

“If it’s ready, yeah. Don’t you want to know?”

She wasn’t entirely sure how to address the Teir. She’d asked plenty of questions since it’d finished loading, but it seemed to know that she wasn’t directing any of them at it. Maybe magic somehow made the device intuitive. Zeynel had said the best way to use it was to ask yes or no questions, and she was sure the more detailed the better, so she asked, “Did Lavrras Lamaire consult the Teir before his death about when to send a letter to Gavriel Eng about revealing the secrets they shared?”

YOU ASKED IF LAVRRAS LAMAIRE CONSULTED THE TEIR BEFORE HIS DEATH ABOUT WHEN TO SEND A LETTER TO GAVRIEL ENG ABOUT REVEALING THE SECRETS THEY SHARED. PROCESSING…

“Well?” Gavriel asked.

“It’s processing.” Which it hadn’t done when Laure had asked, but perhaps her father had programmed the way that Laure interacted with the Teir to make it more efficient to use. She’d have to ask Laure when she returned, hopefully soon. “Honestly, I don’t know a lot about magic in general. It’s not like Dad had a lot of time to teach me before he died. He did tell me that Haddou knew how to use magic, too, but it took me until now to ask her to teach me. I’m sure she’ll teach you, too.”

“Haddou? Why am I not surprised by that…”

PROCESSED. YES, LAVRRAS LAMAIRE CONSULTED THE TEIR BEFORE HIS DEATH ABOUT WHEN TO SEND A LETTER TO GAVRIEL ENG ABOUT REVEALING THE SECRETS THEY SHARED. DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION?

“Yes,” she said, nodding to Gavriel at the same time so he knew the Teir’s answer to her first question. The second question was more important, though. She couldn’t ask what questions he asked during his consultation, and it seemed like a waste of time to inquire about each possible question he could’ve asked.

YOU ANSWERED YES. WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?

“Given Lavrras Lamaire’s consultation with the Teir before his death about when to send a letter to Gavriel Eng about revealing the secrets they shared, is it possible to know whether he followed the best course of action made known to him?”

The Teir repeated her question again in text that seemed to appear on an invisible screen hovering in mid-air, then started processing again. Given Gavriel’s scowl, he seemed to understand what she was getting at. Even if her father had consulted the Teir, that didn’t tell them which course of action he’d decided to take. There was no way to know if his actions had been influenced by the consultation, either. The Teir really couldn’t tell them the truth about this.

She checked Zeynel’s pocket watch again. According to Laure’s guess, they didn’t have much time before they were found. She clipped the Teir’s silver box back to her chatelaine, then used magic to shrink it enough so that it wouldn’t show in the pocket of her breeches. “Won’t be much longer until the Sea Legions get to this floor.”

“We need a story,” he said.

She agreed. “There’s only one story we can give them that’ll let me use the Valois name to protect you, too, while also ensuring we avoid suspicion for being together both now and in the future.”

PROCESSED. NO, GIVEN LAVRRAS LAMAIRE’S CONSULTATION…

He took his gloves off and took her hand. “I knew we’d have to fake courtship again sometime.”