˚₊‧✩ ˚₊‧꒰ა ʚིᵋº̣̥͙̣̥͙ᵌɞྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ✩‧₊˚
Eurydice Hughes had been in the middle of reviewing military contingency documents for approximately two hours when she accepted that she was not, in fact, reading them.
She was looking at them. Her eyes were moving across the pages in what was, from the outside, a convincing impression of someone engaged in careful study. But the words were not landing anywhere. They passed through her attention like light through cloudglass, leaving no impression, and she kept arriving at the bottom of a page with no memory of what it had said and having to go back to the top and try again.
She set the documents aside. She looked at the high window of her study, at the deep afternoon sky above Nephoria, at the clouds that drifted slow and pale beyond the glass.
Her father had not returned to the council chamber since walking out four days ago. He had not, to her knowledge, left his private apartments at all, which was not entirely unusual for King Zinon but felt, in the current climate, louder than his absences usually did. Her mother had not mentioned him. The council had not mentioned him. The palace had quietly absorbed his disappearance from its daily proceedings in the way it absorbed most inconveniences, smoothly and without acknowledgment, as though the inconvenience had chosen not to occur.
Eurydice was thinking about this, and about Alexis's careful words in the corridor, and about Samu's father's unarmed scouts, when someone knocked at her study door.
"Come in," she said, expecting Alexis or one of the household staff.
Renwick Lugosi opened the door.
Eurydice did not let her surprise reach her face, but it was a near thing. Renwick did not, as a general rule, seek people out. He attended the meetings he was required to attend, he fulfilled the duties of his position with quiet competence, and he occupied whatever room he was in with the particular self-contained stillness of someone who had long since made peace with their own company. He did not knock on people's study doors in the middle of the afternoon.
The dark mist that accompanied him everywhere rolled softly over the threshold ahead of him, curling around the legs of her desk with a kind of familiar ease, as though it had been here before.
"Your Highness," he said, in that low, careful voice of his.
"Renwick," she said. "This is unexpected."
"Yes," he agreed, which was not quite an apology and not quite an explanation. He stood in the doorway for a moment, his maroon eyes moving briefly around the study with an attention that reminded her of Alexis, the same quality of rapid, quiet inventory. Then he stepped fully inside and closed the door behind him.
He did not sit down. He stood near the door with his hands folded and his dark hair over one shoulder and the mist drifting softly around his feet, and he looked at her with an expression she could not entirely read, which was not unusual for Renwick but felt, today, more deliberate than usual.
"I will not keep you long," he said.
"Take whatever time you need," Eurydice said, and set her hands flat on the desk in the posture she used when she wanted to appear more patient than she felt.
Renwick was quiet for a moment. Not the silence of someone searching for words; the silence of someone who had already chosen their words and was deciding, still, whether to say them.
"The Great Library," he said at last, "is a remarkable institution."
Eurydice waited for more. More did not immediately arrive.
"It is," she said carefully.
"The eastern wing in particular," Renwick continued, as though he had not paused at all, "contains records that are not frequently visited. Some sections have not been formally reviewed in quite some time. The founding era materials, for instance." His eyes were steady on hers. "They deserve more attention than they receive."
Eurydice looked at him.
Something cold and alert moved through her, very quiet, very quick, the thing that happened in her chest when she understood that a conversation was about more than it appeared to be. She had felt it in the council chamber when her father's mouth had moved silently as he passed Kostas. She felt it now.
"That is an interesting observation," she said, in a tone that meant: I know you are telling me something, please tell me what it actually is.
Renwick's expression did not change. "I have always found the history of Nephoria's founding period to be underexplored," he said. "There are questions about that era that the official record does not fully answer. It seems, occasionally, that this is less a matter of evidence being absent and more a matter of certain evidence being..." He paused, as though selecting from a range of possible words. "Difficult to locate."
"Renwick," Eurydice said, keeping her voice very even. "Are you telling me something specific?"
"I am making a general observation about historical research," he said, with an innocence so perfect it could only be deliberate.
Eurydice looked at him for a long moment. He looked back at her with the patient composure of a man who had decided exactly how much he was going to say and had no intention of being moved past it.
"A general observation," she repeated.
"About the value of thorough archival research," he said. "In the founding era materials specifically. Which, as I mentioned, are located in the eastern wing of the Great Library." He unfolded his hands and refolded them, a small movement, the closest thing to a gesture of conclusion she had ever seen from him. "I thought you might find this interesting, given your current research responsibilities."
"My mother asked me to review military contingency documents," Eurydice said.
"Indeed," Renwick said. "And I am sure those are very thorough." A pause. "The archival materials would complement them well."
He bowed, very slightly, and moved toward the door.
"Renwick," she said.
He stopped.
She chose her next words carefully, the way she had watched Alexis choose words and the way she was beginning to understand one chose words in Nephoria when what one actually meant could not be said plainly.
"Is there something in the eastern wing that I should find?" she said. "Or something that someone else has already found, that I should know about?"
Renwick stood with his hand on the door. His back was to her, and she could not see his face, only the line of his shoulders and the dark fall of his hair and the mist still drifting softly around his feet.
"I think," he said, very quietly, "that the eastern wing has been waiting a long time to be properly understood." Another pause. "I am glad that someone is finally paying attention to it."
He opened the door. The mist rolled back through the threshold ahead of him like a tide going out.
"Good afternoon, Your Highness," he said, and left.
The door closed.
Eurydice sat in the silence of her study and looked at the space where Renwick Lugosi had been standing and tried to assemble what had just happened into something she could work with.
He knew something. That much was clear. He knew about the eastern wing, about the founding era materials, about something in that section of the library that was not as it appeared. He had come here, which he did not do, to tell her about it, which he also did not do, in the most indirect way she had encountered since the last time Alexis had told her something important by appearing to say nothing at all.
She thought about Alexis in the corridor: the founding era materials have not been formally reviewed in quite some time.
She thought about Renwick just now: the eastern wing has been waiting a long time to be properly understood.
Two people. Both careful. Both pointing in the same direction without quite pointing.
Eurydice stood up from her desk. She looked at the military contingency documents, stacked neatly where she had set them aside.
She picked up her coat from the chair by the window.
The Great Library of Nephoria closed at the ninth bell. It was currently the sixth. She had three hours, which was, for a princess who had been trained to move efficiently through any space she occupied, more than enough time.
She left the military contingency documents on the desk. She told herself she would review them when she returned. She told herself this was simply a brief diversion, a loose thread she was tidying before returning to her proper work.
She almost believed it.
She walked out of her study and down the long pale corridor of the royal wing, past the golden tapestries of Nephoria's history, past the high windows with their view of the clouds burning amber in the late afternoon, her footsteps quick and quiet on the cloudstone floor.
Behind her, in the empty study, the military contingency documents sat untouched on the desk.
Outside, the sun was going down over Nephoria, setting the clouds alight in shades of rose and gold, the kingdom burning beautiful and certain against the darkening sky.
˚₊‧✩ ˚₊‧꒰ა ʚིᵋº̣̥͙̣̥͙ᵌɞྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ✩‧₊˚