We continued to glare at one another across the table, despite knowing he was right. He had me. Suddenly, a screech and a blur of gray hair burst into our quiet nook.
“WHAT’S THIS!? SMOKING IN THE LIBRARY!?” It was one of the librarians, the elderly Mrs. Holloway, her wild mop of frizzy hair accompanied by a waft of suffocatingly sweet perfume.
In spite of her unwelcome intrusion, I smirked in triumph. She’d spotted Casimir’s illicit cigarette.
But Casimir moved quicker than I expected. Stamping out the cigarette underneath the table, he reached out to touch Mrs. Holloway’s liver-spotted arm. “I’m sorry, is something the matter?” he asked innocently. “Only, you’re shouting in the library.”
The elderly woman froze, staring at him with blank, cloudy eyes. “No, no, dear. I’m sorry…” She sounded dazed. “I thought I saw…No, I must have imagined…” Her voice trailed off as she wandered deeper into the stacks, muttering to herself.
I turned back to Casimir in shocked disbelief. “What did you do to her?”
He shrugged. “Just made her doubt what she saw.”
“You glamoured her?” My knuckles had gone white against the table.
Casimir had the grace to wince at the accusation in my tone. “Would you rather I’d gotten myself banned from the Labyrinth?”
“Maybe so,” I muttered darkly.
His mouth twisted into a playful smirk. “I don’t believe you.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Why don’t you explain, then. How your abilities differ from the others.’”
Leaning back in his seat, he fixed me with an inscrutable expression. “Emotions influence our decisions, sometimes even more powerfully than brute force or torture. I use glamours when the results are more or less harmless. Most of the time,” he added. Something dangerous flickered in his gaze. “I did warn you I was someone not to cross.”
“Excuse me, but you never said anything of the sort,” I said.
He shrugged and I began to roll my eyes at him, but then he leaned in, his tone suddenly urgent. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but you should know there’s a sort of damper on our powers,” he said.
From the wariness in his expression, I realized that he was revealing something significant. Information that could make him vulnerable.
“On all of you? Devereaux and the others, too?” I asked.
A nod. I didn’t want to consider how powerful they’d be without that damper in place.
I continued, “You said that your brands—the runes on your arm—were part of your punishment. Did you mean they were in retribution for your part in the rebellion?”
Casimir stiffened, but nodded again.
I thought again of the eye singed into his flesh. I shuddered to imagine the Daemon capable of inflicting such brutality. A reminder that they are always watching.
I had so many questions, but one in particular pushed its way to the edge of my tongue.
“Why did you call Evren a ‘Bludkravk’?”
Casimir’s entire body tensed at the sound of the word. He fought to relax his spine against the chair again. “It’s the caste name we use to refer to those with Evren’s particular…talentfor sadism.” A flare of resentment sparked in his umber eyes. “In Ethervalean, ‘Bludkravk’ means ‘bringer of pain.’ His kind are also sometimes called Bloodweavers.”
There were others like him?
“Bloodweavers possess the ability to conduct electric current to cause extreme pain,” he explained. “It cannot cause true nerve or muscle damage, but in rare cases it can lead to loss of mental stability and even death.” Casimir examined his hands for a moment before fixing me with that penetrating gaze again. “You haven’t had the unfortunate experience of enduring his glamours firsthand, but they are most similar to intense electrical shocks.”
From the way his brow was furrowed, I surmised that he was speaking from firsthand experience.
I gave a nervous laugh. “I guess I’m lucky I can’t feel his glamours.”
This elicited an unexpected frown from Casimir, as if the comment bothered him. Was he, too, wondering why Evren’s glamours didn’t work on me?
I cleared my throat, dispelling the thought. “Forget Evren for a moment. What happens if Devereaux finds the Heir before we do?”