“A pity.” She lifted a hand to forestall further comment. Severn had stopped at one of the shelves in the center of the room, an older edifice that looked as if it needed either repair or replacement. “Yes,” she said, before Elluvian could ask. “There are few things in this room that the boy cannot read.”
“He was raised in the fief of Nightshade,” was Elluvian’s sharp response. “Reading was not a skill highly prized there.”
“By whom? You have spent much of your life’s blood on mortals. Can you understand them so poorly after all this time? Now, hush. You will distract me.”
Severn continued as if he had not heard or could not hear their conversation. He seemed to peruse the spines of these shelved books, lifting a hand to retrieve one from the shelf; the shelf itself was packed so tightly it took effort.
Elluvian now watched An’Tellarus; her attention was once again solely focused on Severn, her eyes shading from the normal blue to a shade of purple. It was not as rare as brown, but rare nonetheless. Had he not been aware of Severn’s early life, Elluvian might have believed that she knew the boy far more personally than he.
But no, no alchemy of thought led to that as fact, rather than absurd fancy. An’Tellarus, however, cultivated absurd fancy; it was one of her many weapons.
Severn had a slender book in his hands; the covers, or at least the corners, were worn. Elluvian could not see the book itself, but could see, as Severn opened it, some of its contents; there were pictures on either page, with text written by a scribe of some competence.
An’Tellarus left Elluvian’s side and came to Severn’s, standing far enough to the right that she would invoke no reflexive defensive response. “Why that book?” she asked, her voice as soft as Elluvian had heard it for centuries.
“I recognize it,” Severn replied, eyes still absorbed in pages, the hint of a smile touching his lips. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Where, if I might ask?”
Severn shook his head. “I don’t remember where, I’m sorry. I just...remember these pages, this story.”
“And the other books?”
“I don’t know—I haven’t looked at the others.”
“Then look,” she said. “I will go and return with lunch, if you are hungry.”
His smile—and it was genuine, to Elluvian’s eye—was rueful. “I’m always hungry,” he told her.
When she had left, Severn continued to look at the book and the images it contained. Elluvian stepped into the place that An’Tellarus had vacated. He read one page, perhaps one sentence—the pages themselves did not contain many words. All of the words, however, were in Barrani.
“Where,” he asked, “did you learn to read this?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated.
“From whom?”
This time, Severn shook his head. Odd that An’Tellarus had not asked that question. It was as if she knew it would not be answered. Refusal to answer her questions had always been costly. Had she thought to spare the boy the price for the crime of withholding information?
It made no sense to Elluvian. “May I see the book when you are finished with it?”
“It’s not mine.”
“She will not mind; if it was likely to annoy her, we would not be in this room. I have not seen it before,” he added. “You were a child when you read this?”
He nodded.
Too many questions filled the silence in Elluvian’s mind. He did not ask any of them. The only question he wished answered was not one that most people of any race could clearly articulate.Who are you, boy?
Severn handed the book to Elluvian and returned to the shelving, a frown folding his brows. He continued to peruse the rest of the books, although he touched none of them. He did, however, put the single book he’d touched back in its place on the shelf when Elluvian was done.
“You recognize these,” Elluvian said.
Severn nodded. “Not all of them, but I’m not Barrani. I think these are the same books as the ones I once read. Not copies, not similar books—but the same.”
“Why?”
The young man shrugged. For perhaps the first time, he seemed to be struggling with embarrassment. “I spilled food on one of the pages. I was younger,” he added, as if to explain himself. “The mark is still there.”