Chapter 7 · Her Mother's Name

The archive room smelled like wet stone and old ink. Cass's fingers were still shaking from the lock spell, and Mara was already three shelves deep, yanking ledgers down like she had about thirty seconds before the whole place caved in on them. Which, given the way the wards had screamed when his ring touched the door, might not be far off.

"Anything with a Flint seal," Mara said, not looking back. Her voice was flat, the kind of calm that meant she was about two wrong words away from putting a knife somewhere soft. "Or Quill. Or Veyr."

Cass flinched at his own name. The way she'd said it. Like it tasted bad. He moved to the opposite wall, scanning spines that were mostly too faded to read. Half of these books shouldn't exist. The other half shouldn't be here, in a locked sublevel under the combat hall where no one was supposed to go.

"Your ring opens a lot of doors it shouldn't," Mara added. Still not looking at him.

"Yeah, I noticed." Cass pulled down a leather folio, flipped it open. Lists of names. Dates. None of them recent. "You think your mom knew about this place?"