“To get what I need,” she says. “My whole life, I’ve spent my days reading, researching, and making things. While he was alive, Lester only allowed me to read certain books. But after he died, I could access the entire library. I’ve had endless days of studying, sleepless nights of creating…Then I realized that I had every text except one.”

“One?” I ask, looking down.

“I’ve studied the inventory, and there’s only one book missing. I’ve scoured the entire castle and can’t find it. Lester took it, kept me from reading it, and put it in there,” she says and gestures to the safe.

“Must be a dangerous book if he went so far as to be buried with the key.”

“Knowledge is deemed dangerous by the wicked. They don’t want those beneath them to learn too much because wisdom threatens power.”

“So, whatever’s in this book is that important to you, huh? Well, I’ll try my best. Give me that pin.” She hands it to me and settles her back against the bed frame.

“I keep journals, you know. I write down everything I find and then study it. I’ve even written a few books myself.”

“Is that so?” I slowly push the pin into the keyhole.

“It is. I’ve written much on the First Prophet, and I have an entire thesis on the Salva plant and its true nature.”

“Uh huh,” I acknowledge, hardly paying attention; my total concentration is centered on the blasted lock.

“Two weeks ago, we hosted a dinner for nobles. Afterward, I looked for a particular journal, but it was gone. Stolen from my very chamber.”

“That’s awful, even to me, a bandit who enjoys stealing. A private chamber is completely off-limits! Unless the person is dead and buried with the key, of course.”

She ignores my joke.

“It was an entire book of notes dedicated to Devil’s Mirages and The Pass in Verdana. Ever heard of it?”

Frustrated, I huff and shift the pin in different patterns one after the other, but to no avail. “The Mirages, yes. The Pass? Never,” I answer absently.

Theodore can barely contain her excitement. “Supposedly, there’s a narrow channel between the Verdanian mountains that leads towards Osinea. I’ve asked a few people, but no one has ever heard of it. But it’s there. I know it is. And now someone else does, too. I asked Idalia–”

There is a strange pull in my hands at the sound of her name. Tiny sparks shoot through them as I picture the pain that I’ll see in her stare after I tell her the truth. That Lachlan has no intention of marrying her. The truth about her father, that he…

Click.

“No gods damn way,” I breathe as the lock unhitches.