“Good. Did she have any other messages for me?”

“She hasn’t seen your old rival Cordelia—”

“Clementine,” Phelan corrected me.

“Yes, whatever her name is, in the art shop.”

He sighed and carelessly dropped a book on his desk. “Just the news I wanted to hear.”

“What else have you done to try and locate her?”

“I’ve contacted a few art shops and checked her Luminous Society files,” he said. “There’s not much there to glean, as both of her parents are highly private people and paid to have their records guarded. But it seems her mother is proficient in metamara and performed stagecraft, so I’ve begun to check with theaters in the area.”

My pulse skipped. I had never thought about him tracing my mother to me, because she went by her stage name, and had been doing so for nearly a decade, since she split with my father. Despite that, I was tempted to dismiss myself and send an urgent message to my parents, but I quenched the impulsivity and chose to take another route.

I lingered in the library, watching him draw book after book from his vast shelves.

“What are you looking for? Aside from Clementine, that is.”

“A certain volume,” he said. “I can’t remember its title, but it has an essay on trolls that I need.”

“Trolls?” I echoed, thinking of Mazarine. “Why is that? Did you encounter one?”

“Perhaps.” Phelan sounded distant, resuming his search.

I watched. There were moments when Phelan looked at me or when our skin brushed and I felt something electric pass between us. I told myself it was merely from two enemies being in close quarters, until I realized that I had—unfortunately—come to miss him during the time he was away. But more than those unsettling feelings . . . I needed to distract him from Mazarine, from hunting me and my parents.

“This house is far too quiet at night without you,” I said.

That brought him back to me. He met my gaze, and I wondered what he saw in my eyes, because Phelan smiled.

I took a step back, and it was like we were bound by an invisible tether, because he suddenly forgot about the mess of books around him and took a step forward.

“Leaving so soon, Anna?”

“Well, you’re knee deep in books,” I said, waving my hand. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

“Talk more about what?” he asked. “The fact that you missed me?”

I suddenly couldn’t tell if he was humoring me or deadly serious. “I never said that I missed you. I said that it was quiet here.”

He took another step closer. “Then let me be the first to confess. I missed you.”

“I have no doubt.”

“I should have taken you with me.”