I spooned some smoked fish onto my rice. Every time Lin drank some of her father’s memories, she seemed a little more like him. I wasn’t sure if that was the memories or if it was just who Lin was. Did I really want to be more like Ragan – that pompous way he had of correcting facts or laying them out, his ridiculous grin, his sly admonishments? And I wasn’t even part of the Emperor’s entourage anymore. I wasn’t anyone except Jovis, failed folk hero. What would I even do with what I found out?

Always had to know – even if that knowledge wasn’t good for me. I broke the seal and pulled out the cork. “Watch my back, will you?” I asked Mephi.

He nodded, his gaze on my food. Well, I could always order more. I tipped the flask over my mouth.

The taste of the milky liquid was surprisingly sweet, but with a rich, coppery aftertaste that made me want to gag. I started to turn to Mephi – he had already slipped another piece of fish from my plate – and then I fell into another body, another place, another time.

Sweat stuck my shirt to my back, the bag of books slung at my side unwieldy and heavy. The hands that grasped at the rocks were mine and not-mine. Ragan’s fingers, his bloodied fingernails, the dirt caked on calloused palms.

“It’s here, it’s close,” I muttered to myself. A trickle of his emotions reached me – frustration, hope, anger. The last loomed over the others, a mountain of anger that shadowed everything else. It rang true with my own anger, and I knew it had been born of similar experiences. Always being pushed aside, of being told I was not enough, of trying and failing to meet expectations that changed with the winds and the tide.

The sun beat down on the back of my neck as I climbed, half-dead shrubs scratching my hands and arms. They’d brought this on themselves. What was the point of having an archive if only a few were ever allowed to read it? So many pointless tests and lofty standards. Knowledge was meant to be shared; it wasn’t dangerous. Now what they’d known would come to pass was happening – the Alanga were rising again.

And I meant to be one of them.

I hauled myself up onto a ledge, checking a map and the position of the sun. There, behind a ragged bush, I found the small opening. It was barely large enough for me to fit through, but the surrounding rocks were smooth.

I pushed the books in first to give myself courage. I removed the pouch of cloud juniper berries and bark and my belt, taking out just one berry and then hiding the rest beneath the bush. And then I crawled inside.