Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)(11)

“Conspiring, are we?” he drawled.

“Course we are,” Iris countered brightly, holding her teacup like a toast. “Thank you for the tip, Prindle. I need to get back to work.”

“But you haven’t eaten anything, Winnow!” Sarah protested.

“I’m not hungry,” Iris said as she approached the doorway. “Pardon me, Kitt.”

Roman didn’t move. His gaze was fixed on her as if he wanted to read her mind, and Iris fought the temptation to smooth the stray tendrils of her hair, to anxiously roll her lips together.

He opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it, his teeth clinking shut as he shifted sideways.

Iris stepped over the threshold. Her arm brushed his chest; she heard him exhale, a hiss as if she had burned him, and she wanted to laugh. She wanted to taunt him, but she felt scraped clean of words.

Iris strode back to her desk and set down her lukewarm tea. She shrugged on her coat and grabbed her notepad and pencil, feeling the draw of Roman’s suspicious gaze from across the room.

Let him wonder where she was going, she thought with a snort.

And she slipped away from the office.



* * *



Iris wandered deep into the library, where the oldest books sat on heavily guarded shelves. None of these volumes could be checked out, but they could be read at one of the library desks, and Iris choose a promising tome and carried it to a small table.

She flicked on the desk lamp and carefully turned the pages, which were so old they were speckled with mold and felt like silk beneath her fingertips. Pages that smelled like dust and tombs and places that could be reached only in the dark. Pages full of stories of gods and goddesses from a time long ago. Before the humans had slain them or bound them deep into the earth. Before magic had begun to bloom from the soil, rising from divine bones, charming certain doorways and buildings and settling into the rare object.

But now Enva and Dacre had woken from their prisons. Eithrals had been spotted near the front.

Iris wanted to know more about them.

She began to write down the lore she had never been taught in school. The Skywards, who had ruled Cambria from above, and the Underlings, who had reigned below. Once, there had been a hundred gods between the two families, their individual powers fanning across the firmament, land, and water. But over time they had killed each other, one by one, until only five remained. And those five had been overcome by humankind and given as spoils to the boroughs of Cambria. Dacre had been buried in the west, Enva in the east, Mir in the north, Alva in the south, and Luz in Central Borough. They were never to wake from their enchanted sleep; their graves were markers of mortal strength and resilience, but perhaps most of all were rumored to be places of great enchantment, drawing the ill, the faithful, the curious.

Iris herself had never visited Enva’s grave in the east. It was kilometers from Oath, in a remote valley. We’ll go one day, Little Flower, Forest had said to her only last year, even though they had never been a devout family. Perhaps we’ll be able to taste Enva’s magic in the air.

Iris bent over the book, continuing to search for the answers she craved.

How does one god draw another?

Dacre had started the war by burning the village of Sparrow to the ground, killing the farmers and their families. And yet such devastation had failed to attract Enva to him, as he thought it would. Even after seven months of conflict, she remained hidden in Oath save for the moments when she strummed her harp, inspiring young people to enlist and fight against her nemesis.

Why do you hate each other? Iris wondered. What was the history behind Dacre and Enva?

She sifted through the book’s leaves, but page after page had been removed, torn away from the volume. There were a few myths about Enva and Alva, but no detailed records of Dacre. His name was mentioned only in passing from legend to legend, and never connected to Enva. There was also nothing about eithrals—where they came from, what controlled them. How dangerous they were to humans.

Iris sat back in her chair, rubbing her shoulder.

It was as if someone wanted to steal the knowledge of the past. All the myths about Dacre, his magic and power. Why he was furious with Enva. Why he was instigating a war with her, dragging mortal kind into the bloodshed.

And it filled Iris with cold dismay.





{4}





Dustbin Revelations


Her mother was asleep on the sofa when Iris got home that evening. A cigarette had burned through the threadbare cushion, and the candles on the sideboard had almost melted into stubs.

Iris sighed but began to clean up the empty bottles and ashtrays. She removed her boots, wincing to see that the blisters had bled through her stockings. Barefoot, she stripped her mother’s wine-stained sheets off the bed and then gathered a few garments to launder, carrying everything down to the common area. She paid a few coppers for water and a cup of soap granules and then selected a washboard and bucket and began to scrub.

The water was cold, pumped up from the city’s cistern, and the soap turned her hands raw. But she scrubbed away the stains, and she wrung out garment after garment, her anger fueling her long after her stomach ceased groaning its emptiness.

By the time Iris had washed everything, she was ready to write the This isn’t Forest person back. She returned to the flat and hung everything up to dry in the kitchen. She should eat something before she wrote them, or who knew what might come out of her. She found a tin of green beans in one of the cupboards and ate it with a fork, sitting on her bedroom floor. Her hands ached, but she reached for Nan’s typewriter beneath the mattress.