Do Your Worst(77)
It wasn’t just the books that were old here—it was everything. Her mom would have called the space handsome. It had all the HGTV stuff she drooled over—high, vaulted ceilings, crown molding.
Clark made a beeline for a computer desk in the corner, a man on a mission, but Riley just swiveled her head, taking in the books in all directions, including up.
Some had spines bound in cloth or leather, some books were skinny, and some were extraordinarily fat; volumes lived in little families. There were books under glass, their pages open to show the gilded, hand-painted illustrations.
“Holy smokes.” It was the first time she’d thought about a university as more than just somewhere to go to get a degree that let you make more money. This place, this room, kept so many centuries of knowledge—it hurt her heart that she only got access for a few hours.
She envied Clark the way he didn’t even blink when they walked in. This was his world. Of course he’d feel at home here.
Riley found him bent over a keyboard. “It was nice of you to bring me here.”
Before she came to Scotland, she’d thought working alone made her stronger. Now she wondered how much she’d missed out on by not asking for help sooner.
As Clark looked at her, the determined frenzy he’d been in ever since his dad left lifted. His eyes warmed. “Do you like it?”
“How could I not?” She’d already passed several sections she wished she could linger in. Books on botany and mysticism and geology.
Clark smiled and then pointed at the screen. “I think you’re about to like it even more.”
She leaned forward to read over his shoulder. “History of the Clan Graphm: from public records and private collections, compiled by Amelia Georgiana Murray MacReive. Published in 1790.”
“Why didn’t you collect this as part of your first round of research?” It seemed promising. A study of clan life before, during, and right after the events of the curse in 1779.
“It came up in my initial searches, but because of the condition of the book you can’t remove it from the collection.” He pointed to a note in the catalog. “Let’s just say I was less incentivized to make the trip out here when I looked a few months ago.”
Riley nodded. She recognized the same fierceness in his face from when he’d defended curse breaking at the restaurant. They were here because of his father. Because Clark was finally striking back against a lifetime of tyranny.
He hadn’t developed a newfound belief in her calling beyond her request and a sense of obligation. Clark didn’t feel, as she did, that they stood at the precipice of something ancient and powerful. So close—if they could push through this last stretch—that they might have the unique ability to fix something that had been broken for so long. As much as Riley wanted to believe he was really in this with her, she didn’t dare hope.
Look at Gran and her mom. Curse breakers didn’t get partners, romantic or otherwise. They got adventure and adrenaline, gratitude when they did a job well. And if Riley could help it, they got paid.
The way Clark’s father looked at her, like mud under his shoe, wasn’t an anomaly. His whole circle of gentleman academics would turn up their noses at her family legacy. Clark might be willing to fight for her once, but she couldn’t see him signing up for the job full-time.
Following the tracking number, they found the book tucked away in a special temperature-controlled cabinet, its spine bent and peeling with signs of wear. After taking special care washing and drying their hands, they took the text over to one of the room’s glass tables and pulled out two chairs.
“Something weird, right?” Clark looked to her for confirmation after they sat down.
“Right,” she said, resisting the impulse to reach over and smooth a wayward curl back from his forehead. Gross. When had she turned so mushy? When had this man become so . . . dear?
Several hours and one neck cramp later, Riley realized the book was full of weird things. The problem was none of them felt particularly useful. Plus, there was only one book and two of them so they kept bumping shoulders and thighs, as they leaned over trying to read the fine, faded print.
She took back her assessment of Clark as helpful. He was outrageously distracting.
Every inhale brought her lingering traces of his wintergreen shaving cream. She kept looking at his jaw. Which inevitably led to looking at his mouth.
Then Clark would catch her looking at his mouth, and say, “What is it?”
And she’d have to make up something, pretending she’d been lost in thought about crop patterns or methods for roof thatching. It was a whole mess.
But it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know what the rules were between them anymore.
They’d done this whole ritual that, even if it didn’t break the curse, still cemented them as intimate. Riley felt like she knew Clark, his body, his mind. Like he belonged to her, only he didn’t.
Now, all this banding together to prove his dad wrong, or everyone wrong in Riley’s case, it had a way of making it seem possible that—Hey, wait a minute . . .
“Clark.” She fumbled for his arm while keeping her eyes locked on the book. “Look at this wound report.”
“Really? Wounds?” He turned green around the gills. “Must I?”
“You must.” Riley pushed the book closer to him. She supposed not everyone grew up studying their mom’s medical journals as a hobby. “It’s an excerpt of a field medic’s record from right after the Graphms took Arden. And see here? It says the patient—a scout—died after he was attacked with an unusual instrument.”