Bastien, looking over his shoulder again, saw her expression. “It’s excessive, I know. Do you know Aliez and I have never seen any of these sights?”
“You’ve never been to Balladaire?”
“Not once. Father speaks as if it’s the most magnificent place, of course, but…” He shrugged. “Here we are. My office.”
Luca glanced at Touraine, who followed impassively behind her. Luca wondered what the other woman thought of Bastien and his sister. Their lives paralleled Touraine’s own displacement, though, of course, their displacement had been by choice. And didn’t risk their lives. And was more profitable on the whole.
Bastien’s office was sparse compared to the rest of the house. A single desk and chair. A brazier in the back for the cold nights, far from the full but tidy bookshelf. Faintly scented candles lit the room. It smelled like smoking dens in the city.
All of Bastien’s energy uncoiled as he stepped inside. He sprang toward the desk to a book, which he placed, open, in front of Luca. “Oh, sit, do sit,” he added belatedly, pulling the chair out for her.
“The Letters of Doctor Ay-yid as annotated by Dr. Travers. It’s a science text of all things, about medicine! I would never have imagined.” Now that they were crammed into his office, Bastien let his ebullience pour out. “See here,” he said. “Travers points out how heavily medical science in Balladaire was influenced by Qazāl ages ago, with these letters. It was an exchange.”
He waved his hands at the oh-so-dismissible past as if it hadn’t led to precisely this moment swelling in Luca’s chest. The page delineated a medical debate. Dr. Ay-yid, a Shālan doctor, maintained that contracting certain diseases could eliminate or lessen the effect of worse diseases. The annotator, Dr. Travers, was clearly on the side of the unknown Balladairan recipient of Ay-yid’s argument, who claimed that this idea was nonsense. Luca was inclined to agree.
She sat and pushed up her spectacles, searching for what had excited Bastien so. It was easy to find, triple underlined. She saw Bastien’s marginalia first, tight, tidy letters that suited him: Our own birthright, abandoned?? Her heartbeat quickened.
But Bastien had underlined none of the theory. He’d underlined a portion of Ay-yid’s letter farther down, an aside: “This is true. My god has given me the gift of understanding this. If Balladaire and Briga were cursed to lose their gifts, that doesn’t fall upon my head.”
The room was so silent that Luca could hear the tinkle of laughter from the youths outside. She realized she was holding her breath, and yet she couldn’t let it out. Beside her, Bastien was nodding hard.
“Bastien.” Luca ran her fingers over the words again. Pointed to his marginalia. “You don’t think—” This was historical evidence. This was more than a manipulative rebel’s goading.
“I do. I do. Balladaire used to—”
“Have our own magic.” This could be true.
A gasp from the side of the room where Guérin and Touraine stood. Touraine stood rigidly, trying and failing to keep her face neutral. Guérin, however, looked as if she was slowly, finally realizing something. Just like Luca was. Like Bastien had.
Maybe the Brigāni woman had been telling the truth. Luca recalled the tapestries in the rest of the Beau-Sang house. The fields of corn, the orchards. A god of the fields. She looked down at the braided-wheat embroidery on her coat.
“How can we find out more? These letters are from the end of my grandfather’s reign.” And Balladairans hadn’t worshipped a god for centuries. She would have to go back home. The Royal Library, her mother’s private collection—how had she overlooked this?
Bastien shook his head. “Here? Not in Qazāl. The First Library would have to have it, though, don’t you think? It’s old enough to have records—historical, political—something that could tell us—” He caught himself. “Tell you what you want to know.”
Luca pulled herself away from the page, pulled the reins on her heart. “Does anyone else know about this?”
“Of course not.” He flushed a pretty shade of pink. “I thought you might want to explore it on your own.”
Oh, but she did. If she could figure out what had happened to Balladairan magic—she would leave more than a mark on the empire. She would shake its foundations and make Balladaire stronger than ever before.
She met Bastien’s wide blue eyes. His blond hair had flopped into his face again, making him look sweet, hapless, a little lost in his books. Luca knew better. This was a calculated trade.