He didn’t leave Roga’s office. She had food delivered from the House’s private kitchens—and if he needed to rest, she ordered him to curl up on the carpet like the dog he was.
He did, ignoring the insult, and slept deeply enough that she’d had to prod him with a foot to wake him.
He might have objected had she not been the bearer of good news: Hunt Athalar, Ruhn Danaan, and Baxian Argos had escaped from the Asteri’s dungeons during a rescue operation that had incinerated the entirety of the Spine.
The Hind had done it. Tharion and Flynn and Dec had done it. Somehow, they’d pulled it off. Relief had tightened his throat to the point of pain, even as shame for not helping them twisted his gut.
Since then, Ithan and Jesiba had spoken little. Roga had mostly been on calls with clients or off at House meetings she didn’t tell him about, but now … Ithan peered at the shelf, at the magic book again shuddering against the wards holding it in place.
“During the Summit,” Ithan said, ignoring the belligerent volume, “Micah said your books were from the Library of Parthos.” Amelie had gossiped about it afterward. “That they’re all that’s left of it.”
“Mmm,” Jesiba murmured, continuing to clack away at her keyboard.
Ithan threw himself into the chair before her desk. “I thought Parthos was a myth.”
“The books say otherwise, don’t they?”
“What’s the truth, then?”
“Not one that’s easy to swallow for Vanir.” But she stopped typing. Her eyes lifted above the computer screen to find his.
“Amelie Ravenscroft claimed that Micah said the library held two thousand years of human knowledge before the Asteri.”
“And?” Her face revealed nothing.
He pointed to the pissed-off book. “So the humans had magic?”
She sighed through her nose. “No. The magic books here … they were supposed to be guardians of the library itself. At least, that’s what I enchanted them to do, centuries ago. To attack those who tried to steal the books, to defend them.” One such book, Ithan recalled Bryce telling him, had helped save her when she fought Micah. “But the volumes took on lives and desires of their own. They became … aware.” She glared at the misbehaving book. “And by the time I tried to unweave the spells of life on them, their existence had become too permanent to undo. So I needed monitors such as Lehabah to guard the guardians. To make sure they didn’t escape and become more of a nuisance.”
“Why not sell them?”
She gave him a withering look. “Because my spells are written in there. I’m not letting that knowledge loose in the world.” Roga had been a witch before she’d defected to the House of Flame and Shadow and called herself a sorceress instead. He could only imagine what she’d seen in her long, long life.
“So what do they say? The Parthos books?”
The clacking keys resumed. “Nothing. And everything.”
Ithan snorted. “Cryptic, as usual.”
Her typing stopped again. “They’d bore most people. Some are books on complex mathematics, entire volumes on imaginary numbers. Some are philosophical treatises. Some are plays—tragedies, comedies—and some are poetry.”
“All from human life before the Asteri?”
“A great civilization lived on Midgard long before the Asteri conquered it.” He could have sworn she sounded sad. “One that prized knowledge in all its forms. So much so that a hundred thousand humans marched at Parthos to save these books from the Asteri and Vanir who came to burn them.” She shook her head, face distant. “A world where people loved and valued books and learning so much that they were willing to die for them. Can you imagine what such a civilization was like? A hundred thousand men and women marched to defend a library—it sounds like a bad joke these days.” Her eyes blazed. “But they fought, and they died. All to buy the library priestesses enough time to smuggle the books out on ships. The Vanir armies intercepted most of them, and the priestesses were burned, their precious books used as kindling. But one ship …” Her lips curved upward. “The Griffin. It slipped through the Vanir nets. Sailed across the Haldren and found safe harbor in Valbara.”
Ithan slowly shook his head. “How do you know all this, when no one else does?”
“The mer know some of it,” she hedged. “The mer aided the Griffin across the sea, at the behest of the Ocean Queen.”
“Why?”