“How long have you been warden here?” I asked.
“For five months.”
“So you have faced multiple new moons in your appointed streets?”
He hesitated, a shadow in his expression. “Not exactly. I’ve only faced one of the five.”
I was intrigued by his response. “Why only one?”
“This most recent new moon I was away due to travel, so I hired an independent magician to cover the streets for me,” he explained in a stilted voice. I knew exactly where he had been that moon, but I maintained my pleasant facade. “And on my first new moon . . . I was overwhelmed and wounded. It took me a while to recover, and while I was healing, my twin brother fought on my behalf.”
Lennox, I assumed, and my lip almost curled in disgust. I was surprised to learn they were twins, because they looked nothing alike. An old story came to mind, the one Imonie had told me of the woman of the mountains and her twin boys. They had been identical, often switching roles to protect each other from punishments. I wondered what it would be like to so seamlessly change places with someone, fooling friends and family alike.
“Your brother must deeply care for you,” I said. “I assume the two of you are very close?”
Phelan was quiet, and it prompted me to glance at him. His gaze was distantly set on the shelves of books behind me.
“Our relationship is one built on favors and debts,” he replied, still avoiding eye contact with me. “And I swiftly learned that we don’t work well together, and I needed a different partner on the new moon nights.”
He needed someone to guard his back, which I understood. I had once guarded my father’s, and he mine. Strange, that Phelan didn’t want it to be his twin brother. Although Lennox was not a likable person.
“What were you wounded by?” I asked, my gaze drifting to his chest. To his perfect posture, which betrayed no visage of weakness, even as I knew my own magic had left lacerations on his skin earlier that day. Nicks and cuts that now hid beneath his garments.
“That I cannot tell you,” he replied with a lilt of mirth. “Unless you accept my offer, Miss Neven.”
“Touché, Mr. Vesper,” I said, and turned my attention away from the intensity of his gaze to the book of nightmares. I considered it foolish that he’d left something so vital and important sitting in plain sight on his desk until I dared to trace its battered cover and was rewarded with a sting.
The shock of it made me wince more than the pain, but I yanked my hand away as blood welled on my fingertips.
“It bites,” Phelan belatedly said as he walked to me, pulling a handkerchief from his inner pocket. “Here, I apologize. I should have warned you.”
I nearly accepted his handkerchief, my blood welling like a string of red pearls, but I felt a warning in the pit of my stomach. I needed to be careful and give him no piece of me. No strand of hair, no drop of blood, no breath of mine. Nothing that he might use to divine my true nature, should he come to one day suspect I was not who I appeared to be.
I set my fingers in my mouth and licked away my blood, to which he arched his brow, as if secretly repulsed. My blood tasted like warm iron, and I cleared my throat, drawing my fingers from my lips and pressing them against my palm, urging the wounds to clot.
“How long have you lived here, Mr. Vesper?”
“For three years.”
“But you have only been warden for five months. How did you come to earn the responsibility?”
“The magician who guarded this territory became a madcap,” Phelan replied.
“A madcap?”
“A magician who seeks to find a way into the Seren fortress and break the new moon curse.”
Oh, I had come across quite a few of those, milling around Hereswith, seeking information. I remembered how Imonie, Papa, and I had called them “vultures,” and how much we had hated them. I remembered how I had thought Phelan and Lennox had been such people the first time I saw them.
“And how many inhabitants do you guard here?” I asked.
“Six streets fall beneath my care. A total of three hundred and five individuals.”
An impressive amount for a young magician, I thought.
“And what about you, Miss Neven?” Phelan asked. “Where do you come from? Where do you currently reside?”
“Does it matter?” I countered with a smile. “My life has been rather dull up until this moment. I wouldn’t want to bore you with details.”
“It matters to me,” he said, earnest. “If you and I work together . . . we can’t be strangers.”
“Of course not,” I agreed, but was shifting away from him, my focus attracted to the window of the library, where a vast array of potted plants sat on a table. I recognized all the plants by name, and I brushed the variegated leaves of one. “Do you make your own remedies, Mr. Vesper?”
He had no chance to reply. I was suddenly aware of the glint of two eyes, peering up at me through the tangles of foliage.
“Hello!” a voice chirped, and I startled, my breath hissing through my teeth in alarm.
I watched, astounded, as a boy crept out of the dangling vines, standing before me with a click of his heels. His hair was a mop of tawny curls, his face was freckled, and his clothes were mud stained. He was missing his front tooth as he grinned up at me.
“Deacon,” Phelan said with a sigh. “What have I told you about sneaking and eavesdropping?”
The boy glanced at Phelan, his smile fading. “I know, Mr. Vesper. It’s rude and I’m sorry, but you told me it was impossible to sneak up on a magician. And I just snuck up on two of you!”
“Yes, and that was very dangerous,” Phelan remarked. “You took us both by surprise. What if we had responded in another way?”
“Like with magic?”
“Yes. Miss Neven might have turned you into a mouse.”
I gave Phelan a flat expression. “Is that the most imagination you have? I wouldn’t have turned him into a mouse.” And I brought my gaze back to Deacon, softened by his eagerness, his toothless smile. “I would have turned you into a hawk, maybe. A bird who could soar through the clouds. Or a wise fox who knows all the secret ins and outs of the house.”
“Or a dragon?!” he cried hopefully.
“Alas, a dragon would not fit in this library. And you might catch all the books on fire,” I said.
That made sense to him. He nodded, but his eyes were glazed, as if his mind was whirling with possibilities. “Have you ever turned a human into an animal, Miss Neven?”
“No, I haven’t,” I responded honestly. “That is very risky magic. It’s not that difficult to turn a human into something else if the magician has the imagination and the right spell work, but it’s far trickier to return the human back to how they once were. A change is made in the process, and it’s easy to err.”
“That does sound hard,” Deacon mused. “Have you done it, Mr. Vesper?”
Phelan shook his head in a negative response and motioned for the boy to come closer. “Why don’t you go and see if your grandmama needs help with dinner. Miss Neven and I will be right behind you.”
“All right,” Deacon said, but he gave me a smart little bow. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Neven!”