Chapter 21

PADMA

I t’s bloody freezing in the sitting room tonight, but the fire fights me, taking time to catch and flare. Thank goodness I pulled on my lounging sweater before coming down here.

“The pipes are warm,” Haiden says from the radiator by the window. A fairly new heating system installed five years ago.

“Yeah? Then why is it so cold?” A shiver glides up my spine like an icy finger. I shudder and wrap my arms around myself.

Edwin slips into the room. “Fuck, it’s cold in here.”

“Right?”

“Has Orina gone?” Haiden asks.

Edwin rubs his arms through his polo top. He’s been working out the past few weeks, and it shows in the breadth of his shoulders and the way his shirt hugs his biceps. “Yeah.Godor picked her up a few minutes ago.” He crosses to the hearth and adds more kindling, playing with the construction until the fire is high and cackling as it throws out heat. “Better?” he asks me.

I edge closer to the warmth. “Much.” He snags a throw off the sofa and drapes it over my shoulders. “Merry and Holly?”

“Haven’t seen them,” he says, “so I assume they missed the commotion.”

Edwin and I have rooms close to Orina, but Holly and Merry are farther away. I’d come in as Edwin was leaving to send a Raven, and the haunted look in her eyes made my skin crawl.

“He’s established a mental connection with her.” Haiden tugs on the drapes to ensure they’re properly closed. “He’s never done that with a watcher before.”

We’re all thinking it. That she has to be the curse breaker he’s waiting for, but it feels premature to say it.

“You should both get some sleep,” Haiden says. “It’s late, or early, however you wish to view it.”

“I think I’ll enjoy the fire for a bit.” I drag a cushion onto the rug by the hearth.

“I’m too wired now,” Edwin says. “I’m going to do some more research.”

“Loviator?” Haiden and I ask in unison.

“Yeah. The Night Library finally came through with a couple of books that mention her. The one I’m working through has information dappled throughout, and it’s a mishmash of languages: Latin, cuneiform and hieroglyphs, and some that I still need to figure out. They’re accounts from the world before and from all eras. Snippets of myth. I’m trying to compile it into something that makes sense.”

“What have you found so far?” Haiden asks.

“Hang on, let me grab my notes.”

He hurries across the room to the desk shoved in the corner, piled with papers and books, and rifles through them, returning with a notepad filled with his neat scrawl.

Haiden slowly lowers himself onto the sofa across from me, wincing slightly as he settles.

“Are you okay?”

He waves me off. “Old knees. It’s why I’m on kitchen duty.”

Edwin flips through his pad. “Okay, so there are various accounts of her origins, but the consensus seems to be that she’s the daughter of the god of death and the queen of the underworld.”

“Is there even a god of death?” Haiden asks.

Edwin shrugs. “I’ve read varying accounts of afterlife, but for humans it’s always some version of heaven. Angels, God, and a reaper or death. Some mention a place called Tarrifell where all supernatural beings go, and there are some accounts of hell. But the Night Library spans multiverses. The literature might not even relate to our world.”

Getting my head around the fact that there were other realities hadn’t been easy. The fact that there were places we could never go or see…but the Night Library provides a glimpse into some of them through literature. Edwin is good at deciphering the various languages as the rules of lexicon are pretty much the same across realities.

“So yeah…” Edwin continues. “Loviator is considered the goddess or a deity of death and disease. She has kids too, nine or ten, depending on the account. Some say that she has nine sons, others say she has nine sons and one daughter. Not sure which is true or even if it’s relevant, but each child is some kind of sickness.”

“It may be metaphorical,” Haiden says. “The diseases and sicknesses are her children, not actual mini deities.”

“True,” Edwin concedes. “But it gives us an idea of the damage she can wreak if set free. I also found a small paragraph about a betrayer?—”

The lights flicker.

Haiden curses softly. “Bloody electric’s been on the fritz for days.” He harumphs. “Go on, Edwin, you were saying?”

“Right, the betrayer is mentioned as an offspring that she banished. I did some scouring, and this betrayer is mentioned a couple of times more. Once as the most dreadful of her offspring and the other as her heart’s weakness.”

“So he was either awful or she loved him the most?” This is so confusing.

“Something like that.” He heads back to the desk and picks up a heavy tome. “I still have plenty to read through.” He sets the book down and picks up another. “This one too. I had to figure out the cipher for it, but I have it now, so I can start combing through it.”

There’s no way I’m sleeping any time soon so… “I’ll help.”

Haiden slowly pulls himself to his feet. “I’ll make a pot of tea.” He moves stiffly toward the door.

Edwin and I share a glance, and my concern is echoed on his face.

“We don’t need tea,” Edwin calls out. “It’s fine.”

“I’ll make it anyway.” He vanishes through the door.

“He’s not been himself,” Edwin whispers.

“Maybe he’s feeling under the weather. You know what he’s like; he just soldiers on. Remember when he had that awful cold a few months ago?”

“Yeah…” Edwin chews on his cheeks.

Aside from the cold that knocked him off his feet, I doubt Haiden has taken a day off in his life.

“He’s getting older now,” Edwin says. “He should take it easy. Maybe a few days off…”

“Are you going to tell him that?”

Edwin’s eyes go round. “Like hell.” He hands me the slimmer tome and a second notepad. “The cipher is on there.”

The lights flicker again.

We’ll have to get someone in to check the fuse box soon.