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She tried to be angry, she really did. He had deceived her, lied to her, broken her heart. But the anger wouldn’t stick, not when all she felt was the hollow ache of his absence. She tried to tell herself that his note, his gift, meant he truly cared, that he intended to return. But the doubts crept in, the old insecurities that whispered she wasn’t enough. Was never enough to make him stay.
She threw herself into her work, but her thoughts kept straying to him, to the mysteries they had unraveled, and the ones that still remained. She went through the motions of her daily life, but it all felt wrong, out of tune, like a key that no longer fit the lock.
She was a bookshop owner with no rare book to sell, a codebreaker with no cipher to crack. But most of all, she was a fool in love, and she had no idea what to do with that.
But Hali was not one to wallow for long.
She was a dwarf of action, or so she liked to believe, and so she set her broken heart aside, for now, and focused on the task at hand. She had a meeting with Professor Thornsley to prepare for, and she was not about to let her wayward emotions get in the way of that.
She gathered up the papers and notes she had compiled on the ignean script, tucking them into a satchel along with a fresh notebook and a bundle of quills. She debated for a moment whether to bring the grimoire with her, but in the end, she decided to leave it safely hidden at home. She had a feeling the professor would have plenty to say about it even without the physical book in front of him.
Satisfied that she was as prepared as she could be, Hali had just finished locking up the shop when a familiar figure came hurrying up behind her.
“Morning, boss,” Sooty said, falling into step beside her.
“Sooty! Sorry, but I need you to stay at the shop while I take this meeting.”
“Sure, I considered it.” He shrugged. “But then I thought, you know, maybe you could use a hand with this whole meeting thing. You seemed pretty worked up about it.”
Hali felt a lump form in her throat at his unexpected kindness. “That’s—that’s not a bad idea, Sooty. Thank you. But I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Eh, it’s slow in the mornings anyway. And I can always use a field trip to the University. Beats restocking the quills any day.”
Hali smiled, her heart swelling with affection for her young assistant. “All right, then. To the University it is.”
As they walked, Sooty reached into his bag and pulled out a thick notebook, the pages filled with his cramped, spidery handwriting. Hali’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She couldn’t remember a single time in the years they’d worked together that she’d seen Sooty so much as crack a book, let alone take notes.
“You’ve been doing your homework, I see,” she said, unable to keep the teasing note from her voice.
Sooty scowled. “I do know how to read, you know. And write. And take notes, even if they’re not all flowery like yours.”
“I never said they had to be flowery! Just legible. You know, so you can actually read them later.”
Sooty rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Yeah, yeah. C’mon, let’s go find this professor of yours.”
As they walked, the lump in Hali’s throat returned, this time with a side of curiosity. Sooty had been unusually helpful and engaged ever since their encounter with the Obsidian Circle thugs. Not that he was ever unhelpful; he was just more . . . present, somehow. Like he was actively looking for clues, rather than waiting for her to point them out. She’d been so preoccupied with her own thoughts and feelings that she hadn’t given it much consideration at the time, but now, she couldn’t help but wonder.
“Hey, Sooty,” she said, a little hesitant. “Can I ask you something?”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and she could almost feel him bracing himself. “I mean, I guess you’re gonna ask no matter what, so . . .”
She bit back a laugh. He really did know her too well. “What made you suddenly take such an interest in all of this? The grimoire, the coded messages, the whole investigation, really. Not that you aren’t a great assistant all the time, but . . .”
“But I’ve been extra great lately, is that it?” Sooty snorted. “I dunno. Just seemed interesting, I guess.”
“Interesting how?”
“Well . . . I mean, I never said this before, but I did used to go to the university.”
Hali stopped in her tracks, her jaw dropping. “You did? But you’re so . . .”
“Brilliant, I know. It’s a curse.”
“Hey, now, none of that.” Hali couldn’t keep the grin off her face. “But you’re so young still. When was this? What were you studying? Why did you drop out?”
“I was . . . a lot younger than most students. I was only, like, twelve.” Sooty shrugged. “But it was boring, all right? I already knew most of the stuff they were trying to teach me, and I got in trouble a lot for asking too many questions. So I figured, why bother? I could learn more on my own.”
“Of course you got in trouble for asking questions,” Hali said with a fond smile. “You and I both, I think.”
