Page 64 of Elysian

Was he well? “Cassiel?”

I reached a shaking hand toward his shoulder. In a movement so fast I could not follow, he had me flattened on the floor. His eerie gaze swept over me. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Red flaked off.

“Did you feed me?” he croaked, slowly pushing himself upright.

“Yes,” I said, tone even.

“Are you well?” He continued looking me over. I nodded, my head rubbing against the crunchy leaves beneath me.

“Good.” He sat back and groaned, rolling his shoulders. “I have never ached this way.” Cassiel gripped his knee and tugged it up, bringing his broken ankle closer to him. He rolled the limb, a wince on his face.

My stomach growled. I pressed my palm to it.

“Are you hungry?” He released his knee.

“I healed and did not scar,” I said, holding up my wrist instead of answering his inquiry. The slice that had been there was completely gone now. My body had changed despite feeling the same. Cassiel rolled to his knees, closer to me.

He cupped my face and lifted. I craned my neck to stare into his eyes.

“Your eyes . . .” he murmured. “Were you crying?”

I avoided his gaze, instead focusing on the thin line of his mouth. “I am fine.”

He sighed and rubbed his thumb against the swell of my cheek.

“I have to get you to a safe place.”

He released me and clicked his tongue. Leaves crunched under Abrax’s hooves as he neared. Cassiel’s strides ate the ground, and he reached the same pack that I had taken the hoof pick from.

“There is nowhere to go that you will not be recognized.” I lifted my fingertips to my throat. “Or me.”

Cassiel’s hand scooped something out from the bottom of the pack. He came out with a slim parchment. I approached as he carefully unrolled it. Across it were scrawled images of rivers and mountain ranges. This was what he had on his desk the first time I had walked into his library.

“Did you ever find what you needed in the Creation Scripture after I translated it?”

“No, I only added this mountain range.” He tapped a finger over the carefully drawn mountains near the edge of the parchment. “It was the only piece of information of use.”

A passage in the Scripture had mentioned the river that cut through two mountains. He sounded disgruntled.

“Wait a moment, you had said you sought answers for your waning gifts.”

His eyes slightly widened. He’d let out another truth. Another thing he had hidden.

“I was . . . but not only that.”

“And what were you searching for?”

“Any hidden nature-created structures the Resistance could be hiding in.”

I slowly turned my head toward him. For awful reasons. “That’s why you had me translating it. You were always searching for the unregistered redbloods,” I breathed.

He did not deny it.

“You are unbelievable,” I spat. If he had found it, I knew he would have dragged every single redblood and aiding blueblood back to the council. Or worse, killed them.

“You sought to end the Resistance."

He inclined his head, features rigid as if he knew I was about to lay into him.