Page 127 of Harbinger

But I still feel what he left behind, digging itself deeper and deeper. I’ll never get it out of me, and Bishop just moved on.

He went back to living like nothing even fucking happened.

Hadrian inclines his head as if he can see my blood boiling. “Go easy on him,” he says quietly, even though we’re the only ones in the library.

I huff. “Why?”

He adjusts his glasses. “Because you don’t know what you’re asking from him.”

So much for information.

But one glance at the notes beneath his hand tells me that Bishop isn’t the only one hiding behind books. The paper is crowded with cramped notes and strange diagrams, lines of thoughts crossing and looping back on themselves as if he’s trying to trap an answer before it can escape.

“Is that why you’re here?” I point to the work in front of him. “You’re looking for answers about scions, too?”

At night, when I can’t sleep, when I wake still stumbling from that forest to find my bedroom staring back at me, I think about that. About Bishop in that bookstore and the book he stole.

About what he’s really after.

“Isn’t that what we’re all doing?” Hadrian asks. “Trying to figure out why we’re here?”

“Is that what Bishop is doing? Trying to figure out what he really is? Is that why he goes out looking for these old texts?” I can’t explain why it’s important. It’s more like it’s an itch I can’t quite scratch.

He doesn’t look up. “He has his reasons.”

“And you aren’t going to explain them.” It’s not a question.

But he glances over his glasses at me. “No.”

I sigh and shove the book I brought closer to him. “Can you at least read this to me?”

“No.”

I stare. “No?”

He taps the cover. “Learn.”

I glare down at him. “I don’t know the ancient tongue because I’m not … How old are you, exactly?”

“Roughly five hundred and thirty-four, but I might have missed a few years.”

The answer knocks the air from my lungs, and it takes me a minute to catch my breath. “You were alive during the Last War.”

A shadow moves across his face. “Yes.”

Five hundred years later, and it’s still haunting him. That doesn’t bode well for me moving on.

“Were you a scion then?” Something bubbles in my chest, the sensation unwelcome. Curiosity will only get me killed.

“No.” He shoves his notes into a stack. “That came after.”

I want to understand. I need to understand. Before this sweeps me away and I can never find my way back. I take a deep breath and push forward. “I guess that’s why you know the ancient tongue.”

“Five hundred years is hardly ancient.” He almost looks offended by the idea, but he finally reaches for the book. Squinting, he studies the pages before cursing. “Immortality should come with better eyesight.”

“I thought it might give me answers about … all of this.” I gesture vaguely to where my raven-mark hides under my woolly secondhand sweater. There’s a difference between coincidence and the Stars smacking you in the face to force you to pay attention. I can’t have just wound up here with Bishop, with this secret, with this mark.

“I can teach you how to read it.” He sets the book down and sighs. “It’s always better to know how to find answers for yourself. But this text won’t have the answers you want.”