Chapter 1

Pages rustled beneath my fingertips and I took comfort from the musty smell of old books. I ignored the pounding headache in my temple as I ran my finger down a list of words that hadn’t been spoken or read in hundreds of years. What I had hoped would be ancient secrets and spells from a long-forgotten civilization turned out to be an erotic tale about the neglected wife of a wealthy landowner and his steward.

I doubted the events recorded in the text had actually happened. For example, the woman bending over her husband’s desk and begging the handsome young steward to inspect her ‘assets’ was almost too much. But, to the author’s credit, the writing in itself was beautiful; more like poetry than fiction.

I closed the dictionary with a sigh, the word I needed missing. Odds were I’d stumbled upon another euphemism for a woman’s genitals. I could’ve assumed, but I was determined to translate the text as accurately as I could.

I dropped my quill and stood, stretching. Maybe Choam, the linguistics instructor, had better dictionaries in his chambers. I turned to close my small window and gasped, swirls of pink and orange lighting up the sky. The Ivory Tower may have been drafty in the winter and hot in the summer, but it had its merits.

I set my mind on finishing the translation that night. Maybe Choam would give me a few candles if I asked nicely.

My quarters were humble, but as an official Scribe at the Ivory Tower, all I really needed was room for a single bed, hearth, writing desk, and stacks upon stacks of books, scrolls, and parchment.

I pushed my chair under the desk and flopped on my bed, straw crinkling beneath my weight as I slipped on my sandals. I fastened the laces as I tried to remember the last time I’d sprinkled flea powder over the straw. Raw wrists and ankles had been a common sight at the Tower all summer. I’d managed to avoid pests, but I’d spent most of my measly wages on keeping myself flea-free.

All the more reason to finish the translation.

The Tower didn’t pay much for erotica, but every little bit helped. Especially if I was going to save up to pay the Mage’s Exam fee.

My quarters let out into an atrium, torch light flickering on the walls as I made my way to a spiral staircase. Linguistics wasn’t the most exciting field of research, nor was it well-funded. Instructor Choam and his colleagues had been sequestered in the basement.

I hurried down the great staircase, its steps the same brilliant white marble as the walls. My headache throbbed in time with the slap of my sandals against the floor. I couldn’t tell Choam what I’d been translating. The old prude would’ve keeled over and died of embarrassment. I’d have to think of a lie interesting enough for him to give me the dictionary, but boring enough that he wouldn’t ask me too many questions.

He’d once confessed that natural sciences repulsed him. Maybe I’d tell him I was translating a naturalist’s account of the mating habits of a rare breed of tropical tortoise.

“Camilla!” A silvery voice carried up from below.

I stopped, bewildered.

“Camilla, is that you?”

Cecelia.

Shame slid down into my belly like a stone. I formed a mental list of everyone I knew at the Tower and what room they lived in, calculating the odds of someone seeing my younger sister. I moved to the railing, leaning over the side. I couldn’t ignore her.

“I’m up here.” I hoped she couldn’t detect the lack of enthusiasm in my tone.

“Where?” Cecelia’s perfect oval face appeared as she leaned over the railing a few floors below, craning her neck to look up at me.

A tense, fearful expression on her typically dreamy face gave me pause. Whatever had caused my sister to seek me out couldn’t have been good.

“What are you doing here?” I ran my hands over the railing.

Her expression crumbled, hazel eyes welling with tears before she dissolved into noisy sobs and blubbered about our older brother, Cassius.

“Keep your voice down,” I hissed, tearing down the stairs.

Snotty tears echoed throughout the Tower. By the time I reached my sister, two people had come to investigate.

“No,” sniffed Cecelia. “My sister is coming. Camilla Durum. Do you know her? She’s been a scribe here for ten years.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line, my headache intensifying from a mild annoyance to a frustrating distraction. I couldn’t get mad at her for saying that. Cecelia didn’t understand that I kept having to delay taking the Mage’s Exam because Cassius always managed to find himself in dire financial straits weeks before the fee was due. She didn’t understand that if not for her, I could tell Cassius to kindly get bent the next time he needed money.

I paused to calm myself, taking a deep breath and smoothing the front of my gray homespun robes. My hair, the same dark blonde as my sister’s, was piled high on top of my head in a messy bun. That couldn’t be helped. Neither could the ink stains on my fingers.

“She was the only one of us to develop any kind of spell casting abilities,” said Cecelia. “Our mother said Camilla would communicate telepathically with her in utero-”

I rushed onto a landing, cringing so hard I feared I would actually die.”Hey, Cecelia. It was nice of you to meet me here.”

She smiled, eyes red and puffy from crying. Her chin-length hair was wild, as if she’d sprinted the whole way to the Tower. Somehow, it made her even more beautiful, like a little bird blown about in a storm.

A milky pale young man in dark robes darted off with a nod of his head. If I had to guess, I would’ve said he wanted to get away before Cecelia started crying again. Her bottom lip had already started to tremble.

I reached out, eager to snatch her arm and drag her away, but a lithe man with a neat, dark beard and pristine robes of the finest cream-colored linen grinned as if he stumbled upon an unexpected delight.

“Camilla never told me she had siblings,” said Hadrian, his mocking tone lost on my poor sister.

Steady footsteps echoed up the stairs as a tall bald man with a heavy brow and dark skin stepped onto the landing, hands clasped behind his back.