‘To beat your sister,’ said Lugus, ‘you will need to work smarter.’

  They met again—once Fáolan had accepted the stranger’s help, and stopped the investigations, finding the dragonar (letting him find Fáolan) had become almost commonplace. It was their third meeting in the new tenuous status quo, and as the mystery of the white-eyed stranger gave way to an accepted unknowing. So be it! If Lugus was offering to help, Fáolan would not bite the offered paw.

  They were in a small chamber now, old and dusty. A study of sorts, though Fáolan had not known it was even there. Lugus had led him here through a few twisting tunnels adjoining one of the alcoves in the mid-palace passage, opened the door with a rusted key.

  ‘How did you know this was here?’ he asked then, frowning. ‘What is this place?’

  Lugus turned to him, smiled. ‘Ah, young Lightbringer. This is, if you will, our new classroom.’

  ‘You did not answer the first question.’

  The smile grew sharp. ‘I know.’

  Fáolan swallowed; that whitish stare and double voice, and the confidence this stranger had and Fáolan lacked—all that sent a cold shudder racing down from spine to tailtip.

  Bookshelves ran alongside three of the chamber’s walls, less so packed to bursting with thick volumes, as one might have expected from such a scholarly sanctuary, than loosely scattered with a pawful of old dusty books. A table sat awkwardly in the room’s centre, looking desperate to rest against a wall, which were, sadly, all presently occupied. The walls—in the few places they were visible near the ceiling—he could barely tell if they were plaster or bare stone.

  He turned to his… tutor?

  Ah, it felt odd to think of him that way, but was it not true?

  ‘Where do we begin?’

  Lugus smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said, pacing across the room to stop at the left-wall bookshelf, plucked a battered tome from the topmost shelf. ‘I think we will start with the basics.’

  'He told you to read?’ Monny groaned.

  Fáolan’s eyeridges furrowed. He kneaded the plush cushions before him uncertainly, careful to keep them safe from his claws. ‘So? We have tried the same thing ourselves.’

  They have met in Fáolan’s chamber, the three of them, where he briefed them on what had happened during his last “class”. It was received with even less enthusiasm than Fáolan himself harboured.

  ‘Exactly!’ Monny reared upon his pillow throne, only to sigh and settle back down, resting his head on crossed paws. He snorted. ‘And it worked soooooo well.’

  Fáolan huffed. ‘It does not mean this will not work.’

  ‘What is the book?’ Veo interjected.

  Fáolan scratched a cushion idly with a side of a claw. After a moment’s deliberation he said, ‘It is an odd one. Do you remember the one you found, about Tír nAill? This one seems even older—and more confusing, if that were possible.’

  ‘Maybe you’re reading it backwards,’ Monny said unhelpfully. ‘Or upside down.’

  Jaw clenched. Eyes closed. No, steady. Breath in. Out. ‘You are not helping.’

  That black-scaled bastard grinned. ‘Bold of you to assume I’m trying to.’

  ‘The point is,’ Fáolan said, loudly, and then, lowering his voice to a regular volume, ‘I am not entirely sure yet what Lugus is trying to teach me. This does not seem to have anything in common with the trials.’

  Monny hummed, expression turning thoughtful. Oh Unity, please no…

  ‘Are you sure,’ he said, ‘you made it past the editorial page?’

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Fáolan ignored him. Though he did not miss a subtle snort that Veo scrambled to mask when Fáolan looked his way. Et tu, Veo? He at least had the decency to appear embarrassed.

  Monny sighed. ‘Look, the way I see it, there are two options.’

  ‘Oh no…’

  He shook his head, then raised his head, shifted on the pillows to sit upright, adjusting himself comfortably before speaking. ‘Option one: you accept the slow path, read the book like a good little student and trust this suspicious, absolutely untrustworthy stranger to lead you on the most important path of your life, quite possibly.’

  Fáolan scoffed; his tail lashed against the cushions behind him, displacing some of their neat array. ‘And the other one?’

  This time Monny’s grin carried a kind of promise that made Fáolan’s neck-scales rise in anxiety and excitement both. ‘Option two,’ he said, ‘involves a heist.’

  ‘This is a bad idea.’

  ‘And yet here we are.’

  Fáolan crept along the secret corridors on silent paws, his two friends in his wake. It was night now, so hopefully wherever Lugus made his lair—if he had one (if he needed sleep…)—he would be nesting there and not following the trio on a quest to uncover the mysteries of his clandestine library.

  The book he had shared, Monny had reasoned, was a decoy. A test—of what? Loyalty? Obedience? They were not sure—conducted before the true treasure of the stranger’s wisdom would be shared.

  A treasure found upon those shelves, or hidden elsewhere in the room.

  They snuck into a side passage, and then along it through a darkening corridor. Veo kept looking around anxiously, but even though he was the only one to show it as clearly, all stewed in apprehension as they approached the hidden lair of Lugus.

  ‘Now here,’ Fáolan whispered, taking a turn and unlocking a door that blended seamlessly with a wall—one he would struggle to spot in daylight, never mind the eternal gloom of this corridor, and it was only thanks to Lugus leading him here before he knew where to look for it.

  Monny exhaled shakily. ‘I didn’t know there was a door here.’ Worry pierced through his affected excitement like sunlight through a fog.

  Fáolan said, ‘Until recently neither did I.’ And then, opening it as quietly as he could, ‘Come on in. There is another corridor there, and then our destination.’

  ‘You know Fáol,’ Monny said as Fáolan closed the door behind them and lit the pair of braziers between bookshelves, ‘when you said he took you to a secret room, I expected something…’ He waved a paw in a circle. ‘Less this.’

  ‘Less searching needed,’ grumbled Fáolan. ‘Let’s spread out.’

  ‘Spread out?’ Monny asked, an eyeridge raised. ‘Even if we stand in three different corners each, we could touch wingtips here!’

  ‘There are three bookshelves here,’ Veo less so interrupted than gently slid into the brief silence. ‘I’ll take the one on the right.’

  They split then, and without much conversation took to perusing the shelves. It was a quick and boring search—the collection (or rather: a scattering) of tomes proved about as interesting as the dust covering the spaces between them, and soon the trio of friends sat in a loose circle, thinking. Monny drummed his claws on the floor. ‘Well, that worked about as well as everything else we’ve tried.’

  ‘There must be something,’ Fáolan said. ‘Something that… ah, I don’t know…’

  Monny sighed. ‘Look, Fáol, I get it, but you can’t expect I would simply hit the table with my tail and—’

  He did it as he said it, smacked his tail against the the desk. There was a click and a something slid from its side.

  ‘—a secret drawer opens,’ he added with half the volume and twice the astonishment.

  Fáolan’s heart thudded fast, an anxious wingbeat inside his chest. He rose to all fours, padded closer to the desk, examined it. The loosed slat seemed to reveal a small hidden compartment, and he reached a tentative claw to open it further.

  It revealed a book—near-black leather with golden trim, and a title that glittered at them: The Complete & Comprehensive Chronicle of the Cavrian Conquests & Crusades.

  It detailed it all—from the rise of Cáondai, through her age of iron claw and further conquests, terminating in her death. As Fáolan leafed through it, with his friends looking over his shoulder, at a point near the end Veo said, ‘Hey, what was that?’

  ‘Hm? Where?’

  Veo shifted, peered closer. A page or two before, I think… yeah there. Look here.’ And he pointed a claw to a line of tightly-packed text.

  Fáolan frowned and read, ‘“…and upon that day hatched prince Aodhan Lightbringer’s single egg…” Wait, this cannot be right. There were two of us, Taori and I.’

  ‘Oh, but it is right, young Lightbringer.’

  That voice—! Their heads whipped as one in its direction, and there he was—a part of him, at least, a floating image of his head dissolving into hist where his torso would be. The phantasmal snout shone weakly in the chamber’s half-gloom, only its eyes giving off a stronger glow.

  Fáolan’s throat felt parched. He tried so speak, but could not, and neither could his friends.

  The spectre said, ‘You see, young Lightbringer, Taori is indeed Aodhan’s scion. But you? No no. Think about it. Your losses, the way he looks at you. There is a reason behind it all.’

  ‘Aodhan Lightbringer is my father,’ Fáolan said weakly.

  The ghostly guest grinned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am your father.’