Free The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) by Aron Sethlen Page A

section, and where he last saw Selby Barrow. The library is mostly empty at this hour as Pard slowly makes his way through the corridors of books and cushy chairs and mahogany desks and tables. He glances up through a circular stained glass skylight as he passes underneath. The bright moon hovers above as clouds roll through the illumination. Pard lowers his gaze, back on track with his purpose, he scans the library like a sly sleuth, searching for his mark while undercover. A glance here, a glance there, taking it all in, not letting on he’s giving any person a passing thought. Pard eyes his normal study table ahead, and his heart sinks, no Selby, shoot .
    Miles slaps Pard hard on the back. “So glad you agreed to help me, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get this stupid Jibles’s law, not to mention Hiner’s Formulaic Phylum of madness.”
    “Right,” Pard says, deflated, uninspired now that Selby Barrow is nowhere in sight. He plops down in his chair and slumps onto the table.
    Miles sits across from Pard and unslings his backpack. “So which madness do you want to start with?”
    Pard ignores Miles and stares across the room at the chair he last saw Selby sitting in.
    Miles drops his thick advanced mathematics book on the center of the table.
    Bang —
    Pard flinches.
    “So which madness is your poison, professor?”
    “Hiner’s Phylum,” Pard says with a crack in his voice.
    “Should I start with number one?”
    “Yes.” Pard leans forward and rests his folded arms on the table and sets his chin on his wrists. “Scribe number one and do the first problem you don’t know how to complete and then I’ll check it to see where you’re going astray.”
    Miles winks at Pard and points his pencil at him. “Smart thinking, professor, I knew you were the right light-wielding badass for the job.”
    “ Right .” Pard buries his forehead in the crook of his arm and closes his eyes.
    “Can I get you anything, dear?” an old woman’s crackling voice says.
    “Oh, no, thanks, Ms. Cookle,” a kind girl’s voice says.
    Pard’s eyes open wide and his head rises. The hunched over ancient librarian Ms. Cookle, wearing a morbid black dress, is hobbling away from a small round table while pushing a book cart. And there she is, sweet Selby Barrow .
    “Done,” Miles says, and he slides his answer over to Pard.
    Pard, drunken grin on his face, ignores Miles as he ogles Selby and her wavy brunette hair tucked behind her ear.
    “Hello,” Miles says, waving his hand at Pard. “Hey, professor, I’m done, you can check my answers now.”
    “What?” Pard says, snapping out of his trance and looking at Miles.
    “Are you smiling at me?” Miles says.
    “ What ? Heck no, I don’t smile .”
    “You are, you’re totally smiling at me.”
    Pard’s face straitens. “No I’m not.”
    Miles snorts. “Yes you are. So what’s gotten into you?”
    “Nothing!” Pard looks down at the table and grades Miles’s first phylum. He slides it back over to him. “You need to carry the two and six, not the four and eight.”
    Miles nods. “Oh, I see.”
    “Now figure out number two.”
    “All right.”
    Miles lowers his head and scribes out number two, and Pard peeks around Miles’s shoulder until his eyes find Selby.  
    Selby adjusts her thin glasses and crosses her legs, then she glances up at Pard and gives him a kind smile.
    Pard, embarrassed, snaps his gaze away and it locks onto Miles’s paper as he works out the phylum. Pard slowly lifts his head.  
    Selby, attention no longer on Pard, is in deep concentration reading a large purple book.
    Pard continues to stare and gets lost in Selby’s presence.
    Miles flicks his pencil in the air and lets it tumble onto the table. “And done!” He slides the paper over to Pard.
    Pard, still lost in his dream, imagining him and Selby strolling in the forest and holding hands, he ignores Miles again.
    Miles leans over the table. He clicks his fingers in front of