It had taken all evening and a small mountain of scrap paper to get the wording right, but by the time he copied it onto the pages he’d coated with Isaveth’s tracking potion, he felt certain Eryx would take the bait. The biggest challenge had been figuring out how to tempt his brother without putting Isaveth in danger. The drawback of having hardly any friends was that there was only one person to whom he could plausibly send such a personal letter, yet somehow he had to write it without giving Eryx any information he might use to blackmail her. So he’d made it sound like Isaveth was upset because he’d tried to kiss her—let Eryx wonder where and when that could have happened—and ever since she’d arrived at the college he’d been trying to get her alone to apologize, but she wouldn’t let him. So he’d poured out his feelings on paper in a soppy and thoroughly degrading way, and made sure to include a few ugly slurs against his family and hints that he’d started stealing drinks from the Sagelord’s private cabinet, something that would get Esmond in colossal trouble if it were true.
