“Oh, it’s definitely a trap,” Ellery said. Although Maltherius, much like Syarthis, had failed to breach her mind, ithadmanaged to force the painfully familiar image of Nordmere’s alban on her. She’d sworn she’d never go back.
Ellery fiddled with the blue stone Maltherius had dropped after it died. Unlike the sharp, staticky chill of Decibel’s, this one felt clammy, like a cold sweat.
“At least if we get ambushed up North,” she continued, “we’ll have a chance to kill Kythion.”
Domenic forlornly studied the enchanted calendar on the wall. The previous day’s date with its notation of Ravfiri’s vigil had dimmed. “Even if destiny will eventually ask us to take out the Dire Three, that’s not the piece we’ve got now. We’re supposed to be finding Summer’s traitor.”
“And once you do, your next piece might well be your last,” Glynn reminded them. He sounded more somber than celebratory, although after Maltherius had knocked him unconscious in the vigil chamber while it attacked his students, Ellery didn’t blame him. “Barrow’s right. Your job is still to focus on the prophecy first.”
“I never said I disagreed,” Ellery mumbled tiredly. “But for once, I think Sharpe had a point when he said Maltherius and the traitor could be connected. That’s why Hanna’s going to Nordmere with us, why…”
Suddenly, the stone in her hand pulsed. Once, then twice, until the sensation reverberated up her arm in a steady rhythm. Fissures spread across its frozen surface. Ellery gaped as light beamed through them, brighter and brighter until it flooded the office in an eerie blue. Domenic shouted in alarm and drew Valmordion, while Glynn hastily pointed Aetherium. But rather than explode into shrapnel or somehow resurrect Maltherius, the stone transformed.
Its icy shell crumbled away until Ellery clutched a large silver aspen pod.
“What just happened?” Domenic choked. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” she said hastily, examining it. “I wasn’t doing any magic, I swear, just talking. And then it turned into…”
A seed.
All three of them fell silent as the gravity of the situation took hold. Hope unfurled in Ellery, surprised, wondrous, precious hope.
“This is proof,” she exclaimed. “I mean, Maltherius is Syarthis’s counterpart, and Syarthis is made of aspen wood, isn’t it? So if this seed found the right wielder, then I bet they really could turn it into a wand. A Winter wand. Just like I did with Iskarius.”
“What?”Domenic shook his head. “No. No, we can’t.”
Ellery startled. “What do you mean, we can’t?”
“Ellery, please, think,” Glynn urged. “You still don’t knowhow you made Iskarius, nor do you know how you turned Maltherius’s… well, whatever it is, into a seed. The stakes are too high to play around with things we don’t understand.”
“But we’resoclose to understanding it,” Ellery said. “I can feel it. I just need to think. Glynn, do you still have Decibel’s stone stored here?”
Glynn hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally, and flicked Aetherium. A filing cabinet opened, and a box lifted out and landed on his desk. Ellery set the aspen pod down and lifted Decibel’s stone.
“I was talking when Maltherius’s seed started to change,” she said, thinking aloud. “But I’ve spoken while holding these things before, and it didn’t have any effect. So what was different? What did I…Oh.” Her breath hitched. “I said its name.”
“All right,” Domenic said slowly. “But even if that’s what triggered it, we don’t know this one’s name. Not its real name, anyway.”
Ellery huffed in frustration and replayed the moments before Maltherius’s seed had transformed. How it had thumped in her hand.
Like a heartbeat.
Ellery drew Iskarius and focused, just as she had in the Barren four weeks ago. She shut her eyes. Decibel’s staticky cold prickled against her palm, and she exhaled, trying to listen.
Faintly, she found a rhythm. Ellery fed her own magic into the stone—no, the heart—until it thudded steadily in her hand, until a name crackled in her mind.
“Eledrium,” she said, like a command.
When she opened her eyes, a silver pinecone rested in her palm.
“Okay,” Ellery said excitedly. “It’s Ravfiri’s counterpart. And they’re both made of pine.” She set Eledrium’s seed down, then summoned one of Glynn’s spare notebooks. Ellery dictated through Iskarius, each word appearing on the chart as soon as she’d thought it.
