“Lochryn, I’m looking for someone in the human realm who’s been using Anima and Aether to hurt others. To start a war. Do you know how I can find him?”
“Using Anima? Using Aether?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I cannot see him from here. If he’s human, use human means to find him.” The cloak pivoted toward me, and the eyes that stared out were just like Luna’s—swirling with magic. “Find him,” the man said, and the ground beneath me began to shake.
“Find him,” he said again, then pushed me backward. I was falling, back through starry darkness to nothingness and then into my body on the floor.
I sucked in a breath, the stone floor cold beneath me and the ember in my chest pulsing with heat. Someone was knocking on the door. “My lady? My lady?”
I blinked, opened my eyes. Chairs were overturned, books were on the floor, and a painting had dropped off the wall to lean at an angle. Had I done this?
I rose, stepping over the carnage, and went to the door. I opened it, found the guard gazing back at me.
“My lady?”
“I’m sorry. That must have sounded like a riot. I tripped and knocked something over and made a mess, and then I was embarrassed.” I opened the door wider so he could see—and assure himself that there was no one else in the room.
“Ah. Shall I have a servant come?”
“No, thank you. I did this myself. I’ll clean it up.”
I closed the door again, pressed a fist against the ache in my chest, and set to work. And when I was done and the furniture had been righted, I opened the curtains.
There, on the windowsill, was a white raven, silhouetted against the light of a dozen Anima.
Twenty-six
Catalaya and the prince were standing in the stone courtyard, surrounded by blooming hollyhocks the color of the midsummer sky, when I went out for a walk the next day. She put her hand on his arm and gazed up at him.
The prince didn’t look receptive, but that didn’t make the stone in my belly any lighter. It was a strange contrast to the ember, which hadn’t stopped burning since last night.
“Your Highness. Your Ladyship.”
He looked over first, and his eyes were set and grim.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and moved closer.
“Jonas,” he said. “The farrier’s son. He’s dead.”
It was a warm and sunny day, but all the heat went out of me—all except the warm pulsing in my chest. “Dead? How?”
“The Aetheric practitioner.”
Fuck the moons. “When?”
“Before dawn, we think. He was traveling outside the stronghold to assist his father. He has possession marks.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t think I’d caused it by opening the door, but I sure hadn’t done any damned thing to prevent it.
“A moment,” he said to Catalaya. And without waiting for her answer, he drew me away to the other side of the courtyard. “Did you feel anything? The Aetheric pain?”
I didn’t dare tell him the full truth about my opening the doorway; I knew he wouldn’t send a messenger to the City of Flowers to tell his father, but knowledge was still dangerous. On the other hand, I had to be honest about why I missed the magic.
“I can’t tell you everything,” I said quietly, “there’s too much I don’t know. There are…difficulties in the Aetheric, and Luna visited me a few days ago. She was weak, and I helped her access it.”
“All right.”
