We make a quick stop in Elia’s room to drop off her lavender bundles, so when we make it to the library at last, Ginna and Hanson are already waiting for us.
They jump to their feet when they see us.
“What’s going on?” Ginna asks. “Where’s the fire?”
I settle into a seat. “No idea. Elia called this meeting. She claims she knows how to find the Stone.”
Three pairs of eyes land on Elia.
“Remember what you thought my name was when you picked me up at the camp?” Her eyes flicker between Ginna and me.
“Clover,” I answer. “Because that’s what they called you there.”
“And why was that?” Elia prompts me.
“Because you had found the most relics. Which is why we came to ask for your help.”
She shuffles on her feet. “Yes and no. Yes, I found the most relics, but now you know it’s because I could sense them and knew right away if I had found something. Which I also thought was luck because I assumed everyone felt the same. But,” she waves a hand through the air. “That’s besides the point. They called me Clover specifically because the very first relic I found when I was fifteen was aclover ring.”
Elia’s voice is rising with each word now. “It was beautiful, and me being new to the camp, I was naive and put it on my finger right away. I found four more relics before one of the guards noticed. When the guard tried to take a swing at me –”
“When he tried what?!” I exclaim, my hands falling off the armrests of the chair. I must have heard that wrong.
Elia turns to me, exasperated. “It was normal – you’re getting off topic.”
I try to open my mouth again, but she glares at me and I raise my hands in surrender. But she’d better believe that I’m going to revisit that topic at a later point. I already knew that the one guard, Soren, hit her, and he’s already been taken care of by my other Hunters. If I find that anyone else in those camps so much as looked at Elia wrong, I will have no hesitation to burn the entire camp to the ground and mix ashes with the sand.
“Anyways, as I was saying,” she continues, shoots me a dirty look. Ismirk back, enjoying the feistiness in her. “When the guard took a swing at me, he completely missed, fell off-balance, and knocked himself out cold. Another one of the people working near me told me I must have been the luckiest person alive to miss his swing!”
She stares expectantly at all of us. “Don’t you see? That ring provided the wearer with an exorbitant amount of luck! If we have the ring, we could have the luck we need to find the Stone. When I first saw the guard when I had the ring on, my first thought wasplease don’t hit me. And he didn’t! He never missed a hit except that day! If one of us wears the ring and thinks about finding the Stone, we’d be able to find the right clue or direction as to where it is.”
Silence falls in the room as we absorb Elia’s story. I’m still half-distracted by the guard who never missed a hit.
Hanson is the first to break the silence. “Well, personally, I don’t see the harm in trying the ring. We seem to be at a stalemate with everything else, so having some luck on our side can’t hurt, right?”
Ginna shrugs. “Definitely can’t hurt. I’m in. Nice thinking, Elia.”
Elia positively beams and her eyes land on me for the final vote. “Absolutely, Siren. Can you describe the ring a little more? We probably have hundreds of rings that were turned into relics.”
Rings and necklaces were popular forms of relics as they could easily be carried on a person surreptitiously. Any relics that are found are first processed by the guards and overseers, then transferred to the palace. There’s a subgroup of Hunters that test the relics again, record them, and then eventually lock them in the vault. There’s a good chance the ring Elia is talking about is still there, or if not, there should be a record of who took it out.
Ginna and Hanson take a seat as Elia starts pacing the room, squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to remember.
“It was silver and had a thick band, like a man’s ring. There might have been a border etched in – maybe black? The band had a braided design that was interwoven with the clover pattern. It didn’t look like clovers unless you examined it closely. Oh – and there was an engraving on the inside.” She presses a hand to her temple. “What was it? Knotted by chance? Braided by destiny? Tied together by fate? Something along those lines.”
Fuck. Me. A chill passes through my body and I still. In an instant my throat is parched, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Life couldn’t be this cruel, could it?
“Bound by fate?” I croak.
Elia snaps her fingers. “Yes! That was it.” She frowns. “Wait, how did you know that?”
I lick my lips to respond, but nothing comes out. Life could be thatcruel, it turns out.
“Cal? Are you okay” Ginna asks. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”
Elia comes over and grabs both my hands. “Cal, what is it?”
Her presence helps steady me enough to answer. “I know where the ring is.” I take a deep breath. “I gave it to Rafe.”
