“I hate you!”
“Oh, boo hoo. Throw a tantrum if it makes you feel better.” His pa rapped his cane against Rolan’s shin. “But save it for later, boy. We’re almost to the traps, and remember what I said: Whatever damage my men take out here, I’ll visit on your pretty girlfriend. So make sure we come to no harm, eh?”
Furious and terrified in equal measure, Rolan continued up the track, seeing no other course. His pa was right. They were very near Luc’s house now, and he began to see signs of the Cryptic traps. The thin wires were nearly invisible, except to Rolan who’d strung some of them himself. He briefly considered leading them all into a pit, and leaving them trapped inside. But they were tall enough to climb on one another’s shoulders and escape.
He showed the group where to step and where to duck, feeling like a dirty traitor every time. This was just like in the forest, when he’d led the Cryptic straight to Luc. Only this time he knew what he was doing, and he pressed on anyway.
Anaya,he reminded himself.Anaya.
“You’re not going to hurt him?” Rolan asked softly. “You swear?”
“I told you before,” his father replied thinly, having dropped all pretense of friendliness. “We’re just gonna have a chat, like reasonable gentlemen.”
Rolan’s heart was as hard and shrunken as a pebble clattering around in his chest. Maybe Luc wasn’t even home. Maybe they’d run into a Cryptic and it would eat all his father’s nasty friends.
Maybe.
But as they rounded the hill where Luc’s pit trap had once caught Rolan, he knew he was out of luck. He could see a thin, weak thread of smoke twisting in the distance, marking the Arcanist’s home like a beacon, confirming he was inside.
“Just a chat,” Rolan whispered.
Once the house came into view, looking smaller than Rolan remembered it, he began to tremble. Where was Supper? His last hope had been that the goat would raise its noisy alarm and bring Luc thundering down on them like a storm, or fleeing into the forestat least. But there was no sign of the goat, and this made Rolan queasy with dread.
Luc had made no more progress in reconstructing the burned section. The windows of the house were gray and lifeless. If it weren’t for the smoke, Rolan would think the place had been abandoned for weeks.
“You did good, boy,” his father said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Now stay out of the way.”
“Don’t hurt him!” Rolan cried out.
“Quiet,”hissed Cabbot, shouldering him aside.
Then the men did something that made Rolan’s blood turn to ice.
Each one took a small item from his pocket—a claw, a talon, a feather.
Relics.They were usingrelics!
Rolan waited in dread for them to crack the glowing blue objects with their knives, though he wondered where and how his father could possibly have learned how to find the Hollow Path. The idea of Rabb Strider calmly meditating for hours seemed ludicrous. So then how—
“Just bite down,” Hoff said. “It don’t taste good, but it’ll do the trick.”
Rolan gaped, speechless, as his father and his cohorts lifted the Cryptic parts to their mouths and began cracking them with their teeth, as if the relics were crayfish plucked from the riverbank. Flashes of bluish-white light erupted where the pieces splintered apart. The men ground and crunched the monstrous bits, sounding grotesquely like a pack of dogs chewing a pile of old chicken bones.
This was not at all how Rolan had been taught to use Arcana. Luc had never said anything aboutthis.
“Eugh,” Cabbot groaned. “Tastesterrible.”
“You gotta swallow it all,” Hoff replied, wincing as he ground a claw between his molars. The motion made his hood tip back a little, and Rolan saw an odd, scabby mark down the side of the man’s face. It looked almost likescales. But when Hoff saw Rolan looking, he snarled and yanked the hood down again.
“Do it,” ordered Rabb. “All of you. You’ll need the strength. That Arcanist is more monster than man.”
Rolan took a step back as his father’s eyes began to glow blue, like Luc’s did when he drew in the magic. But the Arcana didn’t stop there. Dark blue lines spread outward from Rabb’s eyes like spiderwebs. They traced jagged lines across his forehead, cheeks, and temples, giving him an appearance far more monstrous and terrifying than Luc had ever looked.
Whatwasthis? Eating relics to obtain Arcana? It feltwrong. All of this waswrong wrong wrongand Rolan had no idea how to stop it.
“Now we’re ready,” Hoff said, narrowing his eyes to glowing blue slits. He and the other men also had dark spiderwebs of magic crackling across their faces like horrible masks. “Told you lot these would come in handy.”
“Itburns,” gasped Cabbot, gripping his ribcage as if he were about to be sick. His eyes also glowed blue, and veins of Arcana bulged under his skin.
