Jane hadn’t wielded on her own. He was no longer sure she ever would. Perhaps the relic had damaged her access permanently.
It served him right to be wrong. And now he would meet another noblewoman. And since he could not rage, he drank. Hehid. He prowled the Northern Forest more than he did his own home. Above all, he avoided her.
Jane stayed with her father for most of the time. Reagan had been curious to meet him, though he tried not to linger on how quickly the man had shifted from worrying about his daughters to worrying about himself. He had expected questions when he admitted he loved Jane, braced to admit that his daughter had rejected him. Yet somehow that didn’t seem to matter to the man.
It left a sour taste in Reagan’s mouth.
Jane didn’t seem to notice it. She had recognised the unavoidable consequence that followed a human learning about the mageborn, and her first instinct was to fight Malory on it.
Cerridwen passed through the threshold of the visitors’ chamber, and Reagan followed.
It would be a small meeting without Varian for obvious reasons.
He moved to Jane’s side of the table and took the chair that faced hers, the divination tutor standing behind her. His Second and Third settled on the opposite side of the table.
“Let us get this over with.” He exhaled, resting one arm on the table as though that made him appear unconcerned.
A goblet of water waited before him.
“My Lord,” Laerune said with a head bow, then turned to Jane. “Lord Reagan will bleed into the cup. Three drops will suffice. You will drink it. His blood will create a connection to his essence and allow you to see his thread.”
At the corner of his vision, he saw her shift, clearly uneasy. Reagan clenched his teeth. What if she saw something dreadful? What if she didn’t want to do this at all?
“You don’t have to do this,” he muttered, staring at the cup. “We can find another way to prove that Madden interfered.”
There was silence, and he hoped she was reconsidering.
“Can you look at me?” Jane asked.
He turned. Her expression was steady, almost serene. “If there is proof that he tried to ruin your life or curse Mountheim that I can find, I will get it,” she said, sounding like a perfect staff member.
“Good.” He sliced his palm with a lick of power, the cut stinging faintly as he let three drops fall inside the goblet.
He closed the cut with barely a conscious intention and swirled the water before sliding the cup to her.
“You may drink, Jane,” Laerune said.
Her throat moved as she swallowed, and Reagan’s gaze tracked the path of his own blood as she drank. He found himself staring at the buttons of her white cotton shirt and the subtle rise and fall of her chest. Her free hand pressed into the dark denim of her trousers in a small, grounding motion.
“I’m ready,” Jane said, setting the goblet aside.
Laerune inclined her head, resting a hand on Jane’s shoulder, siphoning to her. “You know what to do.”
Jane’s lashes fell over her freckles as she closed her eyes. Silence deepened until he could hear his own breathing and tried to recall anything of value from his boyhood studies of divination. Only fragments of theory and a few legends about Zara remained.
He scratched his eyebrow. Waited. Considered calling for the tutor before a gasp cut through the quiet.
Jane’s brows knotted, her fingers curled into a white-knuckled grip. Her face drained of colour, and then the veins around her eyes became starker, flaring with essence, as though mana surged through them, etching glowing paths beneath her skin.
Her breathing grew heavier, her mouth slackening as if she strained against something unseen. Reagan didn’t like how thatlooked. He leaned forward and caught the soft groan torn from her.
“No.” The word escaped her in a whisper.
He reached for her knee before thinking. At the same moment, Laerune warned, “Better not touch her.”
It was a second too late. Jane’s expression shifted. When her eyes opened, they were white enough to look rolled back into her skull.
When Jane smiled, it was not her smile.
