“Hello, ruinous Lord,” said a voice that slithered from her throat, sinuous and wrong.
Reagan recoiled so violently that his spine struck the chair. The few candles scattered around the room cast their tremulous light upon her bright white globes, brimming with power.
It chilled his blood.
Judging from Laerune’s stunned expression, she had not expected this. The tutor dropped to her knees with a thump beside Jane’s chair.
“Ever hungry for action, ruinous Lord. Ever blind to the cost,” the entity sang, its words echoing from some depth within her.
“Where is Jane?” Reagan asked, steady through sheer force. He had no idea whether she was in danger, whether the Chantress could harm her from within. He had never heard of this happening in divination. If he had, he would never have forgotten something so vile.
“Diviners bend to no sovereign,” the entity replied. “They heed only my voice through the threads.”
His chest pounded painfully. “Forgive my lack of judgement. If you would release her, I…”
Jane laughed. Or rather, the thing inside her laughed. The veined light around her eyes darkened to something bruised. Abead of blood formed at the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek.
Reagan stopped breathing altogether.
The Chantress spoke then in the ancient language. He understood none of it except a phrase that might have referred tosmall and mortal life. The words made him still.
No one breathed. Laerune stayed kneeling, head bowed. Reagan didn’t know if speaking would make matters worse.
“Forgive me,” he rasped, lowering his head.
The entity leaned back, crimson tears streaking her cheeks, and regarded him with a disdain that reduced him to less than a speck of dust in her universe.
“Do not command my diviners,” she ordered in a voice dripping with menace.
He bowed further, debating whether he should kneel, nearly doing so when Jane’s body slackened.
He lurched forward before she could strike the table, gathering her limp form into his arms as his ass hit the floor.
“I’ll call for Hildegard,” Cerridwen said before she sprung from her chair.
“Is she breathing?” Barracus asked, circling the table.
Reagan found her pulse. Slow, but there. He nodded, too rattled to speak.
Laerune had risen and stared at the empty chair with a bewildered expression. She lifted her hands. Two red petals lay in her palm, the exact colour of Jane’s blood.
Reagan held Jane tighter, his pulse leaping in his throat.
“My Lord,” Xanthos said cautiously, “if you take my advice, you should never have your thread read again.”
“Do you know what she said?” Reagan managed.
The tutor nodded. “She said the Sight will not deign to look upon those whose threads have been moved.”
Chapter 41
Jane
Seraphyn looked as though she had finally given up. After nearly seven weeks, she said that we had to prepare for the real possibility that my ring had permanently damaged me. Not that I should stop trying, she clarified, but something in her irritability told me she considered our lessons a lost cause. I suspected she would suggest to Reagan that he ought to find me another spellcraft tutor.
Not that he had told me anything. Not that he spoke to me more than the bare minimum. And now he wasn’t even appearing at the table for meals. In some ways, his absence was good, giving me the time I needed for research.
The study table had vanished beneath a chaos of books on magefolk laws. I had combed through every summary, hunting for the faintest mention of an argument that might prevent what I was certain Malory would order. The integrity of my father’s memories relied on this.
