Mistake.
As soon as they came upon other living creatures within the Tree, heads turned, and the surrounding emotional constellations connected with identical strands of fear. It fed an uneasiness burrowing right in the center of David’s heart.
He’d been in worse places, he told himself. Worse situations. He could handle anything that came next.
Did he want to though?
“Ignore them.” Autumn clasped his hand and motioned toward relevant points of interest on the lower floors of the Tree. Common areas. A school. The infirmary. The Great Terrace, which served as a dining hall where the four noble families held court.
David eyed the library as they passed, his hands itching to wrap around those books. How much knowledge existed in that room? He still had so many questions, so much he didn’t know.
“You can explore it later,” she said, hacking into his thoughts again. “We need to get you outside.”
“Why?”
She aimed a sweet smile at him. “So you can breathe. That was a lot of information, and you seem like someone who needs time to process.”
Fair enough. Thoughoutsidewasn’t exactly where he’d pick. They strolled toward the exit, and he ignored the overt stares, focusing instead on Autumn. The girl made of sunlight.
“So tell me about magic,” he said. “What did Kywyn call it? Luster?”
Stepping past the guards at the entrance, they slipped into the shady forest. That scent of cedar and stardust overloaded his senses again, and a glistening copper creature hopped from one trunk to another.
Autumn pointed toward the canopy. “Luster. The Light. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything. The energy is sometimes visible, sometimes not, but it drives everything in this realm, and we draw it into ourselves as a source of magical energy.”
David lifted their joined hands. “Magic. Like the happiness and heat in your touch?”
She smiled. “Yes. Devas exude heat. But the happiness is mine alone.”
“Devas?”
“Yes. I’m a deva. Well, part deva, part human.”
“What am I?”
She drew one burning finger down his arm. He’d not had a proper look at himself since traversing the mist, but he stared now, and his heart jumped to his throat at the sight. His skin glistened with a faint sheen of gold.
“See all the gold?” she said. “That’s sylph.”
David swallowed the urge to panic. Gold skin. Totally normal.
“If devas are hot, what are sylphs?”
Even her laughter contained Luster. He couldhearthe Light. “Sylphs mostly keep to themselves. They charge their Light with knowledge. They’re…introverted. Sort of reserved? That’s not the right word. They’re pure.”
Well, if there was one thing David was not, it was pure.
“And their Light allows them to see the future,” she said, all offhanded like that wasn’t the most important piece of information.
“The future?” His voice remained even despite the weird tingle creeping along his skin.
“The Sight. Have you ever Seen anything?”
He diverted his attention toward the others around them—reclining in the grass, giggling in groups. They all stopped to stare, sometimes glare, when they caught sight of him.
Each new gaze fired the instincts drilled into his brain, telling him to ferret out the threat, eliminate it. He’d learned young that attention was like a drug—a little felt good, too much was lethal.
“I wouldn’t know,” he lied, distracted by the sheathed dagger at a man’s hip not twenty paces from them. “I wasn’t given an instruction manual.”
