Page 35 of The Thirteenth Count

Cassius slid a small, silver pin across the table toward her. “Go on.”

Fern picked up the pin. Her hand trembled. Just a little. She pressed the tip into the pad of her thumb, wincing as a bead of bright red welled up. She pressed her bleeding thumb against the faceted surface. Oathblight crept from the wound, down her thumb toward her wrist.

The reaction within the gem was instant.

It sizzled. Then, it flared blindingly bright, like the sun she’d only heard about in stories, searing and white. The air filled with the sharp scent of struck flint and pine.

“Too much,” Cassius said, shielding his eyes. “Dampen it.”

“I don’t—” Fern squinted against the glare. “I don’t know how!”

“It is an extension of your will. Pull it back. Visualize a door closing. A fire dying.”

Fern tried. She imagined a heavy wooden door slamming shut. She imagined throwing a blanket over a fire.

The light flickered, then surged brighter, accompanied by a high-pitched whine that rattled her teeth.

“Stop.” Cassius’ hand shot out, gripping her wrist. His fingers were cool and dry. “Release the connection. Now.”

With his other hand, he peeled her thumb from the stone.

The light vanished. The whine cut out.

Cassius released her immediately, stepping back as if he’d been burned. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands.

“Unstable,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “Wildly inefficient.”

Fern cradled her hand. The crystal was hot against her skin. “I told you I didn’t know how.”

“That’s the defect we’re here to correct.” He gestured to the stack of books. “You project power without direction. Like a river flooding its banks. It destroys everything in its path because it has nowhere else to go. You must build the banks, Miss Silverbell. You must create the channel.”

He tapped the top book. Fern tilted her head, reading the spine. The Architecture of Blood.

“Read the first three chapters. Take notes on the structural theories of Sanguine Mechanics. I expect a summary of the relationship between emotional volatility and output variance by this afternoon.”

Fern stared at the book. “That’s… I don’t even know what those words mean.”

“Then use the glossary.” Cassius sat in the chair opposite her and opened his own book, instantly dismissing her. “Begin.”

The next three hours were a lesson in frustration.

The text was dense, written in an archaic dialect that made Fern’s head spin. Sentences ran on for paragraphs, looping back on themselves. Terms like “sanguine resonance” and “etheric viscosity” were thrown around without explanation. The so-called glossary was no help.

Fern read the same sentence four times: The resonant frequency of the blood-bound focus is inversely proportional to the chaotic potential of the practitioner’s emotional state.

“What does that even mean?” she whispered to herself.

Cassius glanced at her book. “It means if you panic, your ability to control your magic is nonexistent. Silence, please.”

Fern grabbed a quill and dipped it in the inkwell, scratching out notes that felt useless.

I’m the practitioner? Chaotic potential… is that my temper? Inversely proportional means the madder I get, the more out of control it gets?

She looked at Cassius. He was reading with focused intensity, his eyes moving rapidly across the page. He looked completely at ease, perfectly in control. The perfect heir.

He probably never exploded. He probably never panicked. He probably came out of the womb reciting blood theory and adjusting his own cravat.

“Stop staring,” he said without looking up. “It disturbs the air.”