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I turned brusquely away from him, all the warmth between us instantly banished by a cold gust of air.
“I’ve got the camphor,” Nathaniel said, banging through the doorway.
I dashed to take the jar from him and empty its contents into the pot over the fire, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the deep blush that had started in my chest and was sweeping up my neck and into my cheeks.
Nathaniel glanced at Zan. “I see you’re feeling better.”
“Yes,” Zan said, questioning eyes on me. “Much better, I think.”
20
That evening, when I was alone again, the first thing I did was crack open the copy of the Compendium Zan let me take from the library. The day had left my feelings in an unruly tangle; now, whenever my thoughts began to drift, they invariably made their way back to Zan. His insufferable smile. His maddening, uncaring demeanor. His quick wit, his sharp tongue. His eyes.
To distract myself, I threw all my energy into a single, straightforward task: the identification of the blood mage who murdered Falada.
Despite the questionable place from which my motivation sprang, the goal was a worthy one. Now that High Gate’s seal was broken, the clock for Forest Gate was ticking. If we didn’t act soon, a maid, a mother, and a crone would meet the same fate as Falada. Zan believed these three sacrifices would be attempted in the span between the waxing and waning gibbous moons, the full moon marking the middle, the apex of the month. Ten days in total, but the attacks could begin anytime. We could not afford any delay.
I scoured the book back to front but saw nothing that might help until I turned to a section about scrying. Farseeing, it said on the top of the page. Most easily practiced by feral or high mages. Blood magic is less precise and may return unsatisfactory results.
It was the best option I could find, but my hopes to attempt it died quickly; this spell required a small personal token. I could use it to see someone far away, someone I knew, but it would not help me identify a stranger. I closed the book, frustrated, only to immediately open it again.
I could use it to see someone far away, someone I knew. I could use it to see my mother.
I needed her. I wanted to tell her everything. The fear, the hurt, the triumphs . . . the unexpected and complicated connection with an intriguing, infuriating boy with green eyes.
Following the instruction of the spell, I filled a copper bowl to the brim with water and let it settle until the surface was as smooth as glass. Lay out the memento of the person you’re trying to reach, the book said. A lock of hair, a handwriting sample, or a painting of their visage.
I did have my wedding dress, sewn with my mother’s own hand, but it was packed away, and I didn’t want to be reminded that when all of this was over, if things went successfully, I’d still have to marry Zan’s cousin. No, I’d use the bloodcloth. Kneeling, I held the folded square in one hand while I nicked a finger on the other and let the blood drip into the bowl.
Concentrate, the book directed, and repeat the words: Indica mihi quem quaeritis. Show me the one I seek.
“‘Indica mihi quem quaeritis,’” I said as the droplets of my blood bloomed like roses in the water.
I clutched the bloodcloth and searched the water for some sign that it was working . . . anything . . .
When an image finally formed like an oily sheen on the surface, it was not my mother’s face I saw but a man’s. The spell had warned me that blood magic could return unsatisfactory results, but I was disappointed anyway. I squinted and leaned closer. It looked like . . .
I cried out in shock, knocking over the water bowl and breaking the vision.
The bowl had shown me the figure of a man, suspended in light, eyes closed, with wide green leaves dressing the wound on his naked torso where Toris had embedded his knife.
Trembling, I unfolded the bloodcloth.
After Kellan died, the circular drop of his blood had faded to almost nothing, but it had never totally disappeared. It was now almost as dark as the day he let it fall to tie his life to mine.
There were three bright drops of blood on the cloth. Three. Was it proof that somehow he’d toed the edge of death and come back from the brink?
Stars save me, I thought, astounded. Kellan is alive.
* * *
I had to get a message back home to Renalt. Not to my mother, trapped as she was in the Tribunal’s custody, but to the Greythorne estate. Kellan’s family. They’d been kind to me when I was a child, and they were loyal to my mother and the crown.
And what was more, they’d have the resources and the reasons to find Kellan, if he was truly still alive and not a conjuring of my wild imagination, and ensure his safe return home.
Bringing anybody else into the knowledge of my identity could endanger them. It would have to be a stranger. Someone who didn’t know me, someone who wouldn’t question what I needed them to do or why I was asking them to do it. Someone who wouldn’t think twice about going on a dangerous journey with nothing to go on besides my word.
In short, I needed to find someone who had nothing to lose.
