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CHAPTER 43
Marguerite is awake. Athene nudges me aside, holding a small glowing stone as she lifts Marguerite’s eyelids to study her pupils. “Very good,” she murmurs. “The damage isn’t as great as I feared.”
“She’s all right?” I gasp. “She’ll recover now?”
Athene leans back. “There are no guarantees,” she cautions, “but I’m optimistic.” She nods to me as she stands, and her eyes dart to Gregor in the doorway. “You did well, Cat, especially considering you’ve had no training.”
Marguerite’s blue eyes shift around without focusing. “It’s so dark in here.”
Light of Day, she’s blind. I sit forward. “I’m right here, Marga.”
As soon as I’m in front of her, she smiles. “There you are.”
“Can you see me?”
“Yes, a little now that you’re in the light coming from the door.”
I frown in confusion. “But the whole room is lit.”
“It isn’t for her,” says Gregor, and I look over my shoulder at him. “Hadrians can’t use moon magick.” He takes a few stepsinto the room and rests his hand on one of the spherical stones sitting atop a candlestick. “This is a moonstone,” he says. “It absorbs moonlight and recasts it back out. These are fading, though. They only last a few weeks.”
“That you can see by them means you’ve passed the basic Selenae test,” Athene adds.
He grunts. “There are others.”
Athene smiles with grim triumph. “She will exceed in them all.”
The metallic stone is still in my hand, and I offer it back to my cousin. It doesn’t glow like the moonstones, but it seems to hum with an unseen energy. “What is this?”
“We call it bloodstone because it conducts magick as well as blood does.” As soon as she takes it, my fingers tingle like I’ve hit my elbow. “They absorb and store magick like a moonstone, but release it in invisible ways. If you put them close to a wound, it will heal much quicker, though it works better on Selenae than Hadrians.”
The rumors that Selenae physicians use unnatural methods aren’t unfounded. I shake the numbness from my hand. “Are you using them to help Marguerite?”
“The swelling must go down first,” says Athene. “I’ll also need to move the bone into a better place before encouraging it to mend. She should be ready for them in a few days.”
Marguerite whimpers. “I don’t want healing with magick.”
Athene rolls her eyes, but I reassure my friend. “Marga, do you believe I’m a good person? Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she answers swiftly. “But the moon is the thief of the Sun’s light. Anything from it is corrupted.”
“The Moon is not a thief,” rumbles Gregor. “It’s gifted the same Light as everything else. The difference is it blesses others with what it has received.”
Marguerite cringes from his hostile tone. I scowl at my uncleas I take her hand again. “If moon magick is corrupt, then so am I, Marga. Because I am Selenae.” Or at least partly so, as my blood is apparently diluted. “These people are my family.”
“You have their magick?” she whispers.
“I do. And Mother Agnes knew it.”
Marguerite is silent for a long time. Tears leak from her eyes back into the bandages. Finally she whispers, “I will trust them for your sake.”
“Good, thank you.” Her forehead is wrapped, so I kiss her cheek. “It will be all right. I promise.”
Athene takes my elbow and urges me up. “My assistant will be back with some broth, Little Sister,” she says. “Don’t go to sleep yet.”
“I’ll see you soon,” I call as my cousin herds me from the room.
Gregor has vanished, but I hear him going upstairs as Athene propels me into the kitchen. “Take off your cloak,” she says. “Stay a while.”
