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It was still almost an hour before sunrise when I left Penderton. If Conlan had come here four hours ago, he hadn’t slept last night. What was so important?
“How are his studies?” I asked.
“He’s brilliant, as expected. Unfortunately, he seems to be focused on the battle arts rather than more refined, academic pursuits. He’s developed an interest in defensive spells. Apparently, there was an incident. I’m not at liberty to discuss it, but you might want to ask your husband about it.”
Yes, the cursed wereboar, knew all about it. “I’m very proud of him.”
“You’re proud because he brawled like an animal?”
“I’m proud because he put himself in harm’s way to shield others.”
Roland sighed. I had to shift this conversation before he went off on a tirade.
“What did you teach him?”
“The pits, the cloak of Ur, the siege shields… All those things you found boring.”
I couldn’t resist. “The best defense is a good offense, Father.”
“That’s idiocy. Who said that?”
“Your sister.” And many other people.
Roland grimaced. “It sounds like her.”
“I don’t sit back during battles. I do my best work up front, with my swords. That’s where I’m most effective.”
Roland rolled his eyes.
“Is he doing well with the spells?”
“He’s learning faster than anyone in my memory. However, as you recall, the incantations for the siege spells are long.”
“And tedious. So tedious.”
“The tedium is the point. If it were easy, Blossom, anyone could do it.”
My father, the magic snob.
“You seem troubled.” Roland dipped his head to meet my gaze.
For all his faults, Dad was always observant.
“Did Conlan tell you about Penderton?”
“No.”
“During the last flare, some sort of evil appeared in the woods north of Wilmington, near a town called Penderton. It sent its human servants to demand tribute from the town.”
“What form of tribute?”
“People.”
Roland furrowed his eyebrows. “Dangerous and foolish. Go on.”
“They come for tribute every year. They infected the town with something, and the residents die if they leave. The town offered us a lot of land if we can eliminate the threat.”
“I see.”
“I need your expertise, Father.”
I opened the cooler, took out one of the gold collars from the morgue and the plastic cup, and put the bag with the sphere next to them.
Roland picked up the bag. It opened in his hand on its own. A stone sphere floated up, wrapped in red string. Roland flicked his fingers. The stone ball slid back, putting a few yards between us. The red string snapped. The sphere expanded into a boulder.
Roland focused on it. It shrank into a ball, expanded again, then shrank again, and expanded one more time.
“This is of them?”
“Yes. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No.”
The boulder rotated. Thin strands of light wrapped around it—my father analyzing the enchantment.
“It feels primitive somehow,” I said.
“The idea behind it is so basic. What could be more rudimentary than throwing a large rock at your enemy?”
“A very large rock.”
“But only a rock still. The concept is crude, but the execution… I do not know how this is done.” Excitement sparked in his eyes. “How peculiar. Simple idea, tremendous amount of magic to make it function. Grand and yet so inefficient. The work of a toddler god.”
“Is it divine?”
“No. This was made by a human.”
The collar was next. I watched it expand and contract in his fingers.
“Have you noticed the weight?” he asked.
I nodded. “Heavy.”
“Almost pure gold and heavily enchanted. Once put on, it will not come off. The wearer?”
“Dead.”
He sighed. “Of course they are. What did they look like?”
“They were shapeshifters. After they died, they turned human, but they did not look like us. They grow ridges of hair along their spines, their profiles are strange, and they have horns.”
My father raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. The cup?”
I explained the meeting of minds on the killing field in front of Penderton.
He took the lid off. The brown powder snaked out, swirled around his fingers, and slipped back into the cup.
“Spores.”
“What kind of spores?”
“A magical fungus, perhaps. Something that implants within the lungs when it’s inhaled. How quickly did the people die once they left the area?”
“Three days.”
“So it’s fast-acting, and yet the population of Penderton is still alive. Something is inhibiting their growth in Penderton.” He tilted his head and looked at me. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Do you have ink and paper?”
A piece of watercolor paper appeared on the table with an ink bottle, a brush, and a crystal cup filled with water. I took the brush, dipped it into the ink bottle, and colored a circle in a uniform, even purple.
“This is what we do.”
I washed the brush, then drew another circle with water next to the first one. Then I dipped the brush into the ink again and let a single drop fall off its tip into the center. The ink spread through the water circle, a saturated purple in the center that grew paler and more diluted toward the edges. A gradient.
