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“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Gabe replied, all but echoing my thoughts. “The wild magic that resides in your DNA is strengthening the connection to the old spring, but only, I suspect, because it was unprotected when you arrived here, and your magic infused the area when you placed your protection spells around it.”
I wrinkled my nose and sat down on one of the bigger rocks near the wellspring. Its power washed over me, warm and inviting. Just what it was inviting me to do, I had no idea. If Katie knew, she wasn’t saying.
“It came to me when I was in Canberra.”
“Did it?” He sat down opposite me and scratched his chin. “I guess, given you control it in ways no one has for hundreds if not thousands of years, that is not unexpected. There is so much we simply do not know about the springs these days.”
“When you were researching the binding spell and came across the references to the Fenna, did it saywhya binding spell was needed if that binding happened on conception?”
“Nothing at all. As I said, information was scattered and hard to find.” He frowned, his silver gaze distant but luminous. “It’s possible not all Fenna were conceived in a newly formed wellspring—there is, after all, only a very limited number of them emerging over the course of a century.”
“Walking into an established wellspring to procreate would endanger both parentsandchild, though,” Kate said. “The two of us are a great example of what exactly can go wrong.”
“But it didn’t go wrong,” I said. “Your spiritisbound, as intended.”
“Yes,” she answered, “but we certainly never intended for me to die straight away—we’d hoped the spell would simply ensure that on my death, my soul would remain here. And we certainly never intended for Gabe to die alongside me.”
“I’d say that was due more to the fact he was working on gut instinct and scraps of spell information. Hate to say it, but the fact it was successful was probably due to good luck rather than meticulous groundwork.”
He smiled. “Sometimes the best spells are those that rely on gut instincts.”
Thatwas a motto I lived by. I took a drink, more to keep my fluids up than because I was actually thirsty. The air around the wellspring’s pool was surprisingly pleasant. Maybe Katie was using the wild magic to keep the worst of the heat out. While she was a soul ghost and he a regular one, and neither should in any way be affected by the heat, her comment when I arrived suggested they were at least aware of it.
But then, I knew as little about soul ghosts as I did Fenna.
“It is also possible,” he went on, “that the spell went awry because neither of us have Fenna in our bloodstream.”
“And yet wolves are used in the creation of the Fenna.”
“Yes, but I found no mention of them surviving. Has Eli found any such note in the book he transcribes?”
“Not yet; he’s still working his way through it.”
“Then perhaps he’ll eventually find the answers,” Katie said. “In the meantime, I’ll continue to keep an eye on the older wellspring and will notify you if I sense any sort of change.”
“Was there a change before the previous attacks?”
She nodded. “There was a distinct buildup of power within the compound, but I had no means of counteracting it or warning anyone of the problem.”
Because I was in Canberra dealing with fuckwits—both the murderous kind and the not.
“Does that mean it’s not gathering right now?”
She paused, her expression briefly distant. “It doesn’t build up in the compound, but there is a gathering within the wellspring’s basin.”
“Is that usual?”
“No.” She frowned. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”
I took another drink and rose. “I’d better go.”
“Yes, you should.” Amused delight bubbled through her voice. “It never pays to keep your fiancé waiting, especially when the betrothal has not yet been christened.”
I laughed. “You were spying?”
“I was.”
“I didn’t see any threads.”
