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And there’s nothing.
Not even a tiny quiver of magic wafts off the pouch and its contents. As far as my riven soul can tell, there’s no power attached to it at all.
Suppressing my confusion, I stand up and tuck the pouch into the pocket at my hip. Were the conspirators somehow mistaken about an artifact they got their hands on? Or—
The answer comes to me like a flaming arrow out of the night.
It’s all a trick. A gambit to test me in all sorts of ways.
They wouldn’t trust me with a blessed object when I’ve barely started proving myself. They simply want to know whether I’ll do as they say. Whether I’ll alert the authorities to their supposedly violent scheme.
This time.
When I carry out their task, gods only know what they’ll ask of me next.
Seventeen
Ivy
An even thicker silence hangs over the school when I return to the Domi. Even the drunkards have found their way to their beds.
I slink through the halls with every sense on the alert. The small weight grazing my hip with the sway of my skirt keeps me tensed even though it appears to be a decoy.
I bring my bracelet to the right spot on Stavros’s door and ease it open at the click of the lock. To my surprise, the former general hasn’t prowled out so he can glower at me immediately on my return.
As I shut the door behind me, a grunt reaches my ears from the bedroom. Then a violent rustle of fabric.
My pulse lurches. Has someone broken into the rooms and attacked him?
I dash to the bedroom door and yank it open.
In the thin moonlight, it’s immediately clear that Stavros is alone on his expansive bed. He’s sprawled on top of the covers, his vest discarded on a nearby chair but his massive frame still clothed in the same dress shirt and trousers he was wearing when I left.
That and the prosthetic hand still attached to his wrist prove he didn’t plan to fall asleep. It looks as if he propped himself up on a pillow leaning against the headboard and then sagged to the side when he drifted off accidentally.
I have been gone for a while.
The chiseled planes of his face have softened in this state, but somehow that makes him look both younger and wearier. I can’t help remembering the way he talked the first time he wokemeup from a nightmare, when he let his cocky assurance drop for long enough that I could see how much the loss of his gift and his military career weighed on him.
He’s carrying plenty of burdens of his own. Which must be why his sleep is anything but peaceful.
As I take in the scene, his arm jerks against the covers with another rasp of fabric. His brow furrows, and he sucks in a hitched breath.
“No,” he mutters. “Michas, watch— Stop!”
The last words come out so raw I can’t bear to walk away. I dart to the edge of the bed and grasp his ankle.
“Stavros,” I say, low but forceful, giving his leg a quick shake. “Wake—”
He jolts upright before I can even finish the command. His hand whips toward me as if to grab me, and I throw myself backward.
My shoulder jars against the side of the doorframe. My magic flares with a defensive lash, but I grit my teeth and tamp it down.
Prickles spread through my chest in response, like a dozen needles scraping their points over my innards. It’s still a mild enough pain that I can stand against it, but a chill quivers through me.
My power is getting more restless. How long until it starts ripping open my lungs and whatever else again?
The former general glares at me, both his hair and his eyes fathomlessly dark in the dimness, his entire body rigid. “What do you think you’re doing?”
