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Edith dropped to the ground and stared at us for a moment before walking closer. Ash raked a hand through his hair and turned to place more wood on the fire.
My gaze snapped back to Ferrier, still marching in her little circle. “What is she doing?”
“She’s practicing something Nan taught her,” Edith replied. “She’s determined to prove she’s a lock, too, but I don’t think she is.”
I stared at the young girl walking with a resolute but unfixed expression on her face. “How common is it to be a lock?”
Edith sighed. “Pretty rare. There aren’t many mind mages to begin with, and I’d never met a lock before your grandmother.”
Ash tossed his vest in the washbowl, and it landed with a splat that made me jump. Every unexpected sound had my nerves dancing on a razor’s edge. I sensed something was about to rip me from the imagined comfort of this moment, and soon.
Edith settled on a log by the fire and ate. “Ferrier manifested pretty young, which makes her think she’s super powerful.” Edith rolled her eyes, but a hint of pride shone on her face. “Right now, she’s attempting to lock a spell in place, the way your Nan can. I believe she’s trying to control that tree over there, same way Nan controls the one with the fort.” She pointed to one a few steps away.
My lips parted in a confused frown. “You can stop the trees from…misbehaving?”
“Someone enchanted them to misbehave in the first place,” she quipped. “Whole place is built and maintained by magic, and with a little intervention, we can stay safe enough to survive.” She tapped the side of her head.
I couldn’t keep my gaze from wandering to Ash, but he ignored me.
Nan had rarely spoken of her magic, and at school, they only told us all the awful things about mind mages. I’d never even imagined mental magic could influence nature. All I knew about mind mages was their ability to control someone else by taking over their thoughts. Architects could build almost anything with nature, but I’d never heard of controlling nature. Though a tree enchanted by magic was hardly natural to begin with.
“So she’s controlling the magic of this place, not really the tree, right?”
Ash glanced up from his washing as Edith tilted her head back and forth in a noncommittal response.
“Sort of,” Edith answered. “We can place enchantments of our own on, say, a tree. When I do it, I’m just adding my magic to the magic that’s already here. I’m not able to dismantle the Labyrinth’s magic. No one can do that. Nan’s spells are so powerful because she can lock them in place and stop thinking about them. The magic of the Labyrinth is technically still in place, but her spell is locked around it.”
I didn’t miss that Ash exhaled at her words. He might have helped us all in one way or another, but perhaps he wasn’t helping as much as he could, despite his claims that he had spells in place to keep people safe.
But he’d fought off a snake to keep us safe. And he’d carried me as we outran a demented moose. The king’s version of Henry Asher was starting to sound more and more like a lie.
Edith brushed her hands together and flashed me a smile. “If you’re going to be part of this team, it’s time we know what you can do.”
My lips pinched inward, and my eyes averted. “I don’t know any magic.”
Edith’s smile held, but it bled enthusiasm until it transformed into a frightening grimace. “None at all?”
I shook my head. “I can shut down my pain and emotions pretty well, but I don’t think repression is really what you were hoping for.”
“Not exactly,” Edith said, twisting her mouth to one side.
She sat for a moment, her hands in her lap. Neither of us looked at the other. All the feelings of worthlessness and rejection and shame bubbled up inside, replacing my fear of death and dismemberment with a single resounding worry: that this ragtag crew would also deem me valueless.
The words I hated yet clung to for the excuse they provided fell from my lips. “I’m only a quarter mage.” My eyes flashed up to the platform where Nan rested. She’d told me I was a key—whatever that meant—but what did it matter if I was only a quarter mage with fitful magic?
After a long, miserable silence, in which I imagined Edith rehearsing the words to dismiss herself and her sister from my company, Ash turned toward me and said, “You were thrown in here for a reason—because you possess magic the king wants eliminated from his kingdom.”
I pinched my eyes closed as a fresh wave of concern for my brothers pricked at my heart.
“And if the king believes you’re dangerous,” Edith chimed in, “then I believe you’re dangerous too. In the best way.” Her smile had caught fire again and was blazing in her freckled cheeks. “I’ll teach you.”
“We will teach you,” Ash echoed, his brown eyes sparking with the reflection of the fire. “But we don’t have long. The monsters are coming.”
10
My heart tripped and thunked against my breastbone as excitement and fear wrestled inside me. “Thank you,” I muttered, “but I’ve never been able to do magic on demand.”
“Nonsense,” Edith declared, hurrying toward me. “He’s right, you know. The Labyrinth will sense what we’re doing, and it will come at us. At you, especially. It doesn’t want you to learn how to fight back. This place thinks like a villain, and it never lets us win for very long.”
