“I didn’t create that enthrallment talisman inside you without learning enchantments that work on simple, intoxicated minds along the way,” he grumbled, still frustrated, then grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back into the square.
Amma stumbled, trying to keep up, and Damien brought his incensed marching to a stop. Still shaken, she was taking a deep, full breath, and it came in ragged. He swore under his breath, letting her go—he was no different, he suddenly realized, glancing out at the square. The vendors were concerned with their stalls and shops, half already closed, and the villagers kept to themselves. None of them were concerned with what happened to Amma, not a moment prior when she was being hauled off, nor now when he was doing the hauling.
The two made their way back over to the knoggelvi a bit slower. “How did this even happen?” Damien pointed at Kaz who was suddenly alert and shaking despite the thick tunic. “Why did you do nothing?”
“It’s not his fault,” Amma admitted. “I went over to a stall across the way to get these.” She reached into the small pouch on her hip to pull out two cubes of brown sugar.
“For sweets?”
“Not for me,” she said, offering a cube to each of their mounts. They pulled their heads back from her outstretched hands.
Damien groaned. “Just as horses do not eat meat, knoggelvi do not—”
Suddenly, they caught the smell, and the two nuzzled into her palms and gobbled the cubes up.
“They do not have any strong convictions, I suppose.” Damien was beginning to wonder if anything infernal truly did, himself included. He snapped his fingers, the lot of them following, away from the small shrine giving off a fading infernal aura and deeper into Elderpass.
Perhaps the man who had tried to snatch Amma was affected by the strangeness settling in on the town, but he was gone now, and Damien was left with that familiar unease. There was a tavern and inn just up the way, a sign in Key above the door reading The Jealous Gentleman. Though it wasn’t terribly late, and they could probably cross through the whole of Elderpass by nightfall to take up lodging on its outskirts and be that much closer to Eirengaard the next day, he chose instead to stop there.
When Damien brought Amma to her room, she remained quite unnerved, rubbing her arms like she still felt strange hands there, eyes unfocused and lost in thought. She would not have been that hard to find if she’d really gone missing, her blood’s signature branded into his mind, but only if she were not far. As they continued to Eirengaard, streets would get busier, cities more dangerous, and the perils ahead would be nothing in comparison to drunkards and even werewolves.
Damien pulled a set of feathers from his pouch. He could feel the magic thrumming in them, waiting to be cast. It was extremely complex arcana, some of the most precious he had, and wasn’t even entirely his work alone. With a moment of hesitation, he offered one to her.
Amma took it delicately, but then that was how she held most things. He watched her face, her eyes narrowing as she ran a finger up the feather’s stem. Even if she didn’t know it was magic, she would likely feel the arcana inside it. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
Well, that was a surprise. “Powerful,” he corrected. “If we are separated, and, for whatever reason, I cannot find or summon you, you can use this to instead summon me.”
“If we’re separated?” Her gaze popped up to him, suddenly mischievous. “You mean, like, if I run away?”
“Well, no—”
Amma wrinkled up her nose. “Because, why would I want you to find me if I ran away?”
“I’m sure there aresomethings in this world worse than I am, and you have proven yourself incredibly abductable, but if you’d rather I take it back—”
She pulled the feather close to her heart when he reached out for it. “No, I want it. Just in case.”
He smirked, holding up his own. “Of course you do. But remember: it’s only got one use, so do not invoke its magic thoughtlessly. This is the only pair of its kind, and the spell took the arcana of two blood mages to craft. Not to mention, executing the spell on my end will take a great sacrifice, which does make Kaz seem a bit more useful now that I think of it, but I’d rather not shift my shape for something trivial like a bad sense of direction on your part.”
“Shift your shape?”
Damien shrugged. “As they’ve not been used, I suppose their magic is only theory, but the quickest way between two points is as the raven flies. And for you to use it, you will also need to spill your blood.”
“I’llhave to do bloodcraft?” She shuddered.
“If you can endure debasing yourself.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She clicked her tongue. “It’s that I can’t doanymagic, you know that.”
“It doesn’t require you todo magic, it only needs your blood and perhaps a bit of your will to awaken. So, you will cut yourself, and you will need to want…uh, me.”
Amma twirled the feather between her fingers. “That’s all? That seems pretty easy for being so powerful.”
“Yes, of course, that’s all. I’m a very good blood mage, you know.”
Amma then snapped her head up at him, eyes shrewd and no longer impressed. “Why are we here in Elderpass? And why were you acting so funny today?”
Damien scoffed—her reverence for the enchantment too short-lived for his liking. “We are between where we were and where we are headed.”
