“Oh, my gods, yes, Laurel is the biggest gossip. Also, she loves animals, so if you’re sending her a raven, she’ll be thrilled.”
“Well, it’s an arcane manifestation of a raven, but Corben is real enough.” Damien gestured for her to follow to a door at the back of the room that led to a tiny balcony outside. A cool wetness swept in, the smell of rain and clay thick in the damp air. “I think the message would be received best, and most likely to be responded to, if it came in your voice as opposed to mine.”
“My voice? How?”
“Magic.”
Of course that was how.
Damien unsheathed his dagger slowly, surveying it like he weren’t intimately familiar with the blade. “I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”
A chill crawled up Amma’s exposed back, and she felt the urge to step closer to Damien on the already cramped balcony despite that he was brandishing a weapon. “You shared magic with me that time at the Faebarrow gates,” she said, touching her lip where he had smeared his blood and then changed her face so she could hide from the guards. He had gotten so close then that she had thought he was going to kiss her. Maybe he would do the same again.
“Well, it won’t be exactly like that,” he said, pushing up a sleeve to expose his forearm. “This isn’t entirely infernal.”
Amma wasn’t sure what that meant. She knew mages typically learned a single kind of arcana, whatever they were blessed by the gods with, and could sometimes pick up other spells with intense study, but Damien was a blood mage, and as he’d told her, his magic ran through his very veins.
He was tapping the tip of his dagger to his forearm, thinking. “I summon the raven with my blood, and communicate with it through touch. When Corben reaches his target, my arcana slips into their mind to deliver the message and extract a response, if the target wishes. If you allow me, I may be able to turn you into a conduit to manifest the message. The magic would go…well, it will gothroughyou, I think, and itisinfernal, but also something else. Would you…allow that?”
Amma nodded without a moment longer of consideration.Of course, she thought,anything.
Damien cut into his forearm, fist clenched, and a drop of blood slid down to splash onto the already wet railing of the balcony. He watched the Accursed Wastes, the darkness and the ruddy landscape all shadows, and Amma watched him. He was offering her a way to communicate with her friend, something much safer than a letter that could be intercepted. When Amma had refused to comply with Cedric, he had threatened to have Laurel killed, to do away with everyone she cared about, until she gave in to him. If Damien were truly evil, if he were anything like that, he surely wouldn’t allow her to speak to her friend let alone propose the idea.
A raven alighted the railing, and it pecked at the droplet of blood before its sharp, black eyes fell on Damien. The bird twitched only once, and then held still.
“All right, let’s experiment.” Damien brought his hands to either side of Amma’s face, thumbs sliding against her cheekbones, fingers grazing over her temples, her ears, her jaw. She held very still, not even breathing, and then she felt it, a strange prodding that climbed over her skull, down the back of her neck and across her shoulders.
Like a thick mist caressing her, the feeling lightened over her limbs and simultaneously squeezed her around the middle until it found purchase at the base of her sternum and then it—whateveritwas—was inside her, moving up through her chest until it rested thickly in her throat.
“Place your hand on Corben.”
Amma looked down to the still bird and gently touched his head, much fluffier than she expected, and then ran her fingers down to nestle in the feathers of his back. The raven clicked its beak and gurgled out a sort of contented purr, flicking his head up to look at her.
“What would you like to say to Laurel?”
Amma’s mind went blank. “Shit.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that.” Damien let out a deep chuckle.
“No, I just…” Amma inhaled sharply, the arcana coating the inside of her throat. When she took another breath, the magic shifted in tandem, eerie but also comforting, like it was learning how she moved to become an inseparable part of her.
She lifted her eyes to Damien’s, and his focus on her was intent. She could see how hard he was working to make this possible for her, and she focused intently back. “Laurel,” she said, ringing the tension out of her voice, “it’s me. Please let me know the state of the barony, if there are any Brineberth soldiers left, if Cedric is gone, if there is still any threat. Are you all right? Is Perry? And Tia and mother and father? And are the undead soldiers and Tia…getting along?”
Damien grinned at that.
A little more comfortable, Amma went on, “Did the liathau sapling survive? If so, please let one of the gardeners know to take special care of it, maybe even hide it away. And speaking of hiding, I hope you put those poisons somewhere no one can find them. Ask Perry to help if you need a good spot, and please try to convince him to go to the exams in Eirengaard—he’s going to use all of this as an excuse to stay home, but if it’s safe by the time they come around, he absolutely has to go. Oh! Also, there are these two horses—well, they’re not really horses even though they look like horses, but their gas is exceptional—at a place called The Too Deep Inn. If you can, bring them home and take care of them. Bring along something sweet to convince them to go with you, they like sugar best and—”
Damien’s face twisted a bit, a struggle crawling across it, and Amma sucked in a breath.
“And please be safe, Laurel.” She nodded at him.
Damien stared at her another moment, and she waited, unsure what he wanted. He cleared his throat and murmured, “And tell her howyouare, so she knows I’ve not done anything too nefarious to you.”
“Oh! And I’m fine,” she squeaked out. The magic pulsed over and through her, a gentle caress against her skin and insides, and Damien’s fingers, still on her head, felt especially nice then. “Actually, I’m more than fine.”
Damien hummed. “And Lady Laurel, one more request, if you are able. There was paperwork on the desk in the rooms Marquis Caldor was using. A lot of it. I know you are a sneaky thing like your friend here. Gather up as much of it as you can, read it, report back, and keep the pages hidden away.”
Amma squinted back at Damien.
