“I don’t quite know,” he whispers back.
I wet my lips as the wind blasts past us again. “Can you control it?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Well, that’s reassuring.
When Tycho was down in the barn, I heard him cry out, and it took everything I had not to leave my post in the forge. It was bad enough that I left Da’s bedroom to hide in the corner out here.
But I had to wait. I had to see.
The storm clouds swept across the sky unnaturally fast, and the cold descended in a way that made me want to hide. When the snow began to fall, it was so frightening because it was sowrong.
And then when Tycho emerged, he was the same, yet altogether different. When he walked up the lane, the snow seemed to follow him. Even now, there’s an aura to his being that wasn’t there before. I’ve seen him heal wounds in seconds before, and I’ve seen him start a fire, so it’s more than that. I’ve never beenawareof the magic before. He’s pressed against me, and the weight of his body is as warm as it ever was, but it’s not like sitting beside a sunbeam. This is like sitting beside a bolt of lightning.
Tycho looks over at me. Again, the wind swirls. Snow falls. And I just stare at him.
“What?” he whispers.
“I . . . don’t know.”
But then I see it. Flecks of gray in the brown of his eyes, a narrow ring of bluish white around the pupil. Like the ice isinsidehim.
My breath catches, and I have to look away.
We fall into silence again, waiting. But as we sit, I can’t quite relax. It’s still Tycho— only now he’s put a target on his back. He’s not even doing anything, and this level of power is terrifying.
I wonder if the others would notice, too, or if it’s only because I’ve come to know him so well. But they’re all tucked away in their assigned spaces. Callyn is in the bakery with Alek and Malin. They’ve each taken a room, and they’re hiding in the hopes that they can attack from behind if the Truthbringers go for Tycho and his magic, waiting farther down the lane. Sephran and the queen are hidden in the depths of my house, both heavily armed, with Tycho and me posted out here as a first line of defense to protect the queen.
But so far, there’s been no sign of anyone. Just the wind and the snow. Tycho said Nakiis healed his arm, and I thought for sure the scraver might come out of the barn to stand sentry with us, but he didn’t.
I wonder how long we have to wait— or if they’re coming at all. Mystomach has been begging for food for hours now, but we’ve been gone for months, so there was little here to scavenge. We went through the supplies in our packshoursago.
The worst part of me wonders if we waited too long. Maybe this display of magic wasn’t a lure at all. Maybe the Truthbringers have already gone too far, and we’re wasting our time.
A new gust of wind slithers through the forge, and there’s nothing reallydifferentabout this one, but Tycho stiffens beside me.
I inhale to ask, but he shakes his head brusquely, so I clamp my mouth shut. He’s got an arrow nocked, the string drawn a bit taut, but he’s not aiming at anything yet.
We’ve got a clear view down the lane. There’s nothingtoaim at.
He cuts a glance at me, then nods toward the side of the workshop.
I nod in return, then move across the space, while he goes in the opposite direction, heading for the door of the house. I immediately understand why— we can see more of the space down the lane.
There’s still nothing to see.
But that gust of icy wind wraps around us again, stinging my eyes and making me cringe. I wince and search the lane for invaders.
Tycho snaps his fingers, and I look over. He points toward the sky.
At first I have no idea what he’s pointing at. There are just a few birds against the heavy clouds.
Then my heart thumps hard in my chest.
Those aren’t birds.
I tighten my grip on the bow, drawing the string a bit tighter. Nothing is close enough to shoot. I know my range, and I can’t hit anything closer than a hundred yards with any kind of accuracy. We have a limited number of arrows, too. I have six tipped with Iishellasan steel, and ten tipped with regular iron. Tycho has the same.
