He pushed away from the wall and walked toward me, steps soundless on the stone. When he drew close enough, the air shifted. A faint hum threaded through it, just below hearing. It might’ve been my imagination. Or it might’ve been a warning that Thorne was a threat.
“I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d see what sort of contraband my captors keep around.”
“Rescuers,” he corrected automatically, then sighed. “That one isn’t exactly light reading.”
“You say that like you know what it says.”
“I should hope so, considering it’s part of my collection.”
“All of these are yours?” I slanted him a look. “Trying to impress your dates?” I asked. “Or are you just compensating for something?”
His mouth curved, almost but not quite a smile. “I’m not the one who can’t read what’s in those pages.”
It dragged an unwilling huff of amusement out of me. I hated that. I turned it into a scowl.
“What does this mean?” I nodded to the rune on the cover while making sure to keep my own tattoo covered. “I’ve seen something like it before.”
His gaze dropped to the symbol.
“The old tongue has many layers,” he said. “But if you want the simplest translation?” His fingers brushed the edge of the cover, not quite touching the rune itself. “Life.”
Life.
The word settled in my gut like a stone dropped into deep water.
On my wrist, the Verdant tattoo warmed again, responding to the echo of his word. Life. Favor. Promise. Debt. All knotted together.
“Of course it does,” I muttered.
His gaze flicked up at that, from the book to my face and then lower. To my throat.
I realized too late that my hair had shifted, exposing the small crescent of ink just below my ear. The moon-and-stars mark I’d woken with after Heliconia’s curse had failed to hurt me seven years ago. The one the bounty sketch artist had apparently gotten a good look at.
Heat climbed up my neck. I resisted the urge to cover it.
“There’s magic in that,” Thorne said quietly.
“In what?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
He didn’t bother to hide his look. “It’s humming like a nest of hornets.”
I swallowed. The tattoo tingled, a slow, spreading warmth under the skin. It had always felt like a part of me, but lately, the magic inside it had grown more insistent. Like it knew something I didn’t.
“It’s just ink,” I said.
“Nothing in this realm is ‘just’ anything,” he replied. “Not if the gods had a hand in it.”
“And you would know?” I asked, arching a brow.
He tipped his head as if considering how much he wanted to say. Then, with visible reluctance, he sat on the edge of the low table opposite me, the book between us.
He drew his hand up, and slowly, dark lines appeared from his fingertips. They seemed to draw upward from the floor rather than shooting out from his hands. Like he was drawing power inward rather than pushing it out.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Ley lines.”
Ley lines were a reference to the very magic that gave Menryth life. The courts whose season sustained itself year-round—that was all thanks to ley lines. The magic fae fed on and in turn dispersed back to the land as a renewable source—also, ley lines.
