“Distraction.”
I stare at Aster. “Did you just use the last of your magic to make that happen?”
Jack’s eyes bulge out of his head as he stares between us. “That was you?”
Aster just shrugs.“She deserved it.”
“Yeah, she really did.” Jack snorts, slapping Aster on the shoulder. He’s still not fully covered, and I avert my eyes as certain parts of him wiggle with the movement.
“Clothes,” Torin growls at him.
Jack salutes before shoving his clothes on and then shakes hishead back with a grin. “I guess we’d better make a move then, eh? Did you get everything we came for?”
“We did,” I reply softly. I don’t want to admit even to myself that this whole exercise was unnecessary. If I’d discovered Kit’s spectacles sooner, we could have been following our bond the entire time. Right now, I’m sick to my stomach about the whole thing.
“All right then.” Jack lets out a little whoop, spinning around with something clutched in his hand. “That means we can travel back to the ship in style before anyone notices anything is missing.”
“Jack—”
“Don’t stress, big guy, we’ll be too far for them to touch us in no time.”
“That’s not making me feel any better—”
“Right then.” Jack claps his hands together. “Care to share what you found out?”
“Northcliff told me the sorceress’s name is Araminta Stone,” I tell him as he leads us down the street, away from the hotel. “He said that she’s been amassing stolen magic for years, creaming a little off the top with every ritual they carried out. Apparently, here’s a way of distilling people’s magic so that you can transport it and she has hundreds of jars of the stuff that she always planned on selling. Healsotold me she had a place where she goes to store it up, one he’d never been allowed to go to.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a lead,” Jack replies doubtfully.
“Not by itself, it doesn’t,” I say. “But he also told me the location of her little stash. He said that she had some trouble with it a few months back. Apparently, there was a nasty curse stopping her from reaching her stash.”
“A curse,” Torin repeats.
I nod, glancing between their faces as that little titbit slots into place. “Yeah, I thought that was interesting too. I’d assumed it was a coincidence that she took Kit with her, but what if she selected him because she needs him to break a curse?”
“Then it makes me wonder what she’ll do once Kit’s served his purpose,” Torin says. His words leave cold dread pooling in my stomach and I shiver.
“So where is it?” Jack asks. “Where is she headed?”
“Deadwood Cove.”
Jack blinks, shooting Torin a pointed look. “The same Deadwood Cove that’s on an island that is constantly changing location, you mean? A cove that is practically impossible to locate without a ritual that costs an arm and a leg and takes over a month to complete?”
“I suppose,” I reply with a frown. “Can’t say I know too much about them.”
“You’re lucky,” Torin mutters under his breath. “But it turns out we have a way of tracking Kit through his mate bond with Reva.” He pulls Kit’s charmed spectacles from his pocket and waves them around, where they’re quickly snatched up by Jack.
He manages to keep them on for an entire minute, his eyes bugging out as he peers around before tugging them off again.
“Well, that’s nightmare fuel, isn’t it?”
“Almost made me throw up,” Torin replies.
Jack doesn’t seem too badly affected, though. He slips them back on and takes a longer look around. “Can I keep these on for a while?”
“As long as you don’t break them. Right now, they’re the only chance we have of finding Kit,” Torin grumbles.
“Sure, sure,” Jack replies. “Ha! I knew the Carter’s pet fox they insist on carrying around with them couldn’t be real. Look at the thickness of that glamour. And that dragon tooth Morgan Ingleby’s wearing, they wouldn’t shut up about how they’d sent off to Ashwick for the genuine article and clearly that was an absolute load of bollocks.”
