“Yes,” I said too quickly. But half my mind was on trying to understand how she hadn’t noticed the three-foot-tall crow behind me.
Her gaze fell on the knife sticking out of Caylus’s wall. She placed her hands on her hips. “You were doing another one of your experiments, weren’t you?”
“That too,” I said. “The shaking messed it up. It exploded.”
Her expression grew hesitant. “This’ll come out of your pay, Caylus.”
He nodded, but his face had gone empty. His mind was somewhere else, likely wondering the same thing as me: why in Saints’ name didn’t she care about Res?
Giving the room a final sweep, the girl let out a sigh of resignation and stepped back out onto the landing, closing the door behind her.
For a moment, the room was utterly still. Then I bolted for the door and turned lock after lock so fast, I scraped my knuckles. Slumping back against the door, I faced the room.
Res was gone.
My heart stopped. I blinked, thinking it a trick of my vision, but he wasn’t there. Yet I could feel the cord pulsing between us.
“I swear he didn’t move,” Caylus muttered, brow furrowed.
“Res?” I called hesitantly.
In the corner, the shadows looked strange, like a distorted reflection in a rippling lake. A spot behind my temple began to pound, and I pressed my fingers to it, blinking to clear my vision.
Then the shadows moved. They shifted like ebbing fog, growing and stretching until a piece pulled apart from the rest, coalescing first into wings and then a body and tail and head and—
“What—?” I gaped at Res as he finished detaching himself from the shadows.
Caylus’s eyes widened, his head tilting in consideration. “I didn’t think storm crows could bend shadows.”
“Theycan’t.” My voice strained on the word. None of this made any sense. Was that why the earth had shaken? Had Res somehow used earth crow magic too? But that was absurd.
“Interesting,” Caylus muttered to himself. His fingers tapped along his leg in thought.
I took an unsteady step toward the island and dropped onto the nearest stool. Res let out a low caw as I buried my head in my hands, trying to parse this impossibility. Surely, the shaking had just been a result of Res’s magic releasing after being pent up for so many days. But that didn’t explain how he’ddisappeared.
“We’re not stopping, are we?” Caylus’s voice drew me from my thoughts. I blinked at him, and he nodded at Res, who looked completely unfazed by the sudden rush of magic. In fact, he looked stronger, his posture straighter, his feathers darker, as if not using his abilities had been hurting him somehow.
I felt cautiously along the cord between us, questioning gently. Was he okay? Res let out a low coo and lifted his wings, stretching them wide as if insulted by the question.
A grin slid across my lips. “I need a pen and paper.”
Caylus retrieved them for me, and I began scribbling out a plan at the kitchen island. “There are different programs for different crow types,” I told him, knowing he’d want every detail. “We have basic sets of maneuvers for them to start out with, to get a feel for their power and help strengthen the bond between them and the rider.”
His green eyes glimmered with curiosity. “What’s first?”
Facing Res, I focused on the connection between us. “A spark.” As I spoke, I sent a thought down the cord too, imagining Res producing a small spark of lightning. It was one of the most basic storm crow maneuvers, a simple show of energy that many newborns produced on reflex.
Res cocked his head.
“Focus on the source of power inside you,” I said, repeating words I’d heard Estrel whisper to hatchlings first discovering their magic. “Imagine it as an extension of yourself.”
Res swayed, sending groan-like sounds along the cord, before spreading his wings and falling flat onto his back.
I blinked. He lifted his head gently, as if checking that I was looking, then let it flop back down.
“Is he okay?” Caylus asked.
A low rumble in Res’s throat mirrored the vibration of feeling he sent down the cord between us. Something that translated loosely tofood food food.
