“It’s Summerlander magick,” he continues, “though an ancient form. Maybe someone was visiting the port when your father found it? A mage?”
I wave my hand and shrug. I don’t have this knowledge.
“Well, regardless, I’ve racked my brain about everything that’s happened. It shouldn’t have been possible for the prince to read the Summerlander enchantment on the blade. The magick of the magi issome of the most archaic conjuring in the world, dating back to Loria herself.”
“The Eastlanders used it in the vale, though,”I sign.“With their arrows.”
“Yes, and I still can’t sort out how. It’s one thing to harness fire threads. It’s an entirely different magick to cause fire to incinerate from the inside out. Only those with an intimate knowledge of ancient magick systems can read such archaic Summerland workings. They teach it in the City of Ruin, but only to the very magickly gifted. But, I think, somehow, the prince saw the spell when he attacked you on the green and knew he couldn’t take the knife as long as it was in your possession. Otherwise, he would’ve tried harder than he did. Of course, later, the bladewasn’tin your possession because Hel somehow found it, so he used her to bring it to him. And even later, you hid the blade in the moss, severing any protection, and he sent his crow on a hunting expedition.”
If the binding magick should’ve been impossible for the prince to see, how could Alexus see it? And when did Hel come across the knife? She didn’t mention that in her explanation of what happened. More importantly…
I jerk up.“I should have the knife then. So he cannot take it.”
“Easy.” Alexus rises on an elbow, rubbing my arm to calm me. “It’s strapped to my thigh, and I’m better protection than any Keeper.” He winks. “Even you.”
I’m not sure he’s right.
“Finn took the knife from me,”I tell him. It had been strapped to my thigh the night of the harvest supper, and yet Finn slipped it from the dagger belt like the best of thieves.
Alexus narrows his eyes. “Who’s Finn?”
Heat blooms across my chest and chases up my neck, followed by another cresting wave that I fight with all that I have. I’ve tried so hard not to think of him, but here he is, rising up like a ghost while I lie beside another man.
“Is Finn the special someone you lost?” Alexus asks. I don’t even have to nod for him to know that he was. “I’m so sorry, Raina. How did he take the knife? Why?”
I glance away from his inquiring stare.“We were dancing at the harvest supper. Calling down the moon. He was only pestering me.”
“So you’d lost your connection to the here and now. I’m not sure how Finn knew to go for the knife when you weren’t linked to reality, but…smart man.”
Finn didn’t know. Of that, I’m sure. He only knew he could still make me weak enough to trick me.
I examine my hands and think about what Alexus said about the prince.“Why would the magick cling tomeif it was my father who was bound?”I sign.
He shrugs. “It depends on how the spell was crafted. Magick of that sort has many nuances, and every witch has different methods, especially Summerlanders. It could’ve been a duty cast on your father and his children and his children’s children, and when he passed, you were the child who claimed it. Having not been there when the knife was enchanted, that’s my best guess.”
With distance between us, the air winding through the cavern’s entrance grows too chill.
“A little help with the fire?” Alexus says, and I nod. “Most of the wood I found was damp, some of it very wet, as were the pine needles and leaves. All you need to do is summon the threads from the embers. Your magick will remember what to do. Just use your words. You can do it.”
He leaves me and tosses the last of the gathered brush into the fire, save for the twig he uses as a fire poker. I sit up and rub my eyes, still wrapping my mind around the notion of my father being a Keeper. Then, before I know it, I’m drawing fire threads from ash—badly—but it’s something I never thought I’d be able to do. WithFulmanesh, iyumarepeating on my fingertips, however, I manage to raise a tiny flame from wet brush and smoldering cinders.
Wearing a proud expression, Alexus comes to sit with me, pack in hand. Ever chivalrous, he folds the blanket around me and moves to his knees to slip off my boots, down to my hosen. Gently, he places my feet on a flat rock near the fire to warm. The heat and his touch feel so luxurious that I close my eyes, just for a moment, and sigh.
Sitting back, he pulls out the tin mug and a couple of moonberryroots I hurriedly packed before we left Nephele’s refuge. One is nothing but a protective husk filled with fruit, the other still brimming with sweetwater, although the liquid is frozen solid now.
“Hungry?” He gestures with the fruit-filled root. “I can roast these. I fed the horses the last of the apples and some straw I found just inside the cave. I think your sister was worried for Mannus and Tuck.”
I smile and give a quick nod in reply, but in truth, I want answers more than food.
Alexus nestles the sweetwater root between two stones to thaw, then spreads the fruit on a flat rock and slides it close to the flames. He holds the Eastlander blade over the fire to clean the steel before laying it on the circle of stones.
He keeps glancing at the cavern’s entrance. Itwasa wolf that I heard earlier. An entire pack howls in the distance, likely descending upon the bloody feast left in the wood.
At least the crows have stayed away. I tell myself that they’re too startled to come anywhere near Alexus Thibault again. I should probably follow their lead, yet I’m more trapped than I’ve ever been. And not because of the construct, and not because of the prince.
Alexus lets out a tired groan, a sound that’s somewhere between resignation and dread. “I don’t suppose you’re going to eat first and talk about all the other stuff later? I’ll keep watch.”
I raise a brow as sharply as I can.“Not a chance. Tell me how you did what you did. Why did you not use that magick before?”
