I tripped over my own feet, even without Isanara there to weave between them. She certainly wasn’t there to catch me. I bit back the thought that tried to reach out for her, to reassure myself that she was well. Now was not the time.
Garrick’s arm was there, ready. Good, because it was the other male in my life who’d made me trip.
“That is not the plan,” I said. We were outside the treasury. The corridor was deserted. This was our best chance to find the talisman. If it were not here, I did not know what our next step would be.
Syleris wore a mask—not just the white one that stretched across his face, but the implacable expression that he favored when he pretended he did not have feelings. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the red brick wall of the corridor, right outside the treasury.
“I already have one obstinate teenager to deal with,” I seethed.
He ignored me.
“This is because of earlier.”
Garrick sighed heavily. “Argue aloud so I can hear you.”
Both of them knew me too well.
Syleris swiped a thumb across his exposed bottom lip. I crossed my arms over my chest, the sleeves of my gown swishing along the floor. Distraction would not work. Not right now.
“The talisman was created by your coven. It is tied to your power. You are best positioned to feel it,” Syleris said.
It was the same reasoning I’d used to deduce that my blood would be enough to break the blood spell that Maura and Elodie had placed on the salt to keep me in my cell down in the bathhouse. Except?—
“You are the creator of the witches. Our power flows directly from you,” I countered.
“I am the creator ofallwitches. Even the ones who have left Velora.” He jutted out his lower lip. “I can feel the tug of all their power, all the time, all at once.”
The emotion that speared through me was sharp, hot, and entirely unwelcome. I was his bonded. I was the one tied to him. But every witch who’d ever been made had a place in his mind? There must be thousands of them. Maybe he could not talk to them the way he did to me, but they were still tied to him. They had a piece of him. It was one thing to share Syleris with Garrick. It did not even signify; they were both pieces of me, but with another witch?—
This was Syleris’ doing.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment and rage.
He’d whipped me into a frenzy, magnifying what should have been a momentary dark turn in my thoughts. Before I could get the accusation past my lips, he caught my arm and tugged me against him, kissing me.
It was fast and hard. I bit the tip of his tongue, but Syleris just chuckled against my mouth.
“Do not be jealous, sweetling.”
“I hate you.”
“That, I heard,” Garrick sighed again—as if he was the one inconvenienced. My emotions were already high because it was my death date. Now we were headed into the treasury to find and destroy the talisman and give Velora its best chance of survival. And Syleris dared to mess with my head?
Garrick tugged on my arm until I was well away from Syleris, and then inserted himself between us. I dug my fingernails into my own palms. I stopped just short of making myself bleed. I didn’t want to ruin Iravena’s hard work with blood.
Inhale. Hold. Count to four. Exhale. Hold. Count to four.
My power was calm. My temper wasn’t.
I took in the doors of the treasury for the first time. They stood well above my head; only a couple of feet above Garrick’s, and were covered in a gold-wrought locking mechanism similar to the one on the door to Maura’s chambers. It made sense. The treasury was also located in the center of the spiral, low down in the core of Balar Shan’s primary tower.
“Why aren’t there guards?” Or had Garrick already dispatched them?
“Hubris,” Garrick said. He studied the mechanism. “This is a blood lock.”
I lifted a brow. It did not look any different than the one I’d already destroyed.
Garrick took my finger and guided it along the intricate gold design. “This is the Penruddock crest.”
