“Not true.” He shifted his position. He sat with a stiff back and avoided touching the iron bars.
Did Paul know of Ace’s aversion to iron or was this simply a coincidence?
“You nicknamed me Mouse,” I whispered, trying to take my attention away from Ace’s discomfort. “A small, helpless rodent.”
“It’s a cute nickname.”
“You told me you chose it because I was a street rat, but rats were too fierce and intelligent for me to be named after one.”
He rubbed his jaw, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah…yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?”
I whacked his arm.
“I had to do something to keep you away from me,” he said.
“Was I really that horrid?”
“Quite the opposite, actually.” He turned to me, his gaze darkening.
I swallowed. “That makes no sense.”
“You were my best friend’s sister, Mouse. My only friend’s sister.”
“I’m beginning to think that friendship was a little one-sided.”
He laughed quietly. “Did the jail cell give it away?”
“Death sentence.”
“Fair.”
The most frustrating part was knowing I had magic. The ability to use the power lived inside me. Magical phaanon blood thrummed in my veins, but it was a song I’d never learned to control. I closed my eyes and searched for something, anything, to answer my desperate plea. Surely, magic could get us out of here.
A spark of something cold shocked my body.
I sat upright, banging my head on the bars.
“What the phaan was that?” Ace asked.
“I…I don’t know.” I reached for the power again. It hummed and danced in my veins before flittering away.
“What did it feel like?” Ace asked.
“It felt like metal somehow.” I pursed my lips and searched for words to describe the feeling. What did it feel like? “Kind of like when I’m about to shoot an arrow.”
Ace squinted at me. “You feel magic when you shoot?”
I nodded. “It feels like power is flowing into me from outside and guiding my shot.”
He hesitated, his expression growing serious. “That’s not an outside power, Mouse.”
“Then what is it?”
“That’s you,” he said. He didn’t smirk or laugh. Instead, he studied me, his expression remaining serious, his brows drawn down. “That’s your magic. You’re not blessed by a mysterious god. You are your own source of power.”
I opened my mouth to argue and then shut it again. Could he be right? I knew I had power, of course, that wasn’t in question, but I always assumed the power took over, controlled me, not the other way around.
Surely, he was wrong.
