Thalia blanched. “What?”
Before the Mage could question her further, Cassius stepped in front of Thalia, sword drawn. “Back off.” His words were lethal.
Larellia stared at Thalia, eyes gleaming. “She needs to explain herself.”
“Explain what?” Thalia gasped, finally managing to get her legs under her. “I don’t know about any magic or creation or anything!”
Larellia didn’t look like she believed anyone until Lady Decima appeared, Keegan behind her. “Perhaps,” Lady Decima said, watching the tendrils in the creature’s neck stretch and slither toward its head. “We should continue this conversation inside. It seems there’s much to discuss.”
Thalia decided she’d be living in the strange meeting room in the mountain, given how many times they’d all gathered there since arriving.
The creature’s body was splayed out on the table, the head next to it, although Larellia had embedded her scythe in the table so that anytime the tendrils of the neck stretched to join with its head, it would get sliced to ribbons. Already a pile of bloody tendons had gathered like grotesque fallen rose petals.
“Someone want to explain why it keeps doing that?” Camilla broke the silence, staring at the corpse.
“It was made. It was created to be near impossible to kill,” Larellia said, her lips twisting. Her gaze landed on Thalia. “The question is why was it made and by whom.”
Thalia’s anger rose. “I told you, I didn’t make anything. I’mhuman.”
“Are you?”
Thalia was taken aback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Larellia’s eyes flared. “Made creatures used to be favored amongst the Mages. But it wasn’t until one of us created a creature of such atrocity that the other Mages put an end to their creations.”
“What was that creature?”
Larellia cocked her head. “The Nestos.” Thalia shivered as she continued, “These creatures were meant to serve only their master. They were unstoppable, near impossible to kill. But Klae, the head Mage at the time, saw the danger of using such magic, how the pockets of magic they pulled from had to be corrupted. They had to use the magic and twist it into something other. This creature”—Larellia nodded—“was made.”
“How can you be sure?” Cassius countered.
Larellia slowly slid her gaze to him. “Because I was there when the first creatures were made. They have an aura, one that only the most skilled Mage can detect. The symbols of your own Houses were made creatures at one point.”
Lady Decima nodded, her golden gaze harsh. “Indeed, I can’t put my finger on what it is, but this creature is wrong.”
Thalia shook her head, pushing aside the fact that Larellia was hundreds of years old—she’d think aboutthatfact later. “I didn’t make it.”
“Someone close to you did,” Larellia said, her silver eyes glowing. “Given it didn’t kill you.”
Thalia shook her head. “I’m human. No one in Agripa even knows that the pockets of magic left in this world are real, much less how we’d use them to create something like this.”
“Do you not have great libraries?” Larellia countered. “You are either ignorant of the information at your fingertips or incredibly stupid.”
Cassius let out a low snarl, but Thalia didn’t let the insult land. “Our libraries are vast. In fact, before the treaty was broken thirteen years ago, many came to learn from them.” She cut a gaze to the others. “But that doesn’t mean we have magic.”
“There is magic everywhere,” Larellia snapped. “How do you think the humans managed to sustain themselves for so long when the world is set to kill them?”
Thalia’s anger rose. “Maybe we figured out how to do itwithoutmagic.”
They stared at each other, and something charged the air, the Mage’s hair starting to rise on a phantom wind.
“It doesn’t matter who created it,” Cassius said, breaking the tension like a knife. “How do we stop it?”
Larellia looked like she’d argue but turned back to the creature. “The other spawn that was near Cupisco is already dead, but nothing matters if we don’t cut off the head and burn the entire thing. And it’s impossible to find its mother in that damned forest.”
Thalia gasped. “I—I know where it is.”
Everyone turned to her.
