Because…dark saints… I told a book of magic—one ofthebooks of magic—to die. And it did.
What kind of terrible power is this?
No fucking wonder my mother wouldn’t speak of it, and the keeper talked only in untruths and riddles.
If this is the sort of power that those two Blacksmiths controlled, then I really am a danger to everyone around me. Just like Jonah warned.
I find myself looking to him now because he also said he had faith in my mother, and she wanted me to live.
And that’s the only reason I stay right where I am.
Because she believed in me.
So now… I will believe that I am supposed to be here, sitting next to the keeper, my hand pressed to his heart, in an environment that seems to be calming him, even though I don’t understand how.
I speak carefully because I need to face a hard truth.
“If I absorbed this power from my mother’s heart… but she needed her heart to live…”
Halle doesn’t respond, her unliving eye becoming dull while her living eye becomes shadowed.
“I was draining her life,” I say, trying to breathe past the pain in my chest. “Her heart failed because I… because…”
Anarchy reaches for me, but it’s Jonah who makes a move, stepping from the shadows. “Remember what I told you, Veda,” he says. “Your mother wanted you to live. She had lived forthousands of years and she did it with purpose. You were very important to her.Youwere her purpose.”
I swallow hard and breathe out the pain, refocusing myself with all my might, moving past the sadness to the questions that come with it.
Because I can’t get lost in my sadness now. I need all of the answers. “If I absorbed this power from my mother, then why didn’t she control it herself?”
“I have been asking myself the same question,” Halle says, more quietly now. “She never exhibited any signs of Blacksmith magic. Until you tore apart the book, I would never have even considered the possibility that the power could be passed on, or that you might control it.”
“You must have theories?”
“I have two. The first is most likely. Her mechanical heart was given to her as a baby. It transformed her the same way that the arcane magic transformed the Vandawolf. He didn’t control Blacksmith magic, either.”
“Whereas I was exposed to it from the moment of conception,” I say.
She nods.
“Your second theory?”
“More complicated. You see, Blacksmiths couldn’t access their power without specially forged tools. Those tools were a crucial conduit, without which they may as well have been human. Even the two most powerful Blacksmiths couldn’t access their power without their hammers.”
“Hammer?”
She nods. “Black titanium hammers for House Ironmeld. Silver hammers for House Silverspun. Without their hammers, all Blacksmiths may as well have been completely powerless. If your mother did have the power, well… she didn’t have a hammer. So her power may as well have not existed.”
My forehead creases. “Then how did I access the power we think I absorbed?” I ask. “Even if your first theory is correct—my mother never had the power because she hadn’t been born with it—I would need a hammer. I don’t have one.”
“Well…” she says, peering at my hands. “You have your claws.”
My forehead creases again. “My claws?”
Halle nods. “Metal is part of your body,” she says. “But to really understand it, I have more questions for you, if that’s okay?”
Before answering her, I lift my hands off the keeper, and, far more carefully than I ever have before, I extend the claws of both hands, studying them. “Okay.”
“Only one hand is powered,” Halle says. “Which hand did you use onThe Book of Dark Magic?”
