“My left.”
“Then that is the hand with power.”
It’s also the hand I used to create the place with the cottage and orchard.
“When you struckThe Book of Dark Magic, did you hit its core?” She hurries to explain. “Each book has a metallic core that would mimic the magic in a hammer.”
My eyes widen. “When I broke through the book’s surface, it felt like I was cutting iron. These two metallic forces—my claws and the book—they literallyshriekedagainst each other.”
I wince at the memory of the sound it made and the painful bolt of energy that traveled through my body and into my heart.
That was when I experienced the dark impulses for the first time. The impulses telling me to take control and mold the world to my wishes.
“Then the book’s core could have acted like your hammer,” Halle says. “A conduit for the first time.”
It would explain how I’ve used my claws many times before without accessing this power. Like trying to break through the magic that was sealing my prison. Even fighting Halle’s brother, then my father. All the fights when my claws behaved simply like claws. Even if they are powerful ones.
I relax a little. “So without a hammer, I’m not going to accidentally kill someone?”
She nods. “You won’t.”
I slump with relief, but my thoughts splinter in many directions. One train of thought is incredibly relieved because I don’t have a hammer, so I don’t have to be afraid of this power that enables me to kill or transform a living creature at a mere whim. The other is that I still have questions about my mother, and I certainly don’t have answers about the keeper.
“What about my mother’s parents?” I ask, glancing at Jonah. He urged me to ask Halle about them. “Everything you’ve said is based on the foundation that she wasn’t a Blacksmith herself, but you said that without a hammer, you wouldn’t know.”
“You’re asking if she was the daughter of a Blacksmith?” Halle asks, a little too smoothly. “I never considered it. First, because I assumed she was like the Vandawolf—affected by Blacksmith power without controlling it. And second, because of her hair.”
I tilt my head, curious. “What about her hair?”
“All Blacksmiths had hair resembling fine strands of metal. Depending on their parentage, the color often matched their House. Your mother didn’t have that hair. Neither do you. Which is to say, neither of you wasbornto a Blacksmith.”
It doesn’t escape me that if a Blacksmith were capable of causing such a transformation as turning a human man into a beast, then they could change the color of a Blacksmith child’s hair.
But I guess for now, it doesn’t matter. I have this power now either way.
My burning need for answers about the keeper pushes me on.
“What about the keeper?” I ask. “Do you have any knowledge about who he was?”
Halle is quiet. Pensive. She takes much longer to answer this time. “I didn’t witness the creation of the keepers. I don’t know who they were. But there are some clues.”
My head lifts a little as a spark of hope lights within me.
“One thing was common knowledge at the time,” she continues. “Each of the other keepers volunteered.”
“Each of theothers?”
“The old magic keeper, the elemental magic keeper, and the light magic keeper. They all volunteered.”
“But what of the dark magic keeper?”
Now Halle shakes her head. “Nobody knew. There was no information about who he was or whether or not he had willingly given his life.”
“How is that possible? How could nobody know?”
Halle contemplates the keeper for a moment before she continues. “Galeia spent years trying to find out who he was. She believed that the clues were in the absence of information.” Halle appears to struggle to choose her next words. “That the silence around his identity was important.”
That silence.
