A bloodline curse was best broken at the source. The two foolproof options were to kill the person responsible for the curse or ask them to break it, assuming they were still alive. From what Erinna could guess, the curse maker was either an ancient monster, or dead.
Her eye drifted back to a section on the properties of curses. The passage spoke about how a witch could use the arcanum of blessings, morph their properties, and turn a boon into a bane.
Her mind churned through the information. Afton had said the arcanum for transmutation was similar. This could be what he meant. A name rose to the surface. One that kept appearing even after she left Tarth.
Nama Kellori. A powerful professor of transmutation.
A professor who had invited her mother to give a lecture at the academy.
Nama Kellori was perhaps her next best step.
A loud gong reverberated through the halls. It was Afton’s signal to leave. Erinna shoved everything she could carry into the bag and ran to meet the mage and pirate.
She collected enough.
It would have to be enough.
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Erinna was late.
Her bag dug into her shoulder, heavy with books she’d grabbed in those final frantic minutes—volumes that might hold answers or might be useless; she wouldn’t know until she had time to actuallyreadthem.
Her boots scuffed against stone as she hurried back through the stacks, that nagging certainty dogging every step: she’d missed something. Something important. Somethingvital.
She rounded the final corner into the first room and found Kane lounging in a cracked leather chair, looking like he had all the time in the world. Afton paced near the door, restless energy radiating off him in waves.
“Find everything you need?” Kane asked, but before Erinna could even open her mouth?—
“Doesn’t matter. We’re leaving.” Afton murmured an incantation, the words sharp and clipped, and the bricks along the side wall began to shift. Stone grinding against stone, revealing a passageway Erinna hadn't noticed on the way in.
She glanced at the door they’d originally entered through, then back at the newly formed exit. “What about?—”
“It only opens from the inside,” Afton cut in, not bothering to look at her. “And it seals once we’re gone. No one gets back in.”
Of course it does.Because nothing with mages was ever straightforward.
“Mages,” Kane muttered, echoing her thoughts as he pushed off the chair and followed Afton into the passage.
Erinna adjusted the strap on her satchel and hurried after them, the weight of stolen knowledge pressing against her ribs.
They wound back through narrow corridors lit by witchlights that flickered as they passed. Nothing but dirt and stone surrounded them, the air growing damper the farther they went. No more shelves. No more books. Just the three of them and the echo of their footsteps, heading toward whatever came next.
The journey back was much easier, but Erinna’s stomach twisted into knots as they neared the exit. She needed to think of her next steps and come up with a plan soon.
Afton pulled ahead, his pace quickening as though he couldn’t wait to be rid of them both. The distance between him and Erinna widened until she found herself walking alongside Kane in the dimness.
Part of her ached to go home. To see her father’s face, to sleep in her own bed, to pretend for just a few hours that her life hadn’t been upended by a mark she didn’t understand. But she still had nothing to show for her troubles, save for a pile of books and parchment.
Erinna still needed to find a way to break the curse, and there was one name that kept cropping up in her search.
Nama Kellori.
If Afton was right, she may be able to transmute the curse or direct her to someone who could. More than that, it seemed the esteemed Professor of Transmutation knew more about her parents than originally thought.
It was clear. Erinna needed to find her in the Initian Islands, and hope she hadn’t already left with her family.
