Oh. Sources.
No, no, no.
Lark hissed, “It should be done. I don’t know what’s happening to him!”
I slammed open the door.
Emmerick writhed in the bed, his hands and feet were bound. On his ankles and wrists, inky handprints marred his skin. A vial lay shattered on the ground, and a drip of dark red liquid ran down Em’s chin.
A ripped page, discarded on the white sheets, revealed a scribbled recipe.Lavender, pig’s blood and grated birch bark.
An enchantress three times her age would struggle to master this unbinding spell.
Handprints of illuminated gold, muddled with Lark’s imprinted Shadows, shone on Emmerick’s shoulders. They had come from the other guilty party standing in the room.
Dritan. My new young groundskeeper. He and Lark stood by the King’s bedside with shocked expressions cast in my direction as I assessed the scene further. I itched to shake her.
“What have you both done?” I seethed.
Emmerick stilled, and I pushed Dritan aside, throwing myself onto the bed to check his pulse.
He breathed.
His heart beat.
I gasped a sigh of relief. Whatever had just happened, whatever spell they had cast, it hadn’t hurt him. But whathadit done?
My head fell to his chest with a heaved breath; in all the years we’d talked through that mirror, I’d never touched him. I took his hand and squeezed gently before releasing it. Their foolish actions could have killed him.
Pulling myself away from the bed, I spun toward the two young Source-wielders. My blood boiled with more anger than I’d felt in… fifteen years. That moment when my cry had knocked Caym from the amphitheater wall crawled through my memory.
Dritan stared at the floor.
The clattering of metal armor sounded down the hall, the guards having roused awake. Lark’s mouth hung open for a couple of seconds before she blurted, “Please, Aunty. This was all my idea. I dragged Dritan into this to help me. They’ll arrest him just for being here. He’ll go to the gallows.”
“I will?” The whites of Dritan’s eyes showed as he glanced between us.
He was not the mastermind of this half-baked plan. This had been the workings of averysmart girl who knew enough about advanced charms and spells to be dangerous to herself and others.
She was so young and naive. I’d been careless—too busy moping about to notice her slip out.
This wasmyfault.
My mind raced through all the what-ifs and worst-case scenarios that could have happened to her.
I nodded toward the window. “You have ten seconds to climb down the trellis, boy. You are to come to my estate at dawn and explain yourself, or I will hunt you down and drag you therethrough the sewage gutter by your big toe. Do you understand me?”
Dritan offered an emphatic nod. “Yes, Lady Lamoreaux.” Yet he stood there, frozen.
“What are you waiting for?” I snapped, and he flung himself at the window. I turned to my niece. “What did you do?”
“It was a transitionary binding spell. I unbound Caym from King Mattock and placed him somewhere else. It was quite easy, and now we can wake up the King. I can feel how sad you are when I read to him. I thought maybe you’d be happier on days like today if he were awake.”
My blood ran ice cold.
“Where?” I growled, too panic-stricken to take in her reasoning.
“What?” Lark asked with a tone drenched in confusion.
