“A minimum of magic?” My brow furrows. “Why a minimum?”
“Because the Wildwood no longer tolerates magic. Alanna’s curse means anyone using it within the forest’s borders risks a violent death.”
My hand pauses on its quest toward my lunch sack. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that anyone who uses magic in the Wildwood risks dying horribly.” His jaw flexes. “There’s a shadow barrier at the mouth of the labyrinth, one only my mate can pass through. One onlyyoucan pass through, in other words. The rest of us can only get in and out by using a wayfarer’s gyre, but anyone who does faces a chance of being…vaporized. Exploding into a haze of red. The effect is random, but reliable enough. It happens roughly half the time.”
A surge of dread chews up from my depths. “People diehalfthe time they use magic in the Wildwood?”
“Yes.”
I pause. “How do you even know that?”
Amriel glances away, darkness sailing across his features for half a second before disappearing again. “Because people have tried. Fae have transported in, but never made it out again. Or, if they did, they burst into a tangle of guts on arrival. Alanna’s curse…it’s a grotesque piece of magic.”
Something warbles in his voice, the phantom of some long-buried pain. Or, more likely, I’ve imagined it. “Did you know someone that happened to?”
His gaze swivels back to mine. “Of course. I knew every single one.”
My hand falls from the sack. Right. He’s king, here. He must know all his subjects. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
Amriel waves a hand. “I don’t want your apologies. I just want you to understand that only you can enter that maze, and once you do, I can’t come to your aid. Even if I were to try, even if I were to survive the trip, the sands will fall ten times as quickly if I’m in the Wildwood. Alanna was very clear about that.”
A slow breath leaks out of me. It seems my ancestor has stacked the deck against me. She must have truly wished Amriel eternal misery if she laced her spell so tightly.
“All right.” I gesture to the object in the middle. “What’s this, then? Because it looks like some kind of wayfarer’s gyre. It’s not going to kill me if I use it, is it?”
“No.” Amriel swigs from his bottle and set it aside again. “It’s been heavily modified, and uses so little magicit won’t trigger the Wildwood’s wrath. But its power is limited. It can only transport a single person, and it can only be used six times. Which means you’ll have three trips out, three trips back in. I suggest you use them wisely, because only one of these gyres exists. We haven’t been able to replicate its mechanisms, no matter how we’ve tried.”
My attention lingers on the interlocking rings and gears. “So once I’m in the forest, I’ll be able to…what? Use this thing to transport myself? Can I use it to gohome?”
Amriel’s lips curve into a joyless smile before returning to their natural, down-turned configuration. “No. It can only bring you a short distance. Back here to the castle, in other words. Then from here to the Wildwood again, where you’ll pick up where you left off.”
I frown. “That’s it? What’s the point, then?”
“It’ll allow you to take a break. Maybe even escape a dangerous situation, if you’re judicious.” He drums his fingertips against the desk. “And the hourglass’s sands should only fall when you’re in the forest.”
I digest that. “So I’ll be able to pause, essentially? Without using up my time?”
“That’s the idea.”
I nod and reach for the gyre. But Amriel’s hand snakes in, catching at my wrist, stilling it mid-air.
I freeze. Heat bites into me with cruel teeth, igniting from the place where his skin touches mine. Fiery sensations pulse through me, like memories lived in real time—flashes of yellow eyes and golden skin. Of warm, hard muscle shifting beneath my fingertips. Of silky white hair, dragged across the bare skin of my ribcage.
“Fuck,” Amriel hisses, shaking off my touch. He jerks back, curling his arm against his chest, glaring at me as if I’ve personally assaulted him. As if I’ve somehow planted those images in our heads myself.
I return his stare, rattled to my core. “What wasthat?” I manage, horror thick in my voice.
He sucks in a breath to answer, then changes tack and guzzles some wine. Like he’s desperate to drown whatever just happened.
“The mate bond,” he says, when he finally swallows. “Doing its awfulwork.”
I shake my head. The images have gone now, vanished along with his touch, but their imprint still lingers, like the tingle left over after a burn. “That was…”
“Unpleasant,” he bites out.
“Yes.” I gulp around nothing, then cross my legs, hoping to silence the foreign tingle between them. “Unpleasant. Extremely…unpleasant. But I don’t understand. That’s never happened with the Shadow.”
