“I mean, I’ll do my best, but I’m one against six.”
“Two against six,” Marry said mildly, still poring over her makeshift battle plan. “I’ll be armed as well.”
“You?”
At that, she did look up, one golden brow arching neatly. “Yes,me.”
“But you, er—” Ger gave a somewhat apologetic wince. “Aren’t you a bitrusty?”
Adeline echoed his wince, and even Kai shifted awkwardly beside her. Imogen peered up at them from the cradle of her own hands, but Marry only watched him coolly.
“Aren’tyou?”
“I still train several times a week.”
“And I’ve been training since I was six years old. You’ll recall I had the advantage in the tourney until you broke my leg.”
“That was an accident.” He rolled his lips in, quite literally biting back a smile that said he just couldn’t help himself. “But you’ll recall I won.”
Marry bristled visibly, colour in her gaunt cheeks and her hands flattening over the parchment.
“Andyouwill recall I very graciously didn’t shove my crutch up your—”
“Marry,”Adeline gasped.
Kai gave a stifled cough into his elbow that did not quite cover the snort of his laughter. Adeline gave his arm a terse flick, fighting to keep her own face schooled and stern.
“Pick it up later,” she reminded her sister.
Mareda scowled, but Gerard, for his part, looked delighted at having broken her famous composure after many,manyyears of trying. Adeline would be lying if she said she wasn’t just the tiniest bit amused by his success, but it had come at the absolute worst time.
“Behave,” she warned him.
“Boring,” he sighed.
“Will there be a signal of some kind?” Kai asked, drawing them abruptly back to the matter at hand even as a slight curve still clung to his lips. “Or will we have to call?”
“I think I can induce Wielding without a call, if needs be.” Imogen lifted her head, gaze bouncing weakly between them. “May I?”
They both nodded, and Imogen’s breath of relief was palpable as a gust of wind. And then, when Adeline’s hair stirred around her, she realised it wasnother friend’s sigh at all but a physicalcharge crackling through the air, racing around them all, seeking a conduit. It found its way beneath Adeline’s skin, and in the matter of a moment, unfathomable power surged through her. Its song was the same rush and creak of the windswept forest that had stormed her blood on that first night with Kai, though she did not lose her vision as the magic spun itself through her veins, pressing at her pores for escape. She fumbled at the table for balance and grasped for that wild power, guiding it as best she could to the escape it sought. Her hold on it was tenuous at best, but she freed it clumsily from her hands until the wood beneath her palms began to groan and crack. Marry snatched up the parchment just as a tangle of roots split the surface in two, and a spill of brambles and vines tumbled free like veins from a mortal wound.
She felt the moment Imogen pulled back, punctuated by a long, sharp inhale from her left.
“That’s going to take some getting used to,” said Ger.
“You have about eighteen hours,” Adeline panted.
Trembling, she raised her head to watch as Kai rode out the surge of his own power, jaw set, and shoulders squared. It didn’t escape her notice that Imogen had let him bear it a few moments longer, and it was easy to see why. Ropes of shimmering water wove through Adeline’s clumsy nest of bark and shoots, collecting scattered debris from the cracks in the wood before sinking through the tabletop and leaving the desk bone dry and ever so slightly neater.
Kai’s breath sawed from him as he straightened and shook out his hands, but he eyed Imogen steadily.
“It relieves you,” he noted.
Adeline followed his gaze; Imogen was sitting upright, her eyes brighter and shoulders drawn back for the first time since she’d sat down.
“Immensely,” she said. “But it’s short-lived. It’s like trying to contain an endless flood, and occasionally having somewhere to bail out the excess. I held back as much as I could.”
Kai shook his head at the note of apology in her tone.
