“Your predecessors designed the runes of your binding to recognize bloodlines. Generations have gone by, and the noble houses have been trying to bury any unions that violated bloodline law. These are the mixed unions between gargoyles and dark elves. These families carry proof that the bloodlines dark elves call pure were never pure at all.” She folds her hands. “The warden binding at this site was keyed to the same magic. If anyone carrying that bloodline ever needed protection, the nearest surviving warden would wake.”
Selah presses her hand over her pocket, where the relic she stole sits.
“It’s all connected,” she whispers so softly I barely hear her.
“If you have any questions, you can come visit me,” said Mother Sevra as she stands. “I hope you enjoy your evening.”
When Selah looks at me, exhaustion sits heavy beneath her expression.
“They’re not hunting me for the relic alone,” she says quietly, before I can ask. “They’re hunting me because of what my blood is. Because of what I prove exists.” She exhales. “I’m the evidence. If I survive, the relic doesn’t even matter.”
I say nothing. The tether sits between us, steady and warm and entirely too honest.
“So,” she says. “That’s the problem.”
The evening crowd fills the common room in waves. By the time Brinna’s gambling tables pull noise from every corner, I have already catalogued every man who has looked at Selah too long.
Most of them look once and think better of it.
The sailor at the bar does not. He is broad through the shoulders, loud in the way men are when they want to be noticed, and he has been working his way down the bar toward Selah for the better part of an hour. I watch him from myposition near the wall. The tether is quiet. Selah is not afraid of him. She is barely paying attention to him, which he clearly mistakes for invitation.
He leans against the bar beside her and says something I cannot hear over the noise of the room.
Selah glances at him briefly and looks away.
He says something else. His shoulder drops toward hers.
The tether tightens.
I cross the room before I have made the decision to move.
The sailor turns when my shadow falls across him. To his credit, he does not immediately run. He looks at me as if recalculating every choice that led him to this moment.
“Move,” I say.
“I was only?—”
“Move.”
Selah steps between us. Her hand finds my arm just below the elbow, which is the only reason the sailor keeps his jaw intact. She applies no real pressure. She does not have the strength to hold me in place and she knows it. What she applies instead is intent, and somehow that is enough to make me go still.
“We’re going outside,” she says.
The cold air off the harbor hits the moment we clear the back door. Selah releases my arm and rounds on me with the expression she reserves for when she has run out of patience and is not bothering to hide it.
“You nearly put your fist through that man’s face.”
“He was bothering you.”
“He was talking to me. There is a difference.”
“You looked away from him twice.”
“I was not interested in having a conversation with him, and I think I made that perfectly clear by turning away.” She crosses her arms. The wind pulls at her hair and she ignores it. “Youcannot do that every time someone speaks to me. I will never leave the inn again.”
“That would solve a significant number of problems.”
Her eyes sharpen. “Droza.”
