“Portals?” I spun on my heel.
Finn offered a lazy smile. “There are books that explain all of this in painstaking detail, you know.”
Well, if that was not a dismissal. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you.”
“You’re not.” His voice turned warm and teasing. “And I know I am far more entertaining than any book, but you do have time to read.”
“Right.”
Though he indulged me, I let Finnegan return his attention to the map. My gaze drifted to the window, to the clouded sky above the snow-dusted pines.
If relics could be used by someone without powers, they might serve me well. Especially a protection relic. I’d received too many warnings to ignore them. This could be the one sensible precaution while I remained here.
Tugging absently at the sleeve of my sweater, my eyes lowered to the faint circular lines of my sentence mark. It no longer seemed to reach my elbow.
Was it fading?
“Jane,” Finnegan said, his voice tinged with amusement. “You look like you’re studying a puzzle. Forget the books. Ask your questions. Give me a distraction until Cerridwen comes.”
“You will regret that. I have too many questions.” I stepped closer and took the seat beside him. “But perhaps just one. Do sentence marks fade over time?”
“Yes. They fade until you have served your time and no longer have to stare at them.”
I traced the diminishing lines with a finger and, without meaning to, wondered how long Reagan’s sentence might be. I remembered glimpses of his forearms, but I had never seen marks on them.
Before I could catch myself, my gaze lifted to Finn’s pointed ears. He noticed, sweeping a hand through his hair and letting a few strands fall over the tips. I looked away, though he kept that lazy smile.
“I was talking to him,” I ventured. “Reagan. He told me how...it happened.”
Finn hummed, his eyes gleaming as if trying to read the direction of my thoughts.
“It is not a secret,” he said.
“Yes. Well...” I hesitated. “I did not ask him, because it is none of my business, but after what happened in that forest and all the warnings I keep receiving, I wondered...what took his parents?”
His expression changed at once. The relaxed lines tightened and turned sombre. Too late, I realised the subject was a delicate one for him as well.
“I am sorry. I should not have asked.”
“No,” he breathed out quietly. “Elinor and Thomas died because someone used a very dark power. Someone who, unfortunately, escaped. It was an ambush by Wraiths.”
My fingers curled around the armrests. “The . . . monsters?”
“Yes, but Wraiths were just pawns in someone’s conspiracy against this estate. They were not usually this close, not in those days. I didn’t see the ambush myself, but the group was strong and calculated. This is what happens when someone feeds a Wraith and grants it enough power to drain a person dry.”
“So someone else is responsible?” My chest tightened.
Finn nodded.
“And Reagan never found them?”
“He searched for years and left Mountheim more times than I can count. But eventually the trail went cold, and they slipped away.” He released a long, weary sigh.
“What happened to his parents afterwards?”
His mouth thinned to a hard line. Every muscle in his face locked, a far cry from the ease he had carried only moments ago.
“The touch of a Wraith is a cursed thing. They would have become creatures of the same kind, drained until nothing remained. Reagan didn’t let that happen. He ended their existence to set their souls free, so they could meet Zara and Godric. It’s one of the very few times that a hex can be sanctioned.”
