“What did you do?”
She stared at the rock in his hand until the glow started to fade. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe your charm is broken.”
Anger flickered in his eyes. “It’s a relic.”
She snorted and turned away. He didn’t let her get far, maybe ten paces. Then his hand locked around her arm, and he swung her around.
She didn’t know what to tell him. That his friend was dead? He’d only want to know how she knew. And there was nothing he could do about it right now anyway. Edar was already gone.
“I saw the blood on those leaves,” he said in a low voice. “You touched it—licked it—I don’t know exactly what you did, but you used that blood to cast a spell. What was it?”
“It wasn’t a spell.”
She jerked out of his hold, backed away from him, and then forced herself to stop. No. She wasn’t running away. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
He glared at her, his hands flexing at his sides. “Do not lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
But she was, wasn’t she? She’d been lying to him the whole time, hiding the things she could do. And what would he do now that he knew? She thought that half the reason she’d licked the blood was just to find out.
He advanced a step, stopped when she stiffened.
“I was willing to believe that you had a talent for woodcraft, that you were more familiar with the woods than you let on, but I can’t continue to ignore it. You need to tell me how you’re navigating us around every black stretch of rot in this cursed woods without so much as a charm. Through areas you’ve admitted you’ve never been. I’ve worked with trained woodsmen my entire career who couldn’t have done what you have.”
Her mouth went dry. “You should be thanking me then, for doing such a good job.”
“How did you find the trail?”
“Does it matter? I found it. Isn’t that the important thing? The trail is real. We can just follow it and?—”
“You cast a blood spell!”
She’d already denied it. She wasn’t going to waste her breath doing so again.
“Have you forgotten what I am?”
“I couldn’t forget that if I tried.”
And she had tried. She’d tried so hard, she’d almost succeeded.
“I’m oath bound to report you, you know that, don’t you? That wasn’t you using a stupid charm or a potion. That wasblood magic. Do you have any idea how reckless that was?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“You have no fucking clue.” He cursed. “Do you know what the law requires of me?”
She lifted her chin. “Try to brand me. I dare you.”
“That’s not what—Fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. “How could you do something so stupid?”
She flinched, at both the words and at the way he was looking at her, like he’d never seen her before in his life.
Like she was a witch.
“It’s just a simple tracking trick,” she told him, trying to make him understand. “It’s not really a spell. I didn’t use any incantations or glyphs or powders or candles. I only did it to help you find your men. To help you.”
“This is the Black Woods. You can’t work blood magic out here. That’s the kind of thing that will get you killed.”
