Page 51

Magic backlash had destroyed the doorframe, the room itself lying in shambles. The walls were covered in a strange, glimmering, almost icicle-like material, brimming with magic I’d never seen before. Touching it would be stupid, and I tried very hard not to be stupid. Not always successful, but I was a real sucker for shiny, glittery things.

But this shiny stuff came from my mother, and everything with her touch on it screamed BAD BAD BAD in my brain.

A large puddle of tacky liquid lay in the middle of the floor, the outline of what looked to be a body smudged through the dust.

My body.

I blinked in surprise. The amount of blood was more than I’d ever seen before and told me I should not be standing here right now.

Tess had done the impossible. I’d known it, but seeing the proof before me turned my stomach. Guilt burned in my gut over what I’d put my friends through.

“Shit,” I breathed. One day I would make this up to them. When my mother was ash upon a cold wind.

Bending down to set my backpack on the ground, I rummaged through until I found a small, round container of nuts I’d swiped from the kitchen. Emptying those into an extra pocket, I set the container aside and reached for the small wallet I’d brought and extracted my library card.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. The card was the most expendable out of everything I had in my wallet. If what I was about to do went awry, I would still have my debit and credit cards.

Fat lot of good they’d do in the middle of the wilderness, but you never knew.

I grabbed an extra tank top from the bag and wrapped it around my left hand. Once the small jar was in hand, I used the library card to scrape off some of the magic remnants from the wall, wincing when some flakes hit the tank. Nothing happened, but I still shook them off and shoved them away with my foot.

When that was done, I carefully wrapped the container in the tank and tucked it inside my bag. I’d have Evie look at it to see if she could figure out what unholy magic my mother was involved in.

Searching the rest of this shithole was uneventful. Mom’s bedroom smelled like Liaza and sex, turning my stomach even in the hallway. I peeked in, seeing nothing other than some of her clothing and shoes. She never performed magic in her bedroom, not even when I was a child.

I never thought it was odd, but as an adult I wondered if it was just an odd quirk of hers or if there was something more to it.

Closing the door, I wandered through the rest of the house, seeing nothing much of interest.

Odd. I knew they brought in something large and secret a month or so ago, but there was nothing in the other rooms to offer any hints. Frustrated, I closed the last door and turned to walk back through the hallway.

A woman stood there, backlit so I couldn’t see her features. She was tall. Golden-blonde hair. Her clothing was odd, but I couldn’t quite tell what was so off about it. The woman held something in her right hand, pointed down at the floor.

I took a step back.

She held a big-ass sword.

“Hello, Moira,” the woman said, her voice husky.

“Who are you?”

“Moira!”

Ari scrambled around the corner, eyes wide as she spotted the woman. “Don’t move,” she said urgently.

The woman clicked her tongue. “Now, Ari, is that any way to greet an old friend?” She hefted the sword in one hand and tossed it in the air, the blade spinning with silvery magic. “After all, I’m bearing one of your finest weapons, aren’t I?”

She caught the blade by the hilt and pointed it at the floor once more.

“You two know each other?” I asked.

“Hardly,” Ari spat.

The woman laughed. “Lies. We go way back, gods touched. Far more than Ari likes to admit.”

Gods touched.

“What do you want, Andraste?”