“What else could it be?” August asks.
“Who can say? We don’t understand the effect Talia’s blood has on our curse either. Perhaps the two factors are intertwined somehow—arising from a common feature we haven’t yet discovered.” Sylas rubs his jaw. “I don’t know of any other way to investigate the cause that we could easily pursue in our current situation. There are resources that might help elsewhere in our world, but that would risk exposing Talia’s secrets to our brethren.”
I hug myself, the idea of the impenetrable mystery lurking inside me overshadowing any satisfaction I felt in sharing this secret even with these two men. “But even if we’re not sure how it happened, it’s a good thing, right? You were just saying that the reason I’ll never be able to defend myself against fae on my own is magic. If I can learn more true names or other spells…”
Sylas appears to shake himself out of his pensive state. “I don’t like dealing with dynamics I’m uncertain of, but it can’t be helped. You’re right—this should work to your benefit, so long as you continue to keep it secret from everyone other than my cadre and me. If word got out that we’d gotten our hands on a magic-wielding human, we’d face nearly as much scrutiny as if they knew what benefits your blood offers.”
A chill ripples down my spine. “Of course.” I’m getting more practice at keeping secrets than anything else these men are training me in.
August moves toward the door, his usual cheerful energy coming back. “You’ll have to show us what you can do already, and then we can build from there. I have some bronze utensils in the kitchen that it wouldn’t be any great loss to see mangled.”
As I follow him, my stomach knots. What if I can’t manage it? What if I am somehow wrong even with the two instances of proof?
It won’t matter. I don’t actually think Sylas or August will judge me for a lapse like that. I just don’t want to let them down now that I’ve raised their expectations.
Sylas comes with us, his demeanor more reserved. Not because he doubts me, I don’t think, but because of his qualms about the consequences this revelation might lead to. But I already had a huge bullseye on me for my blood, so I can’t really regret the possibility that a second oddity about me might allow me to fend off the people who’d want to use me for the first.
The smells from our dinner—roast fish in a wine sauce and a bake of mixed berries and leaf vegetables that made a startlingly delicious combination—linger in the kitchen. August goes straight to the drawers beneath the counters and digs around until he produces a slightly battered bronze ladle. He sets it on the larger of the two islands and motions me over. “Give it your best shot.”
What exactly am I supposed to do with it? I step up to the countertop and eye the lone spoon, picturing it bending in the middle like the fae woman’s dagger did. It’s hard to summon much determination over an act that seems so random. I nibble at my lower lip and mentally sound out the syllables I spent so much time committing to memory. Fee-doom-ace-own.
I reach out my hand to grasp the spoon’s handle like I clutched the latch on my cage. The cool metal warms against my palm. Focusing all my attention on it, I propel the true name from my throat. “Fee-doom-ace-own.”
The two fae men watch, tensed in anticipation, but the spoon just sits there in my grasp looking as spoony as it did before. My heart sinks. I try to gather all the energy inside me and declare the word again. “Fee-doom-ace-own!”
Nothing. No tingle on my tongue, no change in the utensil I’m holding. I swallow hard, a ridiculous burning forming behind my eyes.
I know I did it before. It must have taken a thousand tries, but I got there eventually with the lock on the cage. And the woman who attacked me, her dagger—I warped it on my first try.
With panic and anger surging through my nerves. When I finally managed to unlock the cage, it was after that man from Aerik’s cadre—icy Cole—suggested they break my other foot and have me crawl around their fortress cleaning the rooms like a slave.
“Talia,” Sylas starts, so kindly the tears threaten again, but I shake my head before he can finish whatever he means to say.
“Let me keep trying. I think—I think I need to get back in the same mindset as when I did it before. Maybe some of the power came from my emotions.”
He falls silent, giving me the space I need without any sense of impatience. I reach back through my memories to the terror of the fae woman’s attack, but that was a sharp jolt in the face of a sudden threat, hard to stir again when I’m here in one of the few places I feel safe.
My years under Aerik’s control—those have stuck with me much more deeply, the horror twined through my spirit to the point that it seeps into my dreams, grips me at just the mention of my family. I hate the gut-wrenching chill that fills me when I think back to my imprisonment, but if I can use it, if it can give me power after everything he stole from me…
My heart thumps faster, the sickly chill expanding through my abdomen, but I force my thoughts to return to the filthy, starved existence of my captivity. To the endless hours where I had nothing but a few harsh words spat at me, a little food and water shoved between the bars, and my imagination offering a far too ephemeral escape. To the days when Aerik and his cadre would come to cut my wrist and drain a vial full of my blood, Cole pinning me beneath his body as painfully as possible, all of them laughing and sneering. To the splintering of pain and the crack of bones fracturing in my foot the one time I dared fight back.
To the wolfish beasts that lunged out of the shadows that night I teased Jamie into chasing me through the woods. Fangs and blood and guttural shrieks.
My legs tremble under me. My lungs have clenched, but I manage to produce the syllables, imagining myself facing those beasts again, preparing to do everything I can to defend myself and my family. I can’t save them now, but maybe I can save Sylas and his pack from more violence.
My fingers tighten around the spoon. “Fee-doom-ace-own. Fee-doom-ace-own!”
With that second utterance, an almost electric energy quivers over my tongue. The spoon shudders and hitches farther forward, the rounded end jutting and narrowing into a point vicious enough to stab.
August sucks in a startled breath. Sylas traces his fingers over the back of my hand, and I jerk my arm back from the makeshift weapon I shaped using a magic I barely understand. The fae lord picks up the spoon-turned-spike and turns it over, studying it from all angles.
“You really did it,” August says, awe glowing in his eyes. A grin leaps to his face. “You called its true name, and it answered. Do you have the mark?”
I glance down at myself as if one of those curving black tattoos might have appeared on my body just now. “I haven’t seen it. I checked everywhere I could see on my own and with a mirror after you told me what those are.”
Sylas lowers the spoon. “The magic might not leave its stamp on humans the same way it does on fae. Impossible to know when we have no other examples. And regardless, you haven’t fully mastered the word. Once you’re completely in tune with it, it shouldn’t take that much out of you.”
“If she was fae,” August puts in. “Maybe that’s different for humans working magic too.”