As if we’d give him someone’s name and allow him to claim the coins.
But at least this offers me some measure of safety. I’ve never been able to use magic on my own. Maybe Lilith was wrong. Maybe I’m not the heir to anything at all.
Don’t you want to know the truth? she said to me. About the blood that runs in your veins? About how you were the only guardsman to survive?
I want her to be wrong.
She’s not, though. I know she’s not. My mother admitted it before I fled.
“No one has seen magic,” says Tycho. “The magesmiths were killed off before I was born.”
“Not all of them, apparently,” says Worwick. “Hawk, are you ill?”
“No. I’m fine.” I force my limbs to move, and I hang the blade along the wall.
“Kantor, did you cut my scraver?” Worwick tsks. “Hawk, stitch it up, would you?”
“Yes.” I have no idea how I’ll do that, but my brain won’t stop spinning.
Five hundred silvers is a fortune to most. The people of Emberfall will turn on each other to claim it. Rhen must be desperate.
“Be ready for crowds, boys,” says Worwick. “Tycho, be ready to pour. I don’t want lines for ale. We’ll turn a pretty profit in gambling alone, I’m sure.”
“I’ll make sure of it.” Kantor laughs. He smacks the other man on the shoulder good-naturedly. Worwick smiles and heads back toward the front of the tourney.
I sigh and look at Tycho. “Fetch some ropes. I’ll get the needle.”
The tourney doesn’t close until well after midnight. When we finally climb the ladder to our shared loft, Tycho doesn’t bother to light the lantern; he just falls into his bed. I expect him to tumble into sleep just as quickly, but instead he says, “I can’t imagine five hundred silvers all together.”
I don’t need to imagine it, but I say, “I’ve been hearing about that all night.”
“Do you think it’s heavy?”
“Heavy enough to make you walk crooked.” This isn’t true, but it makes him laugh, and then he falls silent.
I stare at the worn wooden rafters over my bed. The loft smells of hay and horses and holds the heat of the stable below, but I don’t mind. It’s warm and safe and dry here. I have nothing to fear from Tycho.
“It would buy my freedom from Worwick,” he says quietly.
I turn my head to look at him, barely a dim shadow in the midnight darkness. “Your freedom?”
“I’m sworn to him.” He pauses. “Two more years.”
“Why?”
“Bad luck. Bad debts.”
I’ve never seen Tycho gamble a single copper. “Not yours.”
“My father.” He takes a long breath. “I have two younger sisters, but I know what Worwick would have used them for. My brother is barely six. My family had nothing left to give. So …”
I look back at the rafters. “I once swore my life away to save my family—but my oath was freely given.”
“Mine was too,” he says.
This doesn’t feel the same. But maybe it is.
“Two years isn’t so very long,” Tycho says. “How long did it take for you to earn your freedom?”
This conversation is dragging memories to the surface, memories that are better left buried. “An eternity.”
Tycho laughs softly. “I know what you mean.”
No. He has no idea.
When he speaks again, his voice is halting. “Hawk, I don’t—I don’t tell anyone.” A note of worry threads between his words. “If people know I’m sworn to Worwick, they would … well, he might …” His voice trails off.
I consider how Tycho tends to vanish once the nights drag on and sober men are few. It makes me think better of Worwick that he doesn’t work the boy into the ground. That he allows him to hide. “I’ll keep your secret.”
He says nothing to that, and after a moment, I look over. The darkness is nearly absolute, but his eyes catch a gleam of light from somewhere.
I wonder if he’s regretting sharing this. “You have nothing to fear from me, Tycho.”
“I know.”
He says it so simply. It’s a level of trust I envy.
“Who were you sworn to?” he says.
My eyes fall closed. Without warning, my thoughts conjure Ironrose Castle, the miles of marble hallways, the arching painted ceilings. I remember the training arena, the armory, the stables—so clearly that I could find my way around blindfolded, even now.
Do you regret your oath? Rhen once asked me.
I did not. I do not. Not even now.
Tycho is still waiting for an answer. I shake my head. “No one of consequence.”
“I’d keep your secret too, Hawk.” Tycho’s voice is soft.
His intentions are good, and he may mean those words now, but he’d take my secret, turn me in, and buy his freedom.
“No secrets,” I say lazily. I roll over, facing away from him. “Just nothing interesting to share.”
He sighs, but I let my breathing go slow and even, so he thinks I have fallen asleep. Eventually, his own matches, accented by a tiny snore at the end of each breath.
Our conversation guarantees I won’t fall asleep anytime soon.
When Rhen released me from my oath, he told me to begin a new life on the other side—in Washington, DC, Harper’s home. My visits to her city were limited to one hour each season, so I am not ignorant of her world, but I could not imagine making my way in a place so very different from Emberfall. The customs, the clothing, the currency—I have seen it, but I do not know if I could mimic it.
The blood of a magesmith. If I have magic in my blood, I have no idea how to access it. I stare up at the rafters and remember how easily Lilith’s magic used to transport me through the veil into Washington, DC. I close my eyes and remember the feeling of it. For an instant, the air around me seems heavier, and I hold my breath, wondering if I’ve done it.
My eyes flick open. The stable rafters hang above me. Tycho breathes softly across the loft.
Silver hell.
I pick at the threading along the edge of my mattress, pulling slowly until the seam begins to come apart. I do this carefully so I can pull the threads back together later. I ease my hand into the opening, digging through the straw until I feel the heavy weight of silver.
It’s a bracelet—or it was, until I traded a day’s worth of hard labor for a blacksmith to get it off my arm. Now I have a scar on my wrist and a crude three-quarter circlet of silver. When I was trapped in the curse with Rhen, Lilith bound it to my arm with magic to allow me to cross the veil to the other side.
I have no idea if it still works. It’s the only magic I’ve ever been able to work, and it’s not mine, it’s Lilith’s. The bracelet is enchanted with her magic.
I close my fingers around the loop of silver and close my eyes. Almost against my will, my brain imagines a wall—then just as quickly imagines me passing through it.
The scents of the barn and the loft disappear, and the air is suddenly cool. The quiet sound of movement from the horses has been replaced with a low hum, and I open my eyes. White walls, long, tubular lights overhead, though they’re dim. Towers and towers of books stretch on forever, surrounding me. More books than I have ever seen, even in the royal library at Ironrose. This place is nothing like the castle, however. Aside from the books, everything about this room is smooth and sleek and almost unnaturally white.