The tether on my anger snapped. “After all that, you’re not going to explain the cards?”
Maggie refused to answer. She closed her eyes, picked up the bone pouch, and croaked, “Autta mina oh vilsa, ole soka ja olet vilsa. Nayt? mien Serena tulavasus.”
Her eyes flew open; this time they were both pale silver. Liora let go of my hand in shock. Cai and Adrianna tilted back, wincing. Frazer looked ready to pounce.
Maggie was oblivious. She scattered the tiny bleached bones over the cards and blinked. Her amber eye reappeared, and she stared down at the cards with it, while her silver eye resumed its vigil at the mirror.
Maggie suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and shuddered.
My palms went slick with sweat.
“What’s going on?” Frazer demanded.
Maggie didn’t speak. So Adrianna snapped, “Drop the theatrics. Now. Or I swear by Indrina, I won’t stop at a lock of hair. I’ll shave your whole damned head.”
The witch smiled faintly. “I don’t doubt it.”
But my attention got snagged on someone else: Liora was gaping down at the table. At the bones.
I dared to ask her, “Can you read it?”
Liora eyeballed me. “A little,” she said breathlessly.
Cai finished her thought. “Enough to see it’s a powerful reading.”
Rutting hell.
Frazer poured more tea and slid it toward me. Maybe he sensed my nerves fraying. I doubted a rutting cup of chamomile could help me now.
Maggie wet her lips with a nervous flick of her tongue. “The crescent spread and the bones combine to tell me that there’s a woman—a female—tied to your future. It is essential that you find her.”
“Who is she?” Frazer asked intensely. He looked at the reading as if he was about to rip it to shreds. As if it was a threat. “Where do we find her?”
“I’d need to scry to find her location. But as for who she is—”
Her voice broke.
I offered her my cup, and she took it with a nod. After a few gulps, she set it aside and cleared her throat. “She’s the one who can give you answers. There’s something you carry … An object of great power.”
I almost reached for my necklace, but stayed my hand at the last second.
Maggie’s silver eye snapped to the mirror. Whatever she saw made her jab her finger toward my throat with such force, Frazer growled savagely.
The witch ignored him. “Whatever that is, you must present it to the Priestess. She’ll recognize you if you wear it. Don’t wait: seek her out as soon as possible.”
Squalling, chaotic emotions swelled within me. Terror and confusion and panic. “What about the trials? Should I leave Kasi?”
Adrianna cut in. “You can’t just run away. Deserters are tracked and—”
Maggie silenced her with an open palm. Both her eyes shifted to me. “There are two quests in front of you. The first lies in finishing the trials. The second will be to find this Priestess. These paths walk side by side and weave together. You cannot do one without the other.”
Something about that made a cold shiver touch my back, forcing my spine to go ramrod straight. “What happens if I can’t do both?”
A part of me knew, but I had to hear the words.
Maggie’s expression softened. “If you fail, you die. That thing around your neck: whatever it’s done, will end up killing you.”
Frazer lurched forward. He was at my throat, fumbling for the chain.
“Stop!” Maggie banged the table, causing the bones to jump.
I stopped breathing and Frazer froze. As did everyone else.
Maggie’s jaw and shoulders were too tense; a vein bulged in her neck. “Taking it off won’t stop what’s happening to her, and it won’t save her: quite the opposite. I think it’s been protecting her.”
Frazer slowly sat back down. My hand splayed across my chest, guarding the droplet underneath. I was speaking before I could stop myself. “It has. It protected me when the eerie showed up. There was this voice …” I didn’t want to share more, but this was my chance for answers. Something Auntie had refused to give me. “It told me that there was magic inside. My magic. Then that thing appeared, and it gifted it back, but …”
Maggie was nodding, her silver eye rolling. “There will be consequences. It’s given you something … pure. The purest of all magic.”
Cai sucked in a rattling breath. Adrianna’s knuckles whitened as her hands curled, and Frazer and Liora became petrified blocks of stone.
“What’s that—”
“That isn’t possible,” Frazer uttered. He didn’t blink as he stared down Maggie. “No human has ever been gifted with light magic. It’s too raw, too volatile.”
Maggie didn’t flinch, even when his stare intensified.
Light magic … Light magic?
Any attempt to remain calm shattered, and hysteria rode my voice. “What will happen to me?”
No one looked capable of speech. No one except Maggie. “The second that magic entered your system, you should’ve combusted from the inside out.”
The world tipped. A fall was imminent.
“But you didn’t. You survived.” Maggie set down the mirror to brush the beading sweat from her brow. Both eyes rested on me as she continued. “Still, even if your body can somehow bear it for now, the magic in your veins will kill you. Eventually. Because you can’t access it, and if you can’t channel your power, it’ll build up and rip you apart from the inside out.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I tried to reel myself in. But it proved impossible.
“So, it’s like she’s been bound?” Liora breathed.
My heart stumbled at the sight of my best friend’s face, grief and panic etched in every line.
“Not quite,” Maggie replied wearily. “I don’t fully understand what’s blocking her magic. But Serena is a unique case … I’ve never come across another witch who’s had their magic returned to them after they were stripped.”
That didn’t sound pleasant.
Maggie looked to Cai and Liora. “You’re both witches. Didn’t you guess?”
They looked sick. Like they’d just watched someone flayed alive.
Cai rushed out on an exhale, “Stripping a witch of their magic is so rarely done, so extreme. I didn’t even know it was possible for any of the magic to be kept. I thought it was just gone, lost to the ether.”
“Can someone please tell me—”
Liora explained. “Stripping a witch is like cutting the wings from a fae.”
The bond grew taut. I detected a tremor and yearned to take Frazer’s hand. But his hooded eyes carried a warning. He didn’t want to be touched.
Liora turned to Maggie. Anger ringing in her voice, she asked, “Who would do that to her?”
Maggie’s steadfast but exhausted gaze settled on me. “The Priestess. The odd thing is the reading shows her as a protector—a guardian. I don’t believe that her goal was to part Serena from her magic forever; otherwise, she wouldn’t have preserved it. As for why she’d strip her magic—your magic—only she can answer that question. You must find her; she’s the only one who can help you.”
A pulse pounded between my eyes. A lightning web of thoughts, all tangled and knotted, took hold.
None of it made sense. None of it …
There was no memory. There was nothing that could explain this. Had my father known? Had my mother? Surely, she must have to pass on the necklace, to warn me of its protective qualities. How had this Priestess and my mother even met? Somewhere in Tunnock? That brought up another issue. Eyeballing Maggie, I said, “My mother gifted me this after she died. It comes from the Gauntlet.” I flashed the droplet above my jacket for a moment before hiding it again. “You know that’s where I was born—in the human realm—but you said I might never go back. So, how do those two things fit together? How do I reach this Priestess?”
Maggie’s brow creased; she picked up the black mirror again.
Dead silence.
The witch blinked a few times and muttered something. I felt like screaming. Maggie’s hand dropped and rested against the table. “The Priestess isn’t in the Gauntlet.”