“Excellent idea,” Cleo said with a yawn. “I’m going upstairs to my room as well. Please alert me if and when your grandmother’s friend arrives.”
Magnus watched her leave, then nodded at Enzo to follow her. He’d asked the guard to take extra care in watching over the princess and keeping her safe. Enzo was one of the few he trusted with the task.
“What shall I do?” Milo asked Magnus.
Magnus scanned the hall, which also contained a small bookcase full of ratty-looking books, nothing like the vast selection he’d come to value in the Auranian palace library.
“Patrol the neighborhood,” Magnus said, plucking a random book off the shelf. “Be sure that no one has yet realized that the former king of Mytica is temporarily residing here.”
Milo left the inn, and Magnus tried to focus on reading a tome about the history of wine production in Paelsia, which mentioned nothing about the earth magic that was surely responsible for the drink, or the laws preventing export to anywhere but Auranos.
After thirty pages of the dreck, the innkeeper’s wife, a small woman who seemed to have a constant, nervous smile fixed to her face, returned with another woman who was older, with lines around her eyes and mouth, utterly ordinary in appearance, and wearing a drab, unfashionable gown. This must be the woman Selia asked for, Magnus thought.
As the innkeeper’s wife disappeared into the kitchen, the older woman glanced around the seemingly vacant inn until her gaze fell on Magnus.
“So you’re the answer to all our current problems, are you?” he asked.
“Depends what your problems are, young man,” she replied curtly. “I would like to know why you called me here?”
“It wasn’t him, it was me,” Selia said, descending the wooden staircase at the far end of the hall that led to the private rooms on the second floor. “And it’s because I’m in search of an old friend. Do you recognize me after all these years?”
For an utterly silent and excruciatingly long moment, the woman stared at Selia with a strange mixture of fire and ice in her eyes. Just as Magnus began to fear they’d made a grave error in trusting his grandmother, the woman’s cheeks stretched into a big smile, cheerful wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes.
“Selia Damora,” she cooed in the candlelight, her tone much gentler than when she’d first entered the inn. “My sweet goddess above, how I have missed you!”
The two women rushed to each other and embraced.
“Shall I summon the others?” Magnus asked. The sooner his grandmother got what she needed from this woman, the sooner they could leave this place.
“No, this doesn’t require a group discussion,” Selia said without tearing her gaze away from her friend. “I have missed you as well, Dariah.”
“Where have you been all this time? I lost count of how many years had passed so long ago.”
“All that matters is that I’m here now. Frankly, I’m a little surprised you’re still in Basilia after all this time.”
“I could never give up the profits of my tavern—each year is better than the last. So many sailors with coin to spend and thirst to quench.”
“Many thirsts, I’m sure.”
Dariah winked. “Exactly.” She turned toward Magnus. “And who is this young man?”
“This is my grandson, Magnus. Magnus, this is my friend Dariah Gallo.”
“A pleasure.” Magnus forced the best smile he could onto his face, but he knew it would look more like a grimace.
“Oh, my. Your grandson has grown so very tall and handsome.”
Selia smiled. “Yes, grandsons sometimes do that by the time they reach eighteen.”
Dariah swept her wrinkled gaze over the length of him. “If I were younger . . .”
“If you were younger, you would have to fight his pretty young wife for his attentions.”
Dariah laughed. “And perhaps I’d win.”
Magnus suddenly longed to return to the book about Paelsian wine.
Selia joined her friend in her laughter, then once again adopted a serious but good-natured tone. “I haven’t only come to Basilia for a reconnection between old friends. I need information on how to acquire the bloodstone.”
Dariah raised her eyebrows. “Goodness, Selia, you waste no time.”
“I have no time to waste. My power has faded over the years, and my son is dying.”
In the stretch of silence that followed, Magnus stayed quiet. This stone, if it was real, sounded like something that could aid him in increasing his power, like the Kindred.
Selia drew Dariah over toward the bookshelf. She motioned for her to sit down on a wooden bench next to her, then took the other witch’s hands in hers. “There is no choice. I need it.”
“You know I don’t have it.”
“No. But you know who does.”
Dariah shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
“I’m asking you to contact him—I know you can find him. He needs to arrive as quickly as possible.”
A thousand questions prodded at Magnus, but he stayed silent, listening.
Power like this potentially delivered right into his very hands. It sounded much simpler than the complicated process of finding the Kindred.