She turned to leave.
And Magnus desperately tried to hold on to his memories.
But as he watched the wound on his hand heal in mere moments, the miracles he’d witnessed, the magic he’d seen, and the strange new friend he’d made faded from his mind.
Nothing remained except the familiar sensation of ice beneath the thick soles of his boots.
How strange, he thought. Why do I feel so dizzy?
“Magnus!” the king’s sharp voice cut through the frozen ruins. “It’s time to leave.”
Magnus blinked, suddenly weary—so weary he felt that he could sleep for a week. “Of course,” he said.
The king stood nearby, frowning deeply. “Where is your cloak?”
Magnus realized that the cloak he’d worn only moments ago had disappeared. He scanned the area, wondering if he’d removed it without realizing it, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
King Gaius muttered something disapproving under his breath. “It’s irrelevant. Let’s go. Now. I’ve seen enough, and I’m sure you have too.”
Yes, Magnus had seen enough—more than enough. He was ready to return to the palace and put this day out of his mind forever.
Perhaps witnessing the execution of the witch had troubled him much more than he’d thought it had. Why did the king put accused witches to death? Was it simply for the few who believed that true elementia really existed?
Magnus lingered for a moment as his father returned to his entourage and to the guards and carriages awaiting them on the other side of the ruins. He stared at the red mark on the frozen statue, wondering why he hadn’t noticed it before.
Was it blood?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except returning to the palace and to his sister.
As he started to walk away, he noticed something else.
At the base of the crumbling statue, a few yellow lilies had pushed through the snowy ground.
Impossible, he thought. There were no flowers in Limeros at this time of the year, not in this frigid cold.
Pushing any remaining thoughts of his missing cloak, the miraculous lilies, and a strange sense of loss out of his mind, Magnus followed his father out of the ruins of what was rumored to have been, a very long time ago, a lush, fragrant garden that hid a great and powerful magic.