Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(51)

“A half-decent map could have revealed the same thing. You didn’t need—?” He broke into a barking, rasping cough. I crouched next to him, ready to try the spell again, to transfer his suffering to myself, but he waved me off. When the coughing subsided, he said, “I never wanted you to see this.”

“See what?”

“My weakness.”

I paused, then went to the pot and began to stir it with violence before setting the ladle down with a sloppy clang. Then I clenched my fists and leaned against the table, unable to look at him.

“You’re angry,” he observed.

“What you have is an ailment. Not a weakness.”

“It feels the same to me.”

“When I think of weakness, I think of the weak-minded, the weak-willed, the cowardly. You are none of those things.”

“I am all of those things.”

“Stop,” I begged. “What I said this morning . . . I just . . .”

He left the cot and came to lean against the table beside me, in the casual, careless way I knew now to be only a fa?ade. He said, “Don’t apologize. There is no part of this morning that I would wish to revisit, save for one thing. When you said you were done with me. Did you mean it?”

There was very little space between us.

“No,” I breathed.

“Emilie,” he said, “I should have died today, yet I am not dead. You did that, didn’t you? You saved me.”

“You saved me first,” I whispered.

“Your eyes,” he said, “they confound me. They’re like a storm—?gray, and then blue, and then silver—?and always changing. There’s something absolutely uncanny about them. About you.”

But like a blow, I was confronted again with his depiction of me on the wall, casting a blood spell in nightmarish majesty. I was an elemental force, strange and devastating, beautiful as a bolt of lightning, terrible as the crack of thunder. Uncanny, I was. Inhuman.

I turned brusquely away from him, all the warmth between us instantly banished by a cold gust of air.

“I’ve got the camphor,” Nathaniel said, banging through the doorway.

I dashed to take the jar from him and empty its contents into the pot over the fire, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the deep blush that had started in my chest and was sweeping up my neck and into my cheeks.

Nathaniel glanced at Zan. “I see you’re feeling better.”

“Yes,” Zan said, questioning eyes on me. “Much better, I think.”





?20




That evening, when I was alone again, the first thing I did was crack open the copy of the Compendium Zan let me take from the library. The day had left my feelings in an unruly tangle; now, whenever my thoughts began to drift, they invariably made their way back to Zan. His insufferable smile. His maddening, uncaring demeanor. His quick wit, his sharp tongue. His eyes.

To distract myself, I threw all my energy into a single, straight-forward task: the identification of the blood mage who murdered Falada.

Despite the questionable place from which my motivation sprang, the goal was a worthy one. Now that High Gate’s seal was broken, the clock for Forest Gate was ticking. If we didn’t act soon, a maid, a mother, and a crone would meet the same fate as Falada. Zan believed these three sacrifices would be attempted in the span between the waxing and waning gibbous moons, the full moon marking the middle, the apex of the month. Ten days in total, but the attacks could begin anytime. We could not afford any delay.

I scoured the book back to front but saw nothing that might help until I turned to a section about scrying. Farseeing, it said on the top of the page. Most easily practiced by feral or high mages. Blood magic is less precise and may return unsatisfactory results.

It was the best option I could find, but my hopes to attempt it died quickly; this spell required a small personal token. I could use it to see someone far away, someone I knew, but it would not help me identify a stranger. I closed the book, frustrated, only to immediately open it again.

I could use it to see someone far away, someone I knew. I could use it to see my mother.

I needed her. I wanted to tell her everything. The fear, the hurt, the triumphs . . . the unexpected and complicated connection with an intriguing, infuriating boy with green eyes.

Following the instruction of the spell, I filled a copper bowl to the brim with water and let it settle until the surface was as smooth as glass. Lay out the memento of the person you’re trying to reach, the book said. A lock of hair, a handwriting sample, or a painting of their visage.

I did have my wedding dress, sewn with my mother’s own hand, but it was packed away, and I didn’t want to be reminded that when all of this was over, if things went successfully, I’d still have to marry Zan’s cousin. No, I’d use the bloodcloth. Kneeling, I held the folded square in one hand while I nicked a finger on the other and let the blood drip into the bowl.

Concentrate, the book directed, and repeat the words: Indica mihi quem quaeritis. Show me the one I seek.

“‘Indica mihi quem quaeritis,’” I said as the droplets of my blood bloomed like roses in the water.

I clutched the bloodcloth and searched the water for some sign that it was working . . . anything . . .

When an image finally formed like an oily sheen on the surface, it was not my mother’s face I saw but a man’s. The spell had warned me that blood magic could return unsatisfactory results, but I was disappointed anyway. I squinted and leaned closer. It looked like . . .