Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(80)

“The cart will be arriving soon. We should get to the roadside to wait. Are you ready?”

“I just spent the last ten minutes making sure you were ready,” she said. “I’ve been ready.”

The prince frowned at her. He opened his mouth as if to say something but forced himself to swallow it. She was more comfortable when he looked at her this way—with a contempt that slanted his eyes instead of a worry that rounded them. This look, she understood.

“You’re certain that this will work?” Alfie asked her as they huddled under the vanishing cloak, watching as the canopied cart pulled by two horses made its way down the road to them.

Alfie had provided the information about when carts came to deliver supplies to the prison. He’d done his research on the Clock Tower months ago in preparation for the last time he’d come. Finn had come up with the plan to sneak onto the carriage without breaking a sweat. He’d agreed to it but was doubtful. Then again, he didn’t have a better idea, and there was no time to waste. The ride to the prison and this cart they’d been waiting for had taken longer than Alfie had expected; soon it would be afternoon. Time seemed to dart onward, leaving them struggling to keep up. The ball would begin tonight and Alfie could only hope that this would all be under control by then, that he’d somehow get back in time to relieve Luka and present himself as Castallan’s next king.

“Relax, old man,” Finn said, grinning when he glared down at her. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that horses don’t like snakes.” She took the sock she’d borrowed from him and stuffed it with small rocks. She set it on the ground at the edge of the road.

Alfie hoped she was right. They did not have time for mistakes. The ball was five hours away and this magic trapped in Ignacio’s body still wreaked havoc wherever it was.

The cart curved through the road between the sugarcane fields, drawing ever closer to the barren land that stood before them, an island of dust in a sea of sugarcane. The cart’s horses trotted in unison as the two drivers chatted. Finn raised her hand and curved it back and forth in rolling, serpentine motions. The rocks in the black sock responded as the sock slithered forward across the road toward the horses’ stamping feet.

She held up three fingers and counted down. “Tres, dos, uno—”

One horse gave a shrill neigh, rearing back on its hind legs at the sight of the pseudo snake. The other followed suit before stomping on the sock as the drivers shouted in alarm. They pulled the cart to a stop before one hopped off his perch to calm the horses.

“Now!” Finn whispered.

Together beneath the cloak, they dashed to the back of the cart and crawled in. It was full of food for the prison. Sacks of flour, potatoes, and purple onions were piled on the cart’s floor. Alfie pulled Finn to the back corner. They crouched against the adjoining walls of the cart. Alfie could hear the drivers arguing as they steadied the horses.

“Check the back,” one man said. “Make sure everything’s in order.”

Alfie pressed his back harder against the corner and hoped the man wouldn’t crawl into the cart to investigate.

A man appeared at the rear and eyed its contents, a look of boredom slackening his face. Then his eyes sharpened. His gaze locked on the ground just before Alfie.

Alfie looked down to see that his shoe was sticking out from beneath the cloak. He pulled his foot in, accidentally knocking his knee against a sack of potatoes. The sack fell sideways and hit the ground with a clunk. The man stared, rubbing his eyes in confusion.

Finn reached for a dagger in her belt loop, but Alfie grabbed her hand and shook his head. He would not let this go awry. They had no time for mistakes now, but enough people had been hurt already. His heart in his throat, Alfie grabbed the dragon on his chest. Finn watched him uneasily as he fervently thought, Forget you saw me. Forget you saw me.

A wave of pain tore through him, as if needles were slicing through every patch of his skin. His head swam.

The man’s eyes glazed over before clearing again. He blinked, as if trying to hold tight to a memory as it slipped through his fingers. He shook his head. “Todo bien back here!”

The man walked back to the head of the cart and the cart rolled on. His mind hazy with pain, Alfie startled at the trickle of something warm flowing over his lip. His nose was bleeding. With shaking fingers he pinched his nose and tilted his head back.

This magic was ravaging him from the inside out.

“That bad, huh?” Finn muttered.

“Worse,” he said, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

The pain blooming in his bones aside, Alfie couldn’t help but be astounded by the magic’s reach. How could it easily erase a single memory from a man’s head? There was spellwork that could wipe a man’s mind clean, but there was no magic that worked so selectively, plucking one memory like a petal from a stem. The price of that magic tore through Alfie as he blinked away his spotty vision, his hands trembling. If this was a mere echo of the magic, how strong would it be if it reunited with Sombra’s body?

Then a thought sprouted in his mind, thorny and prickly. The words of the Englassen book echoed in his mind:

The longer that the being is sealed, the more it will draw upon the sealer’s energy, his very life force.

Even if he banished the magic away, it would still be attached to him, drawing upon his life until there was nothing left to feast on. A prickling chill swept over his body. The reality of his death formed, hard and unignorable. Yet there was also something freeing to it. He’d worried about what legacy he would leave behind for his kingdom. Now the answer was simple—his life. The magic would sap him of it with time and when he died the seal would break. But hidden in the void, it would not be able to return and hurt anyone else. His life was worth that, he knew, but the thought of losing it sapped him of hope even more than this foul magic could.