Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(89)

Luka unfurled the parchment, turning and angling it away from Guillermo as the man leafed through the books Luka had been studying.

Luka’s thoughts fell into a numb silence at the sight of the parchment. It was flecked with blood. His best friend’s handwriting was scrawled messily, his fear in every stroke.

We’re fine, hurt but all right. Don’t worry.

Luka swiftly reached to grab his quill and scrawl a message demanding to know what had happened, but his forearm toppled the mug of spiced cocoa, sending the thick brown liquid spilling across the magicked parchment.

“No!” Luka shouted as he tried to sop up the cocoa with his sleeve.

The librarians scouring the shelves turned to look at him, their eyebrows raised. One nearly fell from his ladder at the sudden sound.

“Secar!” Luka shouted at the parchment. He knew that the drying spell would not be able to save it, but he had to try. It was one thing to speak the drying spell to a soaked piece of cloth, a material that was changed but not ruined when wet, but to use it on a piece of parchment that had already begun to disintegrate was quite another. The parchment grew slightly dryer, but it had already crumbled to a mushy mess.

“Are you quite all right, Prince Alfehr?” Guillermo asked. He put a weathered hand on Luka’s shoulder, his eyes wide. “It’s only a piece of parchment, after all.”

Luka stared down at the soaked parchment, his throat thickening with fear. There was a corner of the parchment that was damp with cocoa, but still dry enough to write on if he did so carefully, a sliver left intact. He had only a few moments to write a last message. The parchment’s integrity was crumbling and once that happened the spell would break; there would be no way for him to reach Alfie. Luka took up his quill and carefully wrote.

Sombra turned into stone not bones. A statue.

His words cramped and small, the quill shaking in his hand, he added to the dissolving parchment, Be safe.





30


The Fireworks


The giant clock above Finn’s head ticked relentlessly.

She imagined herself jumping up and punching it with a stone-cloaked fist, shattering the glass and ripping its hands off. It was close enough that she might reach it if she really leaped for it. Blowing a stray curl out of her face, Finn abandoned that plan and focused on what she was here to do. She placed the final pair of shrunken explosions, which were no longer than her index finger, against the strip of adobe brick between two cells. The fireworks were tiny now, but once the prince set them off, they would pack a big punch.

Nearly half an hour ago she’d left the prince to recover in the basement kitchens and dashed up a steep staircase to get back to the ground floor of this dank tower. Here, stacked floors of prison cells sat beneath the heinous clock. After carefully placing bundles of fireworks on each of the floors, she had finally reached the highest one. Sweat dripped down her temples, her thighs burning from the endless flights of stairs she’d climbed.

Leaving explosives all over a prison should’ve been more of a fun occasion, but as she moved through the ticking tower, Finn could think of nothing but the prince. It was mostly out of jealousy, she was sure. After all, he was waiting for her eight floors below, stationary and calm instead of sweatily running up flight after flight of stairs. She bet there was a place to get cool water in the kitchens too.

“Lucky pendejo,” she murmured.

But the envy withered away at the thought of how he swayed on his feet, his shadow shedding shades like a tree shed its leaves, left bare and vulnerable. How much longer would he last?

Finn blinked at that thought. When had she started giving a damn about the prince? This was his fault anyway; so what if he died? While that thought had once skimmed the surface of her mind and sunk in without a splash, now it clattered like something that no longer belonged there.

That renegade thought gave rise to others, like waves curling up toward the shore in a rush of froth and salt. She thought of the worry etched on his face as he’d given her the dragon. He’d bitten the inside of his cheek, his face falling lopsided as his teeth found purchase. The prince felt too much, too often, and though he tried to keep it locked within him, it always showed up on his face—in a furrowed brow, a flush rising up his neck, the soft indent of a sucked-in cheek. Just before the dragon slipped from his hand to hers, he’d mumbled something, his lips moving as if in prayer. And she’d known without hearing that it was her safety that he’d asked for.

Finn pushed the prince out of her mind and forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. She needed to get back to the prince so that they could make their way toward the prisoner’s cell before setting off the fireworks. They had a dark magic to hunt and this prisoner was the key to it all.

Finn turned on her heel and made to dash for the stairs on the far side of the floor when she slipped on a puddle of something and fell onto her back.

For a moment she saw stars. When her vision cleared there was a guard standing over her. At first she didn’t panic; she was wearing the cloak, after all. It wasn’t as if he could see her.

But he was looking straight at her. She moved slightly to the left, his eyes followed. She moved to the right, his gaze darted with her. How?

She reached for her head and felt only hair, not the hood. When she’d fallen the hood had slipped from her head. She was visible. Panic reverberated through her, as if a taut string had been plucked inside her.