House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(75)

“Obviously.”

“We’re not children,” Jannik says. “And Eline will be at the Council too.”

“He’s not going to dirty his hands,” Harun points out. “He’ll have hired someone. All he needs is oil and a casual match. It doesn’t take magic to set a fire.”

“It takes magic to go from a flame to a furnace in a matter of minutes, especially in summer, with the rains,” I say.

We all stare at one another. Jannik leaves his post with a sigh and goes to sit on one of the smaller couches, his head in his hands.

“When do we need to be there?” I hand Harun back his paper. He keeps looking at it, as if it will start spouting the answers to all his questions. Perhaps he is still trying to think of some way to do this and still stay safely here, far away from the Council of Lords who hate him and everything he stands for.

“Soon.” He frowns. “We can’t run late. That bastard the Mata Blaine is still cock-strutting since his father’s death, trying to prove himself. He has a vicious temp–”

The pain hits me in the back of my neck, needle teeth digging into the flesh, ragged nails scratching at my face. I shriek, and a dark boiling mass of magic engulfs me, sinks into me like a poison cloud. My organs are tearing out. This feels like Jannik’s magic, only instead of tearing uselessly at the walls and air, it is inside me like a living beast, and desperate for release.

The blackness surges back out of me and rips through the air, whirling me about in its wake. Whatever just poured through me, I have no more control over it than a sand-ghost. It slams into Merril, lifting him into the air and hammering him against the wall so hard I can hear bones crack.

Jannik is covered in blood, and utterly silent.

The magic dissipates as quickly as it appeared, and Merril’s body hits the ground with a thump.

“What–” says Harun then falls quiet.

Jannik and I are looking straight at each other and, for one fractured moment, I see both him – the blood pouring from the bite on his neck and the long scratches down his face - and myself – pale with fright, untouched – like a ghost image wavering over him. My eye is watering. I can still feel where one of Merril’s nails caught at the sensitive jelly of it.

My face goes gauzy, disappears and I see only Jannik.

Harun bellows for a servant to bring bandages and salt water to clean the wounds.

“Are – you – are you badly hurt?” I don’t even know why I’m asking, I can still feel it.

“What did you just do, Felicita?” Jannik says, taking small even breaths between each word.

“I have no idea – truly.” But I think I do. That magic, that power that tore through me and unleashed my fear and anger on Merril. It was not an unfamiliar magic – I am used to the touch of it on my skin, the energy of it changing the air of a room, infecting my mood.

“You used me,” Jannik says from between gritted teeth. “Like a f*cking spoon of powdered horn.”

I did not. It was nothing like that – I had no intention of pulling Jannik’s magic from him – indeed, I had no idea it was possible. “I saved you,” I say instead, and hammer the iron nails of my stupidity into his pride.

Servants enter the room; one with a basin of heated water, another carrying bandages. Jannik suffers them to wipe the blood away but won’t let them bind him. His anger and embarrassment cloud around him, so much so that is seems to me even the air in his corner of the room goes darker. But it is merely a trick of the light, the shadows stretching.

“Well,” says Harun, carefully not looking at Jannik. He walks over to the still body. “At least you saved me the trouble of killing it.”

Merril is dead. Hot tears gather in my eyes, threaten to go spilling over my face. I will not cry. He had been waiting, sly, waiting for a moment when we were not watching him. I hate him for attacking Jannik, for signing his own execution order. I hate him for what he made me do.

“Just keep quiet, both of you,” Jannik says, holding a wadded piece of raw silk to his neck. “He’s faking.”

Harun kicks the corpse, and Merril curls in on himself like a lizard in death throes. “Not for long.”

“Wait,” I say. Despite what just happened, I can’t bring myself to stand here and watch Harun kick the boy to death, or suffocate him with a pillow or whatever death he chooses for a punishment.

“You must be joking,” Harun practically spits at me. “I warned you.”

“I can’t let you kill him, not even now.”

“Your damn female pity almost cost Jannik’s life, and if that doesn’t bother you, remember at least that his death is your own.”

I stand straighter, hold my head higher. “My damn female pity just gave us the sword to swing at Eline’s neck.”

“You can’t mean that,” says Jannik. “No.”

“What would you have me do? Go back to scriv, never touch you again? If I can – if you would just let me try this again – see if we can replicate it – then we will have a weapon.” And I know I could. It feels right, like my bones settling into place. The hollow places I used to fill with scriv are waiting. I know how to use magic, and I could use this.

“I am not your hunting dog.”

I sigh and press my hands to my head, trying to bring some semblance of calm back to me. “Jannik, it is not always about the same thing – can’t you see this is something we can both use, we work together. We can refine it. If there’s a way for me to tap your magic then why should we waste that chance? The world has given us teeth, given us claws, don’t you see?”