Page 111 of An Archer's Redemption

We embraced once more, then left the dining hall to find rest.

The next morning, someone had slid a note beneath my door instructing me to meet Atikus and several other Mages in the study for a private breakfast. I grinned as I entered the paneled room and found the rotund, ever-jovial Mage Pel piling his plate with eggs and bacon. Pel fumbled for a place to set his breakfast down, then waddled toward the entrance to greet me.

Reunion complete, I loaded my plate and sank into one of the large leather chairs, which normally faced the hearth but had been turned to form a circle.

Atikus set his steaming tea down and cleared his throat. “Keep eating, everyone, but we should get started. What we have to discuss is too important to wait. I will ask you to forgive my caution in advance. What Declan and I are about to reveal must never leave this room, and I will bind each of your minds with magic to ensure no one could ever pry these memories from you, something I wish had been done for me before Irina could rummage through my head.” He looked each Mage in the eyes, waited for their nod of assent, then cast the binding spell that would wipe any trace of their conversation from their minds within a few days.

He then summarized the events that had occurred over the past days, which translated into weeks in non-island time. I interjected at points, but Atikus’s perfect memory hadreturned, and his details were impeccable.

I marveled at Atikus’s perfect recall as the Mage recapped the plans we’d devised.

“The top priority is locating Irina,” Atikus said, as if reading from a list. “She is powerful; we assume she has regainedallher previous powers, just as we have. We need one Mage to scry for her. I will power his efforts with my magic. With her new powers, she should light up like a star in any scrying bowl.

“Next, we have to find a way to banish her—for good this time. Unfortunately, we have far more questions than answers. Is banishment even possible with a Mage of her power? Is her spirit separate from Larinda’s body, or do we need to kill the woman formerly known as Larinda andthenbanish Irina’s spirit? If so, will a summoning circle be needed to contain her spirit until it can be banished?”

As happened far too often when a group of Mages sat in the study, the conversation meandered on and off topic, and I found my mind drifting. I snapped back to the present when they moved on.

“Finally, we have to cleanse the currents and restore Gifts to the world,” Atikus said.

A tiny voice inside me wondered if I would lose many of my newly acquired powers if Gifts were restored. I was just getting to know these new powers, and we were already talking about stripping them away, returning me to only what I, as Heir, possessed.

I would be reduced to, what, six or seven Gifts?

Then I chided myself for such selfish thoughts.

My charge was to protect the people and magic itself, not hoard it like a dragon with a pile of golden coins. I realized in that moment how bitterly Irina was likely to resist having her powers taken from her once again, especially after a thousand years of imprisonment.

This was going to be a lot harder than any of us thought.

Atikus turned to the historian in the group. “We need you to dig through the stacks of historical scrolls maintained in the guild’s vault for any reference to the spell used to splinter magic and create Gifts. Ithasto be there. Mages were the original pack rats. We never destroy anything, especially if it was written on parchment.”

The Mages chuckled at their own penchant for hoarding.

The group disbanded shortly after lunch, each Mage hurrying off to research his or her assigned task. We would reconvene for dinner and review each other’s progress.

Atikus and I headed to the Guild Hall with the scrying Mage, hoping the circle embedded in that building would be powerful enough to locate our quarry. It would have been a simple matter from atop the Mages’ tower, but that option crumbled when its stones fell.

I had never seen the gold-and-silver inlaid circle in the casting chamber of the Guild Hall—there’d been no reason, as I’d grown up believing magic had shunned me. Now, upon entering the well-lit room, my eyes widened as I took in the craftsmanship of the perfectly inlaid circle. One golden circle in the center surrounded by a silver square wrapped in a final golden circle.

The whole thing flared when Atikus and I entered.

“Well, that’s new,” the scrying Mage said.

Atikus shook his head. “We are seeing all sorts of new things these days. It appears anything invested with magic responds to our presence.”

“Interesting. That might be helpful when we get to the fighting stage of the plan,” I said.

A white marble pillar stood waist high in the center of the circle. The scrying Mage poured water from a pitcher into a shiny brass bowl and placed it on the pedestal, careful not to spill anything inside the circle.

“Is it too much to hope that you have something personal to Irina?” he asked.

I barked a laugh. “I don’t know that anything matters to her anymore. She’s the purest kind of evil.”

“Declan’s right that we don’t have an item of hers, but he’s wrong in painting her with one solid color. While I agree she’s turned dark, no one isentirelyevil—or good, for that matter. We are all shades and hues.”

“Maybe she’s shades ofblack,” I mused.

“Let’s focus on locating her, shall we?” Atikus steered us back to our purpose.

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