Page 114 of Silvercloak

But Lyrian’s eyes glowed, unperturbed. “I believe I have a work-around for that.Et convoqan Vogolanphial.”

One of his desk drawers sprung open, and a small vial the approximate width of a wand leapt into his waiting palm. It was filled with dark red liquid.

He held it up to the light, an almost wistful expression on his face.“My closest companions submit a blood sample, so that I might find them should they ever go missing. The Whitewings have a habit of holding my most valuable confidants ransom. There’s no reason to suspect this spell-tracing charm won’t work the same way as a location charm.”

Saff’s stomach jolted with a missed-step sensation, a hook of pure adrenaline. “My informant said one must hold their wand to the curse’s starburst for the trace to have the desired effect. Otherwise it won’t know which spell to follow. Vogolan has likely been struck with a thousand curses in his life.”

“Butammortenwas the most recent, and surely the trace is intelligent enough to know that.”

He rolled up his sleeves and dipped the tip of the wand into the vial of blood.

Saffron’s breath hung suspended in her throat.

Would it implicate her—or her wand?

Or would the spellwork fail, since the charm was already erratic, and the vial of blood was no real substitute for a body?

“Sen novissan vestigas.”

There was an infinitesimal pause, charged with expectation and prayer and a rotting kind of despair.

Then a wisp of blue-ish silver vapor spilled from the vial, thin as a strand of cloakiers’ thread. It swirled in the air for a moment, like a dog tracking a scent, and Saffron’s life hung with it, but then suddenly, impossibly, it snaked across the room and through the thick wood of the door.

“That strand will lead you to the killer,” Saff said, letting the lodged breath loose slowly, inconspicuously, trying not to wonder who she’d just condemned to a wrongful, tortured death. It was suddenly very difficult to remain standing, her legs weak and watery.

Lyrian stared after the vaporous string, lost in thought. “Take a seat, Filthcloak.”

She obliged, slumping into a leather seat. Rasso leapt onto her lap and curled up in a ball. He was heavy, but the weight was steadying. It settled the sense of unmooring, the sense that everything she knew about magic and about herself had been turned upside down. The fallowwolf was something solid to hold onto when the rest of the world reeled around her.

Lyrian remained standing in front of the fire, his cloak drifting dangerously toward the licking flames. Saff watched hopefully. It would save her quite a lot of hassle if he caught fire of his own accord.

“So the trace has not indicted you. But you cannot deny that everything has been going wrong since you showed up and asked to be branded.” Lyrian’s tone had lowered to a coiled whisper, and she had to strain to hear him. Another small wrest of control. “You can’t expect me to believe that’s a coincidence.”

“No, not coincidence,” Saff agreed. “But the cause and effect isn’t what you think. Maybe the Silvercloak contact who gave me the tracing charm grew suspicious about why I needed it. She could’ve cast a listening spell on my cloak, heard Levan telling me about the lox.” She swallowed hard. “I may have made a mistake, but I’m no traitor.”

I’m a Timeweaver.

She could not grasp the enormity of it.

“True as that may be, sloppiness can be equally fatal. The Bloodmoons are my family, and my family’s safety means more to me than anything in this world.”

Saff’s stomach gave another strange lurch as the forks in the path intersected, then veered off in different directions again. “And I would never do anything to willingly endanger them. I hope I can make this up to you in time.”

She looked at the cruel-eyed man before her, and all at once, she realized exactly how to play him. “I do believe you, you know.” She dropped the bravado from her voice, letting it soften and blur around the edges. “That you don’t want to be like this. I’ve heard you say something along those lines a few times since I arrived. I know you would prefer not to hunt or kill.”

Her detective’s eye caught the slight dropping of tension in the kingpin’s shoulders, the way the deep notches of his frown grew shallower. As though she was confirming some truth he had once known about himself but had long forgotten.

Saff allowed herself the smallest exhale.

She was remaking a fate.

It was wrong and exhilarating and strange, for she had unmade not just her own fate but all the other events in all the world that had taken place in those few erased moments.

A monstrous thing.

With a sickly pang, she suddenlyunderstoodthe Augurests’ reasoning, even if she did not agree with their methods. There was something unnatural about what she had just done.

Still, she pressed forward. “On the streetwatch, I met plenty of crooks who just loved to cause pain and suffering. But that’s not you, is it? It never has been. You do all of this for a reason.”

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