Page 118 of Silvercloak

Saff herself was afraid of public speaking, which didn’t marry at all with her nihilistic worldview. Her parents had been murdered in front of her. Why would she fear standing on a dais and simply talking? Andyet her body reacted independently of her mind, stomach cramps and swooping vision, and no amount of logic could ease that fear.

People were complicated. Levan was complicated. He’d never had the chance to become anything other than what he was. She thought of him being branded as a child, and of their shared wounds, and of his lips on hers and how alive she had felt at his touch.

Which is perhaps why, without thinking of the threats and risks, without assessing every possible outcome, without thinking much at all, she decided to act, driven by pure instinct, by pure …something.

As she made her way to the cells, Rasso trotting at her heels, fortune somehow favored her. A subtle change of the tides, as though luck were suddenly responding to the newly awakened power in her veins. She did not pass a single soul in the hallways, nor was there anyone guarding the cells themselves. Perhaps the kingpin did not want anyone to know that his son was held captive.

The eight cells were notched along a short, narrow corridor, four on each side. Three had deadbolts drawn across their doors. Cell one contained Nalezen Zares, and presumably cell two housed Levan. She wasn’t sure who was in cell six, but she didn’t particularly care.

She pressed her ear against the door of cell two, and she did not hear voices—which meant if Levan was in there, he was in there alone. Rasso nudged the door with his wet nose, leaving an imprint on the faded wood. She smiled reassuringly at him and tapped the deadbolt with her wand.

“Good gallowsweed.”

She’d watched Levan lock up Nalezen Zares this way, and she hoped the password hadn’t changed in the days since. She held her breath for a split second, but the deadbolt sighed loose. When the door pushed open, it took her a moment to process what she saw on the other side.

The light was dim, just a single flickering lantern bolted to the far wall. Levan sat on an armless chair next to a thick wooden table, upon which he rested his hand.

Saffron took a few more steps into the room, narrowing her eyes as they adjusted to the light.

No, his hand was notrestingon the table.

It was impaled with a thick shard of … glass? Metal?

As his eyes found hers, they looked as dull and dead as the night she’d met him in the alley.

“What’s that?” she asked gesturing to the shard, throat thick with dread.

“Deminite,” he replied, hard, emotionless. “Cursed.”

His hand was palm-down on the table, and the shard jutted right through the center of it. It was a big enough chunk of deminite that it must’ve severed ligaments and crunched through bone. Saff suppressed a shudder.

“Cursed?” she asked, aghast. “Isn’t the whole point of deminite that it nullifies magic?”

“Hell knows.” Levan shrugged one shoulder, leaving the impaled arm still. “But I heard him cast the magic.Ver sevocan, nis sanadiman.”

The same spell pattern as the brand. A kind of dark conditional magic that inspired a primal fear in her.

“What does that mean?”

He fixed his empty stare on a point just beyond her ear. “If I pull it out, all the blood in my body will come with it.”

“Saints.”

“He didn’t have the stomach for killing me, in the end. But I’m not sure this is anything less than a death sentence. The magic … he didn’t caveat it. No conditions or exceptions. Now nobody can pull it out without killing me. Not even him.”

So that was why Lyrian hadn’t felt the need to station a guard outside the cell.

There was no freeing Levan.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, horror gathering inside her like storm clouds. This was her fault. If she hadn’t yanked time unnaturally backward, if she hadn’t chosen a different fork in the path, if she hadn’t given Lyrian a defective tracing charm …

“Don’t be. Vogolan deserved to die.” Levan stayed rigid, wooden, so far from the softened man she’d kissed in the warded tunnel as they talked about meeting their childhood hero.

“Butyoudon’t.”

“Don’t I?”

A fair question. One she might have answered quite differently mere weeks ago.

---