Page 79 of At the Mercy of Midnight
He straightened with a jolt of excitement. “Really? Do you think he could get us in there? I know it’s a bit of a mystery what’s behind those doors, but what if there’s something we can use in there? Could you—”
“No.”
Silas paused, watching with confusion as she stood abruptly and wandered away from him, plucking up a book from the table.
He followed her to the wingback chairs where she sat. “Winslow…”
She thumbed a page over as she shook her head. “No.”
“Access to whatever is in there could give us some valuable information.”
Amelia turned another page. “My parents don’t live here anymore. In fact, I don’t know where they are.”
Silas frowned. “I thought they worked in the Spire?”
She shrugged, refusing to look at him.
He tucked the library book under his arm as he slowly took a seat, scrutinising her. “You don’t get along with them, do you?”
She released an irritated breath through her nose and didn’t respond.
“Okay, fine. We’ll revisit that. But I did find this book in the Spire. Here, look—”
He flipped open the pages and shifted forwards, holding it out for her. His finger tapped at the sentence.
Amelia frowned at the pages, pulling it into her lap and leaned over it, reading aloud softly.
“The most famous instance of a magically bonded pair, referred to as‘the inseparable lovers’, were rumoured to be united through a bond of unknown origin that claimed to be‘more than a simple bonding, but a melding of souls’. The incident in East Town has never been categorically confirmed as accurate, though some reports noted‘wicked displays of magic that went far beyond the natural’which destroyed a section of the town. They were presumed to have been rune-bound (skin carvings: for more on this outlawed practice, see pg. 319), driven mad by the imbued magic that they could not wield without destruction to themselves or others. The lovers disappeared after the incident and were never heard from again, taking the truth with them.”
She was quiet as her eyes scanned it again, before looking up. “Inseparable lovers? Was that the last two before us…Lyana was her name?”
He nodded. “Based on the vision with the mage, yes.”
“They would have been trying to fix it…bring balance,” Amelia said. “They sacrificed everything…and they’re nothing but an unnamed footnote in history riddled with errors. They weren’t runed…they were like us.”
She snapped the book shut fiercely, setting her hands atop the worn cover. “Is that our destiny? Just another bonded pair, doomed to failing, becoming lost to history?”
Silas swallowed as the arcane lamps in her room began flickering, sending the space pulsing briefly between light and dark before returning to normal.
He shook his head. “I don’t think we have a choice,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care. “If the purpose of the bond is to bring some kind of balance…we have to try, or…”
Silas didn’t have to finish. Amelia covered her eyes with a hand, leaning back with a weary sigh.
If they didn’t fix the magic, it was not only them who may be lost.
Amelia showed Silas her laboratory the next morning. It was so much like his own that it felt like coming home as he stepped inside the large space, except for the cleanliness and order in the way her worktable and shelves were arranged.
The blades were set down carefully on the central table, spending most of the first day studying the effects of other materials when in contact with each stone that made up the blades. They had been unsuccessful in taking scrapings of the stone, the steadfast material seemed utterly impenetrable.
As they had already discovered from previous testing, they didn’t react to extreme heat or cold, nor did encasing them in any kind of other metal, runed or not, work to control the magic within them, that magic which sang in their own veins.
They would also discover that the blades did not react to light in the usual way. The dagger cut from the Southern Monolith was not surprising, the jagged material like a black hole which absorbed light itself. But the dagger cut from the Northern Monolith, its golden hue, didn’t reflect light in the way they would have expected. Silas didn’t know how they hadn’t noticed already, but when pointing a concentrated beam of light at the edge, it seemed to absorb it just like the dark, with no evidence of the light hitting the metal, no reflection to be seen.
It was yet another anomaly that set the magical weapons apart from anything else that came from the material world, proving its otherness.
That day passed in a blur of failed research in the Spire, of more tests of their magic (to which Amelia became increasingly frustrated when hers barely worked).
Amelia and Silas worked together in an uneasy silence. He had asked again about the runes on her back, but Amelia remained tight-lipped, only mumbling a noncommittal response before disappearing into the bathroom. She only brought it up again when asking for help to rub the salve into her skin.
