Page 98 of Sonnets and Serpents
“Disi dokmek,” Silas muttered, then set his jaw. “If we want the truth, we need to figure out how the bone-box Artifact was made, and we need to find where Iyal Havva died.”
From the moment of Yvette’s arrest, Eliza had felt a threat brewing inside, like gray clouds gathering on the horizon. She ordered herself to focus on the task at hand. With the uncontrollable all around, she had to seize what shecouldcontrol.
They couldn’t speak to Kerem yet because he was with the dean and Yvette. Although Eliza wanted to storm right into that meeting, she realized the best approach to proving Yvette’s innocence was not pleading an impassioned case hinged on, “But, sir, Yvette has always been kind!”
Silas’s approach to proving it was a little more ... terrifying. He dragged her and Henry all over campus, experimenting on the bone-box Artifact like he was determined to destroy it: He submerged it in bubbling liquids, stabbed it with sharp objects, even doused it in oil and set it on fire.
“Is this what magic normally looks like?” Henry asked, pale in the orange light.
With a long iron poker, Silas prodded at the mass on the stone table, turning the box onto its side.
“Magic in a research setting,” he said, flashing a wide, serpentine smile.
The flames burned down quickly, leaving the white box untouched. Silas muttered about a lack of heat retention and made more notes in his journal.
“Your leg’s going to give out before you learn anything,” Eliza scolded, noticing his limp had grown more pronounced and that he leaned heavily into his uninjured side.
He waved her comment off like a gnat.
“I’ve already learned things,apta.” He gestured at his journal as if she could read it from ten feet away. “This test confirmed that thisiscomposition warlockry.”
He said it with a sense of triumph, and when he made his final note, he flourished his pen.
“Composition warlockry,” Henry deadpanned. “Just as I suspected.”
Eliza laughed, and although Silas huffed, he didn’t seem genuinely annoyed. The excitement of discovery brightened his dark eyes.
“Composition warlockry,” he said, “means the involvement of more than one magical person. The easiest compositions are made by Casters of the same type—for example, a triplet of Fluid Casters working together to direct water in the university pipes. Much harder is the coordination of non-identical magic types, like a Fluid Caster and a Stone Caster manipulating water and silt to create quicksand. Based on the box’s resistance to fire, this is one of those trickier compositions.”
Eliza stepped forward, pressing her hands to the soot-streaked table. “Havva and Yvette are both Stone Casters, so you’re saying this couldn’t have been made by just them.”
But he dashed her hopes. “Ceyda was right about the venom; I can sense my own magic, however faintly. That could be the factor creating a composition.” He paused, hefting the Artifactalmost reverently. “This might be the first of its kind—Affiliate and Caster magic.”
“Affiliates have never worked with Casters before?” she asked.
“We’ve tried. We’re incompatible, or so the research has always shown.” His voice quieted. “Until now.”
“If you can tell it’syourmagic, can’t you tell if it’s Yvette’s too?”
Silas shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, although I have confirmed the presence of Stone Casting. That was fairly evident from the use of bone, but I tested it to be sure. At least this explains how thebindandunbinddon’t negate—they must be linked to different magic sources.”
Pushing back from the table, Eliza tried and failed to wipe the soot from her palm. She felt that same dark streak marring her hopes. Why couldn’t magic just have a voice? If the box piped up and said, “I wasn’t made by Yvette,” that would be that.
Unless magic voices could lie like human ones.
She shook her head, frustrated that she couldn’t help with this. Silas would figure it out, but she needed a task for herself. Something she could do.
The storm inside rumbled with distant thunder, and she willed herself to hold it back. Now that she’d found Henry, she wasn’t about to lose control in front of him.
“I wonder ...” Silas pursed his lips, then pressed on. “I’ve tried to identify Fluid Casting, but that’s harder to test than Stone Casting, and I can’t tell for certain. I need a strong Fluid Caster to read the Artifact. Unfortunately, the strongest we had on campus was Iyal Mazhar. But if this is a composition between all known magic types, it might be more groundbreaking than I ever imagined.”
Something about the way he said it made her shiver, like he’d awakened to a new, dangerous ambition.
“And deadly,” she added, in case he’d forgotten the boneless bodies.
“And deadly,” he agreed, though it didn’t seem to deter his enthusiasm.
He tucked both Artifact and journal in his bag, but when he took a step away from the table, he hissed sharply, pressing his hand to his thigh.
