Page 73 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
“I hope you don’t think we took those decisions lightly, or that they don’t haunt us every day. But we are tasked with preserving what is in the best interest of our citizens. Which brings us to you.” Another sympathetic smile. “We want to see you take a different path than the one your family took. We want to see you use your abilities—no, let’s call them yourgifts, because that is what they are—for the betterment of our people.”
My brain was in a tailspin. Abilities? Gifts?
I stared at him blankly.
He leaned back a bit, brows furrowing, pressing his fingers to his lips.
“Kieran did explain this to you already, didn’t he? Your gifts? Why he and his group sought you out? Took an interest in you?”
Addis’s eyes drifted to Kieran. And behind the calm demeanor, the soothing tone, the nonthreatening brown eyes, I saw it. A twinkle in his eye. A slight relaxing of his facial muscles. A twitch in his lips.
Addis had won. I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know how, but he had won.
Kieran’s voice beside me was a low growl. “Fuck you, you self-righteous prick.”
I turned to Kieran and was startled to find that his face was frozen in fury, eyes blazing.
“Ah,” Addis said knowingly. I could see him nodding in my peripheral, but I was still looking at Kieran, willing him to look back at me. “So there’s even more to discuss than I had thought.”
Another voice sounded next to Addis. “Why don’t we take a break? This would be a lot for anyone to process.”
Cato. The sincerity in his tone made my eyes burn.
“Yes, yes, this is certainly a lot,” Addis agreed. “But I imagine Maila’s exceedingly confused and doesn’t want to be left hanging.”
What “Maila wanted” was to not be here. For him to fucking stop talking. Stop saying things that made my head ache. But more than anything, I just wanted Kieran to look at me.
“Maila,” Addis said, pulling my attention back to him. “I want you to know that we are here to help you through all of this.”Quinnand Westley, who had been silent up until that point, nodded their agreement. Cato’s hands were clenched into fists on the table in front of him. “We’ve been willing to make accommodations for you all these years, to work with you and support you and keep an eye on you, because you have a special gift. You are what we call a Conductor.”
Next to me, I heard Kieran take a steadying breath.
“With the right input and control, you can wield magic.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
“Wield magic?” I repeated.
Over my shoulder, I was pretty sure I heard Zander stifle a gasp with a cough. But if his shock mirrored my own, it must have been a hallucination. Because clearly, I had suffered some kind of a psychological break. The real Council, the real Zander, they must have been standing over my catatonic body, trying to figure out what to do with me.
A few short minutes ago, I had been holding back tears. Now I was holding back hysterical laughter. My cheeks strained with the effort.
“I know! Crazy, right?” Addis threw his hands up in the air.
“It’s a truly fascinating phenomenon,” Westley chimed in. His uneasy demeanor was gone. Now he was leaning forward, eyes bright with enthusiasm.
“What does that even mean?” I asked, a few chuckles escaping.
“To put it in simple terms,” Westley began. His role as Mentor of Medical was an almost tangible aura around him. “You don’t have magic of your own. But when granted access tomagic through a magical object, a location that is particularly ripe in magic, or a being that does have magic of their own, you can harness and use it.” He tapped his chin. “I suppose you could say that you have the ability to borrow it, temporarily. You make physical contact, siphon their magic, and it’s yours to use for a period of time. Obviously, we haven’t had many opportunities to study exactly how long it lasts each time, the limitations on how much magic you can hold at a given time, and how the capability is affected by changes in variables. But what we do know from tests we ran on your mother and Irene is truly remarkable.”
I tried to let his words sink in.
I could wield magic.
Icould wield magic.
Icould wieldmagic.
The Council watched me carefully, their expressions near-perfect mirrors of one another.
