The Blood Spell, page 28
Blue’s breath caught in her lungs as terrible possibilities unfurled before her. “You think she wants the spell Mama used to lock away the wraith? Why would anybody want that?”
Grand-mère looked grim. “I think we have far too many coincidences here not to acknowledge it as a possibility. Of course, she won’t find the spell. Valeraine never wrote it down. Wouldn’t even tell it to me in case someone thought to force it out of me.”
“But that also means that if the person who is feeding the wraith figures out the spell’s ingredients, we won’t know how to reverse their spell. We won’t know where to start.”
“Oh, I think my granddaughter would know where to start.” Grand-mère turned Blue’s hands over again and looked at the cut. “I’ve always wondered something.”
“What?”
“Your magic helps you find ingredients that want to be used. Helps you instinctively know how to bond them into something new.” Grand-mère lifted her eyes to Blue’s. “Magic is in our blood.”
Blue’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. “And you think when my blood was exposed to the wraith that it wanted to bond with me?”
“Have you ever had anything strange happen when you’ve bled on your ingredients?”
Blue flashed back to the dancing fern leaf in her basket. The one that had mysteriously bonded with the walla berry juice without the usual alchemy she used to combine them. She’d cut herself right before harvesting them. “In my basket on the porch.”
Blue explained what had happened as they hurried to the porch. Grand-mère lifted the leaf and examined the deep purple veins where the walla berry juice had fused with it. “You bled on this?”
“I must have. I’d cut myself, and there was blood smeared across my palm.”
Grand-mère held the leaf up to the light and then said softly, “You know what this means?”
Blue shivered. “That my blood not only calls to plants but somehow performs alchemy on them too?”
“Yes. And the wraith is a living being, just like everything else you harvest. Your magic must be interpreting the monster’s longing for freedom as a need to be harvested.” Grand-mère’s voice shook. “If you had touched it, if it had sunk its teeth into you and drank your blood, it could’ve bonded with anything else you were touching.”
Blue’s knees trembled, and she abruptly sank onto the porch beside her basket. “I was touching Kellan.”
Grand-mère lowered herself to the step beside Blue. “And you were touching freedom. You were touching the world outside the gate.”
“Did you suspect this? Is that why you didn’t want me to go?”
Grand-mère gave a short, hard laugh. “If I’d suspected this, you would never have come within an hour’s walk of the Wilds, Kellan or no. No, I didn’t want you to go because I saw what the wraith did to children while it walked our streets. And I heard your mother cry for months afterward whenever she tried to talk about locking it away. She made me promise I would keep you from the wraith. I thought it was simply because she didn’t want to risk losing you. Now I wonder if she already knew what your blood could do.”
“She wasn’t trying to protect me from the wraith,” Blue said softly. “She was trying to protect all of Balavata from what the wraith could do through me.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE PROTECTION SPELL Blue had begun two days ago was ready. She donned gloves, grabbed a pair of tongs, and set out fourteen small glass vials. She’d already placed a hair from each person who needed protection into a vial and marked the bottom with their initials. Now she lifted each vial with the tongs and carefully poured an ounce of the spell inside. The liquid swirled in streaks of pink and silver and smelled like honey and musk.
When each vial held an ounce, Blue scraped the bottom of the cauldron she’d used to brew the potion and came up with slivers of the pink sapphire she’d used to concentrate the power of the spell. Slipping one tiny shard of the jewel into each vial, she corked them, sealed them with a dab of black wax, and pushed one end of a silver chain into the wax so the chain would be permanently attached once the wax dried.
Lucian waited by the storeroom door. Dinah still hadn’t made an appearance, and Blue decided that meant the woman had what she wanted and would now leave her alone.
“Lucian, could you come here, please?” she called. When he joined her at her counter, she gathered all the vials except for Kellan’s and Nessa’s and showed him the labels. “I need these delivered to each of the head families. They should be expecting them since they willingly gave up a strand of each girl’s hair three days ago.”
Lucian packed them into his bag, but before he could leave, Blue pulled him close. “Remember what happened to Ana. Don’t go anywhere with anyone. Not even for a job. Promise me.”
“I promise,” he said, and Blue’s heart ached.
She’d told him about finding Ana when they’d first entered the shop. Asked him to warn the other street kids. Held him while he cried and shed some tears of her own.
“Hurry, now. And stay safe,” she said as she sent him on his way.
As soon as he left for the long trek to each head family’s home in Falaise de la Mer’s nine quarters, Blue packed up the other two vials and locked the shop. Then she hurried through the city streets toward the castle. She’d give the necklaces to Nessa and ask her to pass Kellan’s along to him. It was better that way. If she didn’t see him, she wouldn’t be tempted by what she couldn’t have.
The sun hung heavy in the sky, a ripe orange waiting to be plucked. Soon dusk would fall, and Blue didn’t want to be alone on the city streets after dark. Not after seeing the wraith come for her. Not after hearing it scream while she was surrounded by the bones of the children it had devoured.
She picked up the pace and was nearly out of breath when she approached the guards at the castle’s entrance. They nodded respectfully to her and let her pass. The advantages of being a frequent visitor.
She didn’t want to be a frequent visitor once Kellan married someone else. Didn’t want to see him walking arm in arm with his chosen bride and imagine all the things she wished she’d said to him. The things she wished she’d done with him when she had the chance.
The butler informed her that Nessa was in the royal garden, and Blue opted to skirt the south side of the castle rather than walk its halls, where she might run into Kellan. She reached the garden’s main path soon enough and ducked beneath the hanging roses that twined around the raised arch that spanned the entrance.
The path wound through regal oaks, large iron pots with cheerful collections of flowers in riotous colors, and small groves of cypress and shirella trees. She hadn’t found Nessa yet, and nerves sparked as the shadows stretched longer, and the sun dipped closer to the horizon.
She’d just entered a grove of gently swaying shirella trees, their branches laden with the pale blue fruit, their glossy green leaves blocking out all but fragments of the sunlight, when she heard footsteps on the path. Turning to face the way she’d just taken, she said softly, “Nessa?”
Something rustled behind her, prickling the hair on the back of her neck. Whirling, she ran straight into Kellan. His arms shot out to steady her, and he tipped his face down to look at her.
“Blue? What are you doing out here? Are you all right?”
“You aren’t supposed to be here.”
He cocked his head. “I live here.”
“Not in the garden.” How was she supposed to avoid the longing she felt for him when he was standing right in front of her? “You should leave. Or I should leave. I’ll leave.”
She stayed exactly where she was. His hands ran down her arms, and the fizzy feeling exploded through her. She narrowed her eyes.
He really was making this impossible.
“I’m leaving.”
“So you said.” He leaned closer, until all that stood between them was the faint, hazy glow of the sun sifting in through the shirella trees. “But here you are.”
“Kellan.”
“Blue.” His voice was soft with longing, and his hands found hers, pressed close, and held. “Just stay here with me for a moment. One moment where we pretend nothing else exists. Will you do that?”
“Yes.” She breathed the word against all her better judgments.
Two more days, and he would belong to someone else. He wouldn’t hold her hand or show up for breakfast at the farmhouse. She wouldn’t ride horseback with him or sit with him on the shoreline while he trusted her with his heart.
His skin was warm against hers, and she tilted her head up to look at him. He smiled, though his eyes were sad.
“I’m not coming to the ball,” she said quietly, the decision made as the words left her mouth.
“But—”
“I can’t.” She met his gaze, begged him to understand what she didn’t want to say. What she had no right to say. “It will be hard enough without being there to witness it myself.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers still tangled with hers. “I’ve made a mess of this whole thing. I shouldn’t have spent so much time with you. I shouldn’t have told you my secrets. And I shouldn’t have asked you to stay here with me. I had no right. I thought it was only my heart on the line, and that whatever time I spent with you would be worth the heartache afterward. I didn’t consider the possibility that your heart was on the line too. Please believe me. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.”
Love. The word pierced Blue’s heart with all of its pain and possibilities. Two more days of possibilities with Kellan was all she had.
It was going to have to be enough.
She closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his. For an instant, the kiss was soft and sweet, and then he let go of her hands so he could wrap his arms around her and drag her against him. Nothing existed but the rough pressure of his mouth and the heat of his skin. She tilted her head to get a better angle, and someone cleared their throat behind her.
Blue jerked away from Kellan, and he took one look behind her and hastily dropped his arms. Turning, Blue found herself face-to-face with the queen.
“Your Majesty.” Blue fumbled into a curtsy, her cheeks flaming.
The only thing worse than being caught kissing the prince she had no claim to was being caught by his mother.
“Mother, I can explain,” Kellan said.
“Oh, I don’t think an explanation is needed.” The queen’s voice was calm, but there was fire in her eyes. “I’m not so old that I don’t remember stealing kisses in a garden.”
“It was one kiss,” Kellan said quietly. “It doesn’t change what has to happen in two days.”
The ache that had opened in Blue’s heart when Kellan said he loved her grew into something sharp.
“It’s not just one kiss,” the queen said firmly. “It’s you giving your heart to someone you can’t marry at the expense of the girl who will be your bride. And it’s you taking the heart of someone who can never have you.”
“He didn’t take what I didn’t offer,” Blue said. To her horror, tears threatened, and she blinked rapidly to keep them at bay.
“He shouldn’t have taken anything at all.” The queen smiled sadly at Blue. “We all love you, Blue. If I could pick the perfect girl for my son, I couldn’t find anyone better. But we would have a mutiny on our hands if the throne went to someone outside the head families. I have to think about the political consequences and the good of our kingdom. Kellan has to think about the good of our kingdom.” She aimed the last sentence like a dagger at her son.
“I have been,” he shot back, his voice rising. “I’ve played every game. Listened to every veiled threat, every pretty lie, every attempt to sway my opinion for the benefit of one head family over another. I’ve smiled and flirted and tried to protect all of us from dying over this.”
He turned and began pacing, frustration vibrating through him. “I’ve accepted that my own feelings can never be a priority. That what my heart wants isn’t important if that’s not what the kingdom needs. But for one moment—just one—before I commit to the betrothal, before I have to start playing another political game to bribe, cajole, or strong-arm the other families back in line, I wanted to kiss the girl I love.”
“Oh, Kellan,” his mother said.
“I’m sorry.” He turned to Blue. “I never meant to hurt you.”
She studied the torment on his face, felt the sharp ache of love in her chest, and decided their one moment wasn’t going to end with him apologizing.
“You didn’t hurt me.” She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him. “I kissed you, remember? I know I can’t have you, but I didn’t want to regret not having that one moment with you.” She pulled back, and before she lost her courage said, “I’ll always be your friend, Kellan. And you’ll know you always have someone who loves you, even if you don’t see much of me from now on.”
She fished the vials out of her pocket and pressed them into his hands. “These are protection spells for you and Nessa. They can’t save you if the wraith itself gets loose, but they will help keep you safe from any person who means you harm. Please wear them at all times until the threat is gone.”
“You made one for yourself too, didn’t you?” he asked as he glanced at her neck where no cord hung. When she took too long to answer, he frowned and began handing his back to her.
She made herself smile as she backed away. “I’m protected, Kellan. You don’t really think I’d go to the trouble of creating such a powerful spell and not leave enough for me, do you?”
Before he could reply, before the queen could lecture them again, and before the warmth that still lingered on her skin from his kiss could fade, she turned and left the garden.
THIRTY-EIGHT
KELLAN SWALLOWED HARD and met his mother’s eyes as Blue left the garden. “I can explain—”
The queen raised her hand in a command for silence. “We can discuss your poor choices with Blue later. I came to find you because the magistrate’s guards caught the person who killed Marisol and Genevieve.”
All thoughts of finding a defense for his actions fled, and Kellan moved toward the castle, his mother walking briskly by his side. “We need to call a special council meeting.”
“I’ve already sent messengers out. All representatives who are available will be present.”
“We need six for a quorum,” he said, though of course, she knew that. Still, it helped to think through what was coming. He couldn’t make a single mistake as he presided over the council meeting. He owed it to Gen and Marisol to deliver on his promise to get justice for them.
“Six shouldn’t be a problem,” his mother said as they left the grounds and entered the castle. “But we’ll want to discuss the proceedings with the magistrate before the representatives arrive.”
“Especially if one of the representatives is guilty of murder.” His voice was hard. Which one of them had given the order to slit the throats of innocent girls in their quest for power? Who had sat across from him at teas and meetings and balls, smiling while they plotted the murder of someone else’s daughter?
And would the person responsible show for a meeting if they thought they would be sentenced to death by the end of it?
Turning, he placed a hand on his mother’s arm and said softly, “What reason did you give for calling the meeting?”
“An urgent update on the situation with the rogue witch,” the queen said grimly. “I’m not willing to tip our hand and let someone flee the kingdom rather than face justice.”
He nodded. “Then let’s hear what the magistrate has to say and prepare for the meeting.”
An hour late, Kellan and his mother stood side by side in front of the council table. Seven members were in attendance. Dinah Chauveau hadn’t been at the farmhouse to receive the royal messenger, and Senet Aubert was two cities away dealing with a business issue.
That didn’t matter. The person who needed to be in attendance was seated two chairs down from Kellan, patting Lord Gaillard’s arm as he offered condolences on the terrible loss of his daughter.
Anger, bright and burning, filled Kellan as he said, “I’ll come straight to the point. We have no update on the rogue witch.”
The room fell silent, and seven pairs of eyes turned toward him.
Martin Roche frowned. “Then why—?”
“You’ll speak when you are given permission to speak,” Kellan snapped.
Martin’s cheeks flooded with color, but Kellan didn’t give him a chance to respond. “You’ve been called here because the royal magistrate has caught the woman who was hired to kill Marisol Evrard and Genevieve Gaillard.”
Conversation erupted across the room, and Pieder Evrard lunged to his feet. “Where is she? I’ll kill her in this very room.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Kellan’s voice was stern. “She was the weapon, not the mind behind the crime. She will be sentenced to death by hanging, according to the law, but she is not the one who owes you a blood debt. That person is seated here among us.”
Kellan motioned sharply, and a trio of guards marched into the room and stood behind him. Looking out at the council members’ faces, he said quietly, “I’ll give you one chance to confess your crime and ask those you’ve wronged for mercy. You will still hang for your crimes, but you may yet spare your family the pain of paying off your blood debt.”
The room was absolutely silent. Slowly, Kellan’s gaze moved from face to face until he came to Martin, who was subtly trying to edge away from Louis Gaillard.
“So be it,” Kellan said, nodded toward the guards. They moved rapidly to flank Martin’s chair as Kellan said, “Martin Roche, you are hereby accused of paying an assassin to have Marisol Evrard and Genevieve Gaillard murdered. The magistrate has collected sworn testimony and evidence of payment. Proof will be offered to this council for review, but I will tell you now that I have already reviewed the proof, and there is no doubt in my mind that you are guilty.”
