Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Oh,” she said with a gulp.
She knew exactly what memory he had seen from her. The night that Jason had tried to kill her when she’d tried to leave him. But she didn’t want Graves to know that. If she told Graves about her past, it would have to be on her terms.
“Like I said, it must have been a hallucination,” he continued when she said nothing else. “And I haven’t tried since. More to the point, the absorption powers make sense, considering what happened that day with the wish powder. You must have absorbed more magic than you could process. So the magic took hold and did its job to try to kill you. That was why I could read you as well. You had so much magic in your system that you couldn’t absorb mine fast enough.”
Kierse ran her thumb across her bottom lip as she processed that information. It made sense. All of it made way more sense than immunity.
“We really had to test my limits, then. We would have been blind to that.”
“Precisely. What we need to figure out now is how to restore your magic. That way, we can train them safely.”
“How did you figure out that reading restored your magic?”
He considered for a moment, his eyes going distant. “After Kingston took me on as an apprentice, I threw myself into my education. I’d always wanted to read everything at my disposal long before I had access to Kingston’s library, but there was only so much a poor boy could read at the time. The green book that I lent to you was actually a translation of a book I read in my youth.”
No wonder it was dear to him.
“During training with Kingston, I would routinely return to my books weakened and in pain, and I would leave them stronger and sustained. It is like with Kingston’s art—the process of doing something that always brought me energy in the past now brings me energy in my magic as well.”
She considered his explanation. Something that energized her in her past. That made her feel stronger and more whole. That sustained her when she felt her weakest.
“Stealing,” she realized. “Stealing is what recharges my magic. It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s the only thing I’ve done my entire life that made me feel better. And that time I thought I had the flu, I couldn’t go out and steal for weeks. It was the first time in my life that I wasn’t out casually picking pockets. Except the day after Imani and Montrell.”
He actually laughed. “Of course it is. The thief would think that picking pockets would energize her magic.”
“A thief is who I am. Just like you specialize in knowledge and Kingston swears that art is its own form of persuasion.”
“Stealing it is, then,” he said, coming to his feet.
He returned a moment later with a plain box much the same as the one she had opened her first day here.
“What’s that for? Another magic trick?”
“I’ll get to it in a minute. I think that we need to change our strategy to get the spear.”
“This late in the game?”
“Before, I was under the impression that you were a warlock and that you were immune to magic. Absorption is something else entirely. It’s not passive, which means it opens a whole new level of powers that I can train you to use. And more to the point, you can be trained to absorb wards so that I can come with you to the solstice party.”
Her eyes widened. “You think I can do that?”
“I think you can if we train. You’re already passable with the spear. We can work on this instead.”
Kierse could hardly believe it. Not just about her magic, because she had been certain that finding out she wasn’t a warlock meant certain death on this job. But if Graves was going to train her anyway and he was coming with her, then she might actually have a much better shot of getting out. Something she hadn’t let herself consider.
“When do we start?”
“As to that . . .” He passed her the box on his lap. “We’ll begin with you making wards and then move on to removing them.”
She tingled with excitement. “I’m going to practice magic.”
“You probably won’t get it on the first try,” he warned. “But I’ll start with the basics.”
“Okay,” she whispered in reverence, staring down at the little wooden box.
“Warding is like all other magic, but it requires barely any energy. You can have multiple active wardings at all times and hardly ever run out of power.” That explained his house, if he was always maintaining the wards. “Most magic starts off with a sense, but I’m going to leave that for another day, another lesson. All you need to know right now is that magic is intent.”