Kellen said nothing, and Idalia shrugged, dismissing the question. 'I suppose we'll never know.'
'I suppose,' Kellen said, sounding sulky despite himself. 'Not that it matters if Wildmagery runs in my blood or not. I'll never know any more about the Wild Magic than I do now. My Books are back in the City. The Council's probably already burned them.'
'Think so?' Idalia said, grinning now, with the look of someone who knows something. 'Your pack's under the table here. Look in it.'
Kellen ducked his head under the table. There on the floor, next to the bloodstained remains of his old boots, which Idalia was using as a pattern to make new ones, was the scraped and battered day-pack that Kellen had carried out of the City. Amazingly, considering everything, it was still in one piece. He dragged it toward him and pulled it open.
There was a compartment in it that he hadn't noticed before. He pulled it open. Inside were the three Books. His three Books.
Kellen pulled them out and stared at them in disbelief. They were his; the same ones he'd bought from the vendor at the Low Market in the City. He knew every crease and dent.
'But—' he said, even though he was getting awfully tired of saying it. They weren't here. They couldn't be. The Council would have been insane to send the Books off with him instead of destroying them—and besides, he'd opened that backpack several times since he'd left the City, and before that, in the cell. He was sure he would have noticed the compartment, and the Books.
Wouldn't he?
Idalia smiled as if she'd just given him a present—and in a way, she had. Kellen was amazed and astonished—and comforted in ways he hadn't expected—to have his Books back. He wasn't finished learning from them yet—he wasn't sure if he ever would be.
'Once the Books find you, they can't be parted from you for long,' Idalia said. 'That's the way the Wild Magic works. Even if someone tries to burn them, they'll survive and get back to you somehow. Only you can choose to give them up.'
Kellen stared down at the three slim handwritten volumes in his hands. He didn't doubt her, though it was an amazing revelation. The Books would find him no matter what happened. The Books would look after him.
That being true, in a way they were almost alive—like the power in the Wild Magic that chose the price the Wildmage would pay for each spell, the Books themselves were part of some intention so large and hidden that Kellen had no idea of what it might be.
The thought made him subtly uneasy, though he wasn't quite sure why, and suddenly he remembered the terrible creatures in his dreams. Demons.
Abruptly, in the same way that he knew when he cast a spell of the Wild Magic how to pay the Mageprice for his spell and what it was, Kellen knew that Demons existed. Never mind the fact that he'd never encountered any mention of them in his unauthorized reading through Lycaelon's library, nor that Anigrel hadn't mentioned them during any of his tutorials, nor that he'd never encountered any Defense Spells against them, Kellen suddenly knew the creatures from his fever-dreams were real, at least in some way.
And try as he might, he could not forget what Lycaelon had told him back there in the cell—that practicing the Wild Magic led inevitably to involvement with Demons, to madness and alliance with the Dark. It had been easy to scoff then—but he'd still been safe behind Armethalieh's walls.
There'd been truth in his nightmares. He knew that much.
Had Lycaelon Tavadon lied—or hadn't he?
I don't know, Kellen thought miserably.
He looked at Idalia.
If anything in Lycaelon's words had been true, she was the last person in the world he could turn to for help.
She said Shalkan won't come near her. Is that why — the real reason?
'You're awfully quiet all of a sudden,' Idalia said.
'I guess I'm just tired,' Kellen answered awkwardly.
'Well, let's get you back to bed, then. I should have your boots finished by tomorrow, and then we can try something really strenuous, like a walk outside,' Idalia said cheerfully.
