“I’m certainly happy to try,” Peter said. “Where is he?”
“Out cold somewhere we can’t reach,” I replied despairingly. “I realize that makes things difficult, but I thought if I described the curse to you, maybe we could work out a plan.”
That was a good spin on what had happened, but it wasn’t the truth. I hadn’t “thought” about anything. I’d panicked and run to Peter because Nik was in trouble and I couldn’t save him. I probably could have slipped that detail by a less observant person, but this was Peter.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad,” I said quietly, clutching my mug. “He’s got a black mark running around his neck like a noose. Nik says it’ll cut off his head if he doesn’t do what the person who put it there says.”
Peter’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Do you have a picture?”
I did not, which was incredibly stupid. How did I think Peter was going to help me with no Nik and no picture?
“It’s okay,” he said when I started to shake. “Can you describe the black marks? You said they ran around his neck. Was it all spellwork?”
I nodded rapidly. “Tons of it. All Thaumaturgical in really small, fine text. There was too much for me to read all of it, but I’m garbage at deciphering spellwork equations anyway. What really bothered me was that the markings were burned into his skin in a way I’ve never seen before. It almost looked like a brand.”
Peter’s expression turned grim. “I was worried about that,” he said, scowling at the countertop. “It’s impossible to say for certain without seeing the curse myself, but it sounds like Nik is under a Sword of Damocles.”
“Okay,” I said. “What is that?” Because I didn’t think Nik had been cursed with a famous historical anecdote from Cicero’s orations.
Peter sighed. “One of the strongest curses there is, I’m afraid. It appears as a black mark on the victim’s skin. Typically around the neck, though it can be placed anywhere on the body. It’s a very flexible curse with countless iterations, but the basic gist is that the spellwork is tied to a set of mutually agreed-upon conditions. If the victim meets those conditions, the curse does nothing. If they don’t, the magic will slice through their body wherever the curse was placed.”
“So through his neck,” I finished shakily. “How do we remove it?”
“That’s the problem,” Peter said grimly. “You can’t. Unlike other curses, the Sword of Damocles is voluntary. The victim has to allow the curse to be placed on them, otherwise the most important sections of the spellwork won’t stick. Unfortunately, allowing a curse into your magic means the Sword of Damocles is able to dig in much deeper than other spells, even in a non-magical person. This depth renders the curse completely unbreakable.”
“Unbreakable,” I repeated, my voice shaking. “You mean we can’t get it off him?”
“Not unless you’re willing to rip out his soul in the process,” Peter said, shaking his head. “That’s why the Sword of Damocles has remained so popular for so many years. It’s basically a magical contract. Once both parties agree to a set of terms, the magic enforces those rules to the letter. But it’s not all bad news! Despite its sophistication, the Sword of Damocles is still just a spell. It’s not smart or adaptive. The spellwork can only do exactly what it was written to do, so while the curse can’t be removed, it can be circumvented. If you can find another way to satisfy the spell’s requirements, the black mark should vanish on its own. You just have to be clever with the interpretation of the language.”
“You mean obey the letter, not the spirit?”
“Exactly,” Peter said, smiling at me. “Back when I was selling curses, before the Empty Wind found me, I was hired by a loan shark to put a Sword of Damocles on a guy who owed him a lot of money. I wrote the conditions of the curse on the victim’s neck exactly as I was told to, but the loan shark neglected to specify that he wanted to be paid in US dollars. The cursed man caught the slip, and the next morning he dumped a crate of Fiji dollars—which were worth one one-thousandth of a US dollar at the time—on the loan shark’s front step and drove away scot-free. That’s what I’m talking about when I say you get around it. A Sword of Damocles is the hardest line in magic, but it’s not a flexible one. If you can figure out a clever way to satisfy the rules, the curse will remove itself.”
I let out a breath. It wasn’t as good as hearing Nik’s curse was breakable, but still, I could work with this. Finding loopholes in doomed scenarios was my specialty, after all. Nik had told me the magic would cut off his head if he didn’t give the Gameskeeper five fights, but did it say he actually had to fight, or just that he had to show up? I didn’t know, and without Nik’s neck in front of me, I couldn’t check, but I was certain I could find a way around. I knew how much legalese it took to make an airtight contract, and there wasn’t that much text on Nik’s neck. I could do this.
“Thank you,” I said, reaching out to squeeze Peter’s hand. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I didn’t do much,” Peter said self-consciously. “This is all information you could have gotten without me, but I’m glad you found it helpful.” He looked back up. “I can still examine him if you want. Just to be sure.”
“If I can get a hold of Nik, I’ll bring him over,” I promised. “But he’s kind of unavailable at the moment.”
“What’s he involved in, if you don’t mind my asking?”
My jaw clamped tight. It felt foolish to keep the secret since tens of thousands of people in the
