It’s a few more moments, and another firm dig of Killian’s thumb, before I manage to put together a sentence.
“So whoever my dad was, he could have been an Allure?” Part of a memory is niggling at the back of my mind.
Actually it feels more like the upper-mid-right of my mind, and it feels like a word. I dig around for the syllables, almost losing them twice before settling on Haryk-Larsan.
“What’s a Haryk-Larsan?” I ask.
And get blank looks from each of them in return.
“I’ve never heard of a Haryk-Larsan,” Roarke says thoughtfully. “Why?”
“It was something in my memory, I think.”
“I can look it up,” he says.
“I think you’re tapping into our abilities because you’re so close to us all the time. This bubble is altering some of the properties of our powers, making us and our Seeds accessible to you. Which means we might burn your soul out before we manage to reverse these potions,” Seth says, his gaze on the fast flick of pages before his eyes.
All three of us turn to face him and his eyes go wide – like he’s just realized that something smart came out of his mouth, and he’s horrified.
“I’m going to help Pax,” he says, jumping from his seat and dumping his book onto the cushion.
Roarke stands and crosses to Seth’s neat stack of books. “I’m going to research Haryk-Larsans.”
“What were you guys looking for?” I ask, waving towards the piles of books.
“Lots of things. Anything we can find on tracking down the other Springs and breathing life back into them,” Roarke says. “Or how to shore up the border some other way.”
“Are you going to talk to that mage? He was–”
Killian’s grip on my wrist tightens, and that’s all I need to realize everything I was about to say was going to come out wrong.
“Where would we even find him?” Roarke asks. “We’ve got too much to do. When Pax gets his plans into place, we can send Sabers, other Sabers, to communicate with him, but not now. If Lithael is trying to bring the border down, we need to stop him. If the mortals want to start the great fire again, we need to stop them too. And before all of that, we need to research you – and your bubble.”
Both realms are in serious danger here. The fire would destroy these people, but the things being contained here can’t get out onto the mortal side either. My shrinking bubble, and the weird little side effects it’s having on everyone’s magic, is only one small dot on a canvas covered in dots. Most of them much bigger than I am.
Big dots. Splodges. Whole fists full of paint being smashed at a great big wall.
“We will work this out, Shadow,” Killian says as he puts the splint back onto my arm. He gives me a sneaky half smile, then gets up and goes back outside.
“Is it bad that I find his smile comforting?” I ask no one in particular.
Roarke chuckles. “Come on, he’s cooking meat, and the rain’s stopped.”
He insists I walk in front of him. Out the door, down the stairs, and onto the mud. I stop to give Roarke time to catch up, and also so I can roll my pants up to my knees. I’m really sick of every item of clothing I own getting taken from me, thrown away, ripped up, shredded, or covered in gravy. Roarke steps down beside me wearing boots with high ankles and a very long set of laces. I’m so jealous of those boots right now.
“Is it cold?” he asks, glancing at my feet.
“Yes, and wet. What kind of a question is that?”
He cracks a smile at me. “I meant too cold. Mortals don’t have the same temperature variation endurance as we do. You were always a smart-ass, weren’t you?”
“Um.” I stall, not sure if that’s an actual question or an observation. He’s waiting – so question? “Yeah, born this way.”
He nods slowly. “Perhaps your Seed, if any, is closer to Seth’s abilities.”
“Isn’t there some magical test you can do?”
“No. A lot of Seeds overlap. If you don’t know your lineage, then working out your Seed is hard, but not impossible. Killian generally knows at first glance, and he swears you’re mortal. It’s not even essential to Sabers. We are our abilities, so using them comes naturally.”
“Unless,” I cut in, “you were dumped down a well as a baby, and everything about you is all screwed up.”
He nods. “Technically you were dumped down a spring and came up inside a well.”
I wave a hand at him. “Semantics.”
“Oh,” he coos. “That’s a beautiful word.”
“Semantics? You find words beautiful?” I ask, then instantly know he’s not going to answer me as his cheeks turn red.
He lifts his hand to run through his hair and starts walking toward the fire. I squelch through the mud after him, smiling at his back and unavoidably enjoying the view of his ass.
“You’re doing it again,” he says.
“Appreciating your hindquarters?”
He snorts. “That’s what a horse has.”
“Breech?”
“That’s what a kid has.”
“Then why do they call a man’s pants breeches?”
He turns to meet my gaze again – I win. I made him smile again. The victory gives my heart a rush, even though I have no idea when this became a game. Pretty sure he has no idea either.
But it’s still points to me.
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me like I put a thought into his head that he’s never had before – and I get the feeling he’s covered most topics in that brain of his. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into him, snug against his side. Our bodies feel like they were made to fit together. I relax into his hold and let him lead me to the fire, even though staying right here and in his arms would be nicer. Cold, but worth it.
Killian is tending the meat, all splayed out on a wire rack over the open
