“They protected us,” Olivia said. She looked over at Desarra. “And they wanted us to protect the others, but…”
“But there was only so much you could do,” he said, looking at Desarra.
She nodded slowly.
Gavin turned to Gaspar, but the old thief was looking away from him. There were answers here, if only Gavin could dig into it and figure out what they might be. He had a feeling Gaspar wouldn’t share anything with him anyway, but that didn’t change a whole lot for him.
“So when Olivia was captured…”
“It was my responsibility to get her back,” Desarra said.
“I see.”
“What do you see?” Wrenlow asked.
Gavin shook his head. “Nothing clearly, and I get the sense that they don’t know either. Only that those who have enchanter abilities found themselves stuck as children when their parents created the jade egg.” Whatever magic had been used had shifted things for them. He had no idea what to make of it, only that it had been powerful enough to keep them from progressing in age or appearance. “What about those who have been born since?”
“There haven’t been many,” Olivia said.
“Why?”
“Look at us,” she said, looking down at herself. “We look like children, and yet…”
Gavin smiled at her. “I know what I was doing when I was a teenager.”
Gaspar swung his gaze over to him. “What were you doing?”
“Training mostly, but I did have breaks in my training. A growing boy has needs, you know.”
“I know too much about your needs,” Gaspar said.
Now the enchanters weren’t growing anymore. It fit with what he’d seen, though, and it helped him feel better about his attack on people like Kegan and Mekal. They weren’t children. Not really. They looked young, but he had to tack on years since the war to help him recognize just how old they might actually be.
“What about this egg?” Gavin looked over at Desarra before turning his attention to Olivia. “Will the Mistress of Vines use it to start a new war? If you brought in a sorcerer to deal with all of this…”
Olivia shook her head. “She promised to use it to help.”
“For what purpose?”
“To break what happened to us,” she said softly.
They viewed it as a curse. Of course they did.
“You didn’t know she’d go after the Captain?”
She shook her head.
“I’m going to do what I can to get it back, but I can’t make any guarantees,” he said.
“You owe them more than that,” Gaspar said.
Gavin shot him a hard look. “You’re the one who put me on to this job in the first place. I wouldn’t have taken any of this.”
“That’s not true,” Wrenlow told him quietly.
Gavin sighed. Wrenlow was right. He might have taken the job anyway. Gavin wasn’t a tracker, even though he’d been hired that way, and yet he also couldn’t stand by if somebody was suffering and he had some ability to help.
“Now that we have that established,” Gavin said, “I was hoping that you might be able to offer us an enchantment.”
“What sort of enchantment?” Olivia asked.
“I’m looking for anything that might help us. What sort of specialty do you have?”
“Specialty?” Gaspar asked.
“Enchanters tend to have comfort zones,” Gavin said, ignoring Gaspar’s pointed look in his direction. “Which means that Olivia probably has certain things that she’s more comfortable with. I’ve seen two enchanters who turn small figurines into weapons.”
“Mekal and Kegan,” Olivia said, nodding. “They’ve used those to protect us over the years.”
“So they have,” Gavin said. “And I have a feeling they don’t have other skills beyond that, except for Kegan’s memory ability.”
“Some, but you’re right. They’re more comfortable with that technique.”
He leaned forward. “What about you?”
“Mine aren’t terribly impressive. I can make things happen more quickly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can help flowers grow, or I can make time speed up, or at least seem to.”
“Can you make us faster?”
Having seen something similar with the constables, and in particular with Davel Chan, Gavin couldn’t help but wish for something that might give him that advantage. If he could move more quickly, or at least appear to, he could take on any power that might be there.
“There might be something that I can do,” she said. Olivia headed over to a cabinet, pulled out a box, and brought it back. She set three bracelets down on the table. All were made of gold or silver, and far more ornate than anything Gavin would wear. They were probably incredibly valuable too. Maybe not thirty gold crowns valuable, but still valuable.
“What are these?” Wrenlow asked.
Olivia held his gaze for a moment and smiled, then looked back down. Gavin chuckled softly. Leave it to Wrenlow to get involved with a woman who looked like she was fifteen but was probably thirty-five.
“I should be able to enchant these bracelets. I can only do two or three at a time.” She looked at Gavin. “After that, it will take me a few days to recover.”
Whatever she could generate would be all they would have.
“Do you have any way of determining what other enchantments might do?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not really. That’s not my skill set. There are some who can know the purpose of an enchantment just by holding it, but unfortunately, that’s not me.”
“Like who?”
“Zella.”
Gavin grunted. That wasn’t going to be of much use. He let out a long sigh, and she picked up one of the bracelets, cupped it in hand, and closed her eyes. There came a flash of light from between her hands, and she handed the bracelet to him.
“Try it on,” she said.
The bracelet had changed during the process of enchanting it. It was still silver, but now it was a plain band, no longer ornate. He slipped it onto his wrist, and it fit perfectly, as if made for him and only him.
He got up and then took a step.
As soon as he moved, he could
