“Excuse me,” I call out. “Sir? Can you wake up?”
The prisoner stirs. Flinches. Groans as he rolls his neck in a slow circle.
“Excuse me?”
Finally he looks our direction and surprise flits across his expression. “Who are you?” he asks, and then, without waiting for a reply: “What’s going on?”
“We were hoping to ask you a few questions,” Tessa says. “We’re in charge of deciding your case.”
His jaw drops. “They’re leaving my fate to a bunch of children?”
“I’m afraid so,” Talon says.
The prisoner throws his head back and laughs. It’s not an amused sound, or even a surprised one. It’s unhinged. Like a man who knows he’s going to lose everything he cares about.
“We’d like to help you,” I say gently. At the edge of my vision, I see Jacey’s warning glance. We’re not supposed to help him; we’re supposed to judge him. But I don’t correct myself. “Would you like to tell us about what happened that landed you here?”
“No,” he says, his voice gruff and weary, “I don’t believe I would.”
The six of us exchange worried glances. What are we supposed to do if he refuses to cooperate?
“I need to get a little of your blood for a bone reading,” I tell him.
He fixes me with a hard stare. He lifts his shackled ankle a few inches off the floor and gives his foot a little shake. “I’d love to oblige, but I’m a little tied up at the moment.”
“I’ll come to you.” I turn and nod at Tessa, who hurries to the end of the corridor and returns with a guard.
The Breaker unlocks the door and lets me into the cell. I crouch next to the prisoner, and pull out a needle and a small vial.
“May I?” I ask, nodding toward his hand.
“Do I have a choice?” The question is sarcastic, and I can tell he doesn’t actually expect me to answer, but I stop what I’m doing and sit back on my heels.
“Of course you have a choice,” I say. “But it will make it hard to decide your case if I can’t see what happened.”
A flicker of hope lights up his expression. “So you’re a First Sight Charmer?”
My gaze slides away from his. My hands tremble. “No,” I say quickly, “Second Sight. But if you’re thinking about the day in question while I do the reading, I might be able to see it.”
His eyes narrow. I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t challenge my statement. He simply offers me his hand. I prick his index finger and gather several drops of blood into the vial.
When I’m finished, I stand. “Thank you.”
“Good luck.” Something in his tone sends a shiver down my spine, and I get the sense he’s talking about more than just the reading.
I exit the cell and the guard locks the door behind me.
“Is there somewhere here that we could work for a bit?” Tessa asks the guard. “We might have follow-up questions for the prisoner after Saskia finishes the reading.”
He sighs as if this taxes his patience. “There’s an empty cell over here. Follow me.”
Talon’s jaw drops as he turns to me. “He expects you to do this behind bars?” His voice is low, but apparently not low enough.
The guard spins around. “You got a better idea, kid?”
Talon clamps his lips tightly together and shakes his head. “Nope. It sounds great. Perfect.”
The Breaker lets out a low grunt. “That’s what I thought.”
And then he opens the cell and ushers us inside.
Chapter Nine
I’ve never performed a bone reading with this big of an audience before. I’m not sure I can. The small space is hazy with incense, overheated with too many bodies. I can’t draw a proper breath.
I sit on the hard floor in front of the stone basin. The rest of the team has moved to give me space. Talon and Niklas sit together against one wall, the others settled on the opposite side. But the cell is still too cramped.
My magic feels private. More like bathing or dressing than performing, so it’s a vulnerable thing to be watched, studied.
I place the bone in the bottom of the basin and sprinkle it with a few drops of blood from the vial.
“What am I looking for?” I ask, letting my gaze fall on each of my teammates. I’ve been trying to formulate a point of focus that won’t make it obvious I’m using anything other than Second Sight, but I’m not sure how to direct my thoughts. “What are we supposed to find?”
“Evidence, I suppose,” says Talon with a small shrug that suggests he knows it’s not the most helpful answer.
I bite my lip. I guess the only way forward is through.
I pick up the flint in one hand, the small smooth stone in the other, and spark them together. Then I set the bone on fire. I wait a few moments until the bone is sufficiently blackened, until the putrid smell snakes through the incense and assaults my nostrils before extinguishing the flame with a heavy iron lid. Then I tip the bone onto the ground.
The pull of the magic is immediate and intense. It sings to me—beckoning me to dance—and the blood in my veins leaps in response, tugging me into a vision.
The prisoner sits just as we found him—on the dirt floor of his cell, one ankle shackled to the stone wall. His knees are bent toward his chest, his head thrown back. Jensen. The man’s name slides into my mind as easily as dark slipping into daybreak. One moment it isn’t there, and the next it is—bright, clear, and unmistakable.
Emotions roll through Jensen like a storm—thunderclaps of anger, drizzles of self-pity, but hanging over it all is a thick fog of worry. In his mind, I see his family. His partner, Fredrik, a man both bigger and gentler than Jensen. And their young son, Boe, with his curious brown eyes and golden-bronze hair. What will become of them if he’s convicted of a crime? Boe’s mother died when he was a baby. If Jensen never goes home, will Boe’s grandparents allow Fredrik to raise him? He can’t bear the thought of Fredrik losing both his partner and his child in a single cruel moment. Or of Boe losing the only two parents he’s ever known.
Outside the vision, I tense. This hardly seems like evidence. I need to know what Jensen actually did to end up here. As if responding to my thought, the scene shifts: the gentle rhythm of horse hooves on a pebble-strewn trail, Boe’s laughter floating on the breeze like a melody.
Jensen sits astride a brown mare. Boe rides in front of him, his expression full of delight as he points out trees, rocks, and plants.
“Did you see that bird back there, Papa? It had a purple chest and a blue head.”
“You have sharp eyes,” Jensen says. “I missed that one.”
“It would be funny if you had a purple chest and a blue head.”
Jensen chuckles. “Indeed it would. Do you think Da would still love me if I were purple and blue?”
“Probably?”
Time stretches and Jensen gets lost in his thoughts. He’s on the way to see a patient in a neighboring village—a woman who developed an infection after she cut herself while cooking. Jensen treated the infection when he first saw her, but now it’s time to follow up and make sure she healed properly. Normally, he would leave Boe at home with Fredrik, but it’s harvest season, and Fredrik will be busy in the fields until sunset. Easier for Jensen to take Boe along on an adventure for the day. And who knows? Maybe Boe will be matched as a Healer at his kenning and the experience will prove useful.
Boe yawns. “How much farther, Papa?”
“Not too much longer now,” Jensen says. “We should be there before dark.”
Boe looks up at the bright blue sky. “That seems like a lot farther.”
Jensen chuckles. “We’ll stop in a bit so we can stretch and eat a little something. How does that sound?”
Boe makes a noise of agreement and scrubs at his eyes. Soon he’s slumped against Jensen, fast asleep.
Jensen doesn’t see the rabbit—a streak of white, racing across the open field next to the trail, a fox in pursuit. Th
e rabbit races across the path in front of the horse, and the horse spooks. Jensen tries to calm her, pats her neck, speaks softly.
And it might have worked if Boe hadn’t startled from sleep, if he hadn’t cried out.
But the sudden sound makes the horse rear back. Boe slides to one side, and Jensen scrambles to steady him. He had to loosen his grip on the boy—just a bit—to soothe the horse, but it was too much.
It all happens in a flash. Boe slipping sideways, falling, shouting. And then the horse coming down hard on Boe’s leg. Jensen hears the crack of his son’s femur, and his blood runs cold.
He scrabbles from the horse, cradles his son in his arms. “You’re all right,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
Boe is screaming, a desperate, piercing wail. Blood soaks his pants. Jensen lays him gently on the ground, rips the fabric away, and assesses the wound. An open fracture. A fragment of Boe’s femur has punctured the skin. It’s the most dangerous kind of break.
“Help me, Papa,” Boe cries. “Please.”
“Shhh,” Jensen says, “I will, son. I will.”
Jensen presses his fingers to the wound, lets magic flow through him until he can see clearly inside Boe’s leg—to the tendons, ligaments, and muscles beneath the skin. And then he curses under his breath. The sharp bone has sliced through a blood vessel. The bleeding is uncontrolled. He’ll never make it to a Mending Healer in time.
The bone needs to be set here—on this rocky path at dusk; there isn’t time for anything else.
But Jensen is bound to Disease. Not Mending. And yet … as a boy, when his magic first started to blossom, he thought he might be matched to Mending. He could heal broken bones, could stitch torn skin, could control pain. Maybe …
“Papa!” Boe’s small hands are curled into fists. His back arched in agony.
Jensen doesn’t even think. He grabs a set of bones from his satchel and uses them to send relief into his son’s small body. Boe’s expression relaxes. His hands unclench, fingers falling open.
“That’s better, Papa.”
Jensen empties his Healing satchel, spreading his supplies on a cloth next to him. He reaches for another set of bones and begins to heal the break. His fingers stay in contact with the boy’s flesh as he closes his eyes. I can see inside his mind—how he directs his magic to put pressure on the damaged vessel, clamping down hard until the bleeding is controlled, before directing it to suture itself back together. Then he tackles the bone—repositioning the fragments into their original location—and then beginning the process of fusing them back together. He’s working so intently that he fails to hear the hoofbeats behind him.
“Do you need help?”
Jensen startles at the voice. He turns his head to find a couple—a man and a woman, each on horseback. Both wear identical expressions of concern.
“My boy is ill,” Jensen says. “I’m a Healer, but we could use some help getting to the nearest town.” His gaze sweeps across the landscape. “Our horse seems to have bolted.”
Jensen turns back toward Boe and continues working on the boy’s leg. He misses the suspicious look that passes between the couple. The way they study Jensen and Boe with furrowed brows. His supplies—vials of bone dust to calm fevers, creams to sooth chronic skin problems, tools to examine eyes and peer down throats—are clearly those of a Disease Healer, but Jensen appears to be mending. The boy’s leg is soaked in blood, and it was the sound of screaming that made the couple sit forward in their saddles and urge their horses into a run. This was clearly an accident—a bad one from the looks of it—that resulted in a broken bone. But now the boy is alert and calm. Breathing easily. In no pain.
Either this man is a Disease Healer practicing mending or a Mending Healer in possession of items that he shouldn’t have access to.
“We’ll ride ahead to the next town,” the man says. “Secure a wagon and a place for your boy to rest.”
Jensen wipes his forehead with his sleeve. He doesn’t turn around. “Thank you.”
Outside the vision, my heart begins to pound. I want to warn Jensen. To tell him to find his missing horse, take Boe, and ride toward home. But I’m powerless to do anything except watch. What will Jensen find when he shows up in the neighboring town? The magic responds to my question. Yanks me forward in time to the exact moment occupying my thoughts.
And I have my answer.
Jensen lifts Boe from the back of the wagon. The color has returned to his small, soft cheeks and he even manages a faint smile. Jensen cradles Boe in his arms as the couple leads the way toward a small cottage.
“You’ll be safe here,” the woman says.
But she’s lying.
Because when Jensen steps over the threshold, he’s greeted by a delegation from the Ivory Guard.
I wrench myself from the vision, breathless.
“He’s not guilty,” I say, though it’s not precisely what I mean. According to the laws of Kastelia, he probably is guilty. But he shouldn’t be. It’s not right.
For a moment the only sound is the rushing in my ears. Then everyone starts talking at once.
“What did you see?”
“How do you know?”
“Did you find out exactly what he did, so we can try to interview him again?”
The questions trip over one another, coming so fast that I can’t pair them with their speakers. And then cold dread seeps into me.
I can’t tell them the truth. If I explain what I saw, they’ll know I did a reading of the past, and I’m guilty of the very crime that Jensen is accused of committing.
“How do you know he’s innocent?” Bram’s voice cuts through the noise. I look up and our eyes meet. He studies me for a long, silent moment, as if he can see my thoughts. “You’re splotchy.” The observation only makes me flush more. I have that uneasy sense of familiarity again, as if we’re acting out a play that was written long ago. Has he said that to me before? I press my palms to my cheeks to cool them.
“I get a bit spotty sometimes when I’m ill,” Talon says. “It’s the fair skin, I think.”
Bram opens his mouth to say something more, but then seems to think better of it. Saskia gets splotchy when she’s nervous. The words float into my mind like a memory. Suddenly I’m certain that’s what he was about to say.
I scramble for a way to explain what I saw without incriminating myself. The rest of the team stares at me expectantly.
I press my lips together while I gather my thoughts. “His name is Jensen. He wasn’t someone without magical tendencies, like we thought. He’s a Healer, and he was accused of using a different healing magic than he was bound to.”
“Is that even possible?” Niklas asks, leaning forward. “I thought the binding ceremony stifled all other magic.”
“I thought so too,” Tessa echoes.
A bead of sweat slips from the nape of my neck and inches slowly down my spine. The air in the cell is damp and so thick that it’s suffocating. “No, it’s abiding by the promises in the binding ceremony—ceasing to practice magic in all but one small area—that causes any other abilities to slowly ebb away.”
Jacey dabs her forehead with her sleeve. “Tell us what else you saw.”
So I do. But I’m careful not to reveal that I saw the past. Instead I tell them the story came from Jensen’s memory as he sat in the cell. I give them as much detail as I can from beginning to end, hoping they’ll feel as I do—that Jensen had no choice. That any father would do the same. They listen carefully to the end.
“But I thought you said he didn’t do it,” Niklas says. “Now you’re saying he did?”
“I said he wasn’t guilty. What else was he supposed to do? Let his son suffer? Considering the circumstances, how could we possibly convict him?”
“Maybe we should go talk to him again,” Jacey suggests.
“Yes,” I say, unable to keep the tremble from my voice. “We should.” I stand up and hurry out of the cell without waiting for the others.
“Jensen,” I say when we reach him, ashamed that I didn’t ask his name before. “Tell me what happened with Boe.”
He looks up sharply. And then his eyes go soft, like his child’s very name is a ray of sunlight that can soften his edges and melt away his severity. Now his expression looks more like the father I saw in the vision than the callous man we encountered when we first arrived.
“He got hurt,” Jensen says, his voice barely above a whisper. “And I healed him.”
“With what magic?” Tessa asks, not unkindly.
Jensen’s gaze finds hers and holds it. “With the magic he needed.”
“But, what I mean is, did you—”
He holds up a hand to stop her. “Is there anything I could say that would make a difference?”
Tessa frowns. “You could say you didn’t do it.”
He sighs. “The law is the law. And I’d do it again to spare my boy. Just tell me this: When is the trial?”
This time it’s Bram who answers. “It’s in three days.”
We leave the prison in an even more somber mood than when we arrived.
“We can’t convict him,” I say as we walk back to Ivory Hall. “He did what any parent would have done in the same situation.”
But the others are quiet, and it makes the discomfort inside me squirm like a restless serpent. “Doesn’t anyone agree with me?”
“How old do you think he is?” Tessa asks softly.
I turn to face her. “Jensen or Boe?”
“Jensen.”
I shrug. “Thirty-five? Maybe forty?” I turn to the others. “What do you guys think?”
“I agree,” Niklas says. “I’d guess late thirties.”
“So his binding ceremony was at least eighteen years ago.”
“Yes,” I say, not sure what his age has to do with anything.
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