Page 20 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

I gape at him. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

My head shakes back and forth so violently it almost makes me dizzy.

“No. We agreed. I’m here for this, and then I’m going home.”

Rather than get tangled up in another discussion with him, I step back up to Evanthe.

“What am I doing?” I say, demanding instructions.

He comes up beside me, his arm brushing mine. Instantly, my shoulders lock with tension, as if they can help me hold firm against the challenge of being close to him.

“Still the surface,” he says. “Then focus on the reflection—that image. Have you visualized what you wanted to happen before?”

I think about when I used a golden cup to transmute my chains when I was being held by Cebba.

“More or less.”

“Good. It should be easier for you going forward. You’ll be able to ask more complex things of your magic. Now, I’m going to touch you.”

“What?” I ask, the word coming out a touch panicked.

But he ignores my question, moving in front of me.

“Close your eyes.”

I’m glad for the instruction this time, because it’s too difficult to look him in the eye when he’s this close. He lays a hand over my chest. My heart flutters against my rib cage, but I can also feel his pulse in his wrist, beating a steady rhythm. The tension I’d been holding on to starts to release, unable to withstand the warmth of his touch and the steady, soothing thud of his heart.

“Now breathe,” he says. I inhale, inflating my lungs so that my chest presses against the palm of his hand, then exhale.

“Again.” His voice is so close, I imagine that if I open my eyes, his lips would be just an inch from mine. But as I keep breathing, I find even that distracting notion falls into the background. My thoughts flatten out, drawing down onto my power, calming it.

“Okay,” I say, indicating that I’m ready to try again. I don’t even know if I fully understand what he’s been talking about, but my gut has guided me before. His fingers stroke my bare skin—a single, deliberate caress—and then he sighs, removing his hand. He hasn’t asked for more, and I wonder if it’s because he knows that I wouldn’t accept more tender touches. I can’t, regardless of what my body might want.

I visualize the poison inside the queen once more.

The nebulous clouds of iron drift before me and I imagine scooping them up, drawing them out of Evanthe like filings attracted to the magnet of my power. It’s not like gold, however, so ready to bend to my will. Instead, for every handful of iron I seize, some of it billows away from me, like kicked-up dust.

I make a noise of frustration, and I feel a hand on my shoulder. I want to shrug it off, but the weight of it is comforting.

“It’s difficult,” I admit. “Tricky. It keeps getting away from me.”

“That’s to be expected. It’s been there a long time.”

I know what his answer is telling me to do: just keep going.

The effort is unexpectedly tiring, but I grab at the iron again. I take hold of it and pull, pull, catching up as much of it as I can. Just as I’m reaching the edge of my awareness—the place where Evanthe ends and the rest of the world begins, I meet resistance. The iron’s being held back, tugged in another direction. I pull harder, and under the force of my will, I sense the cloud of iron contract.

Then it blinks out of existence.

“It’s gone!” I blurt, surprised but pleased. “I actually removed some.”

“Excellent.” I can hear the excitement in Ruskin’s voice.

I dive back in, working more quickly now, encouraged by my progress. The thick gray fog polluting Evanthe starts to clear. Each time I pull at the iron, bringing it to the edge of Evanthe’s body, it swirls out of being. There one moment, gone the next.

“I think I’ve gotten most of it,” I say, the majority of my awareness still deep in the landscape of magic I see in my mind’s eye. “I just need to check deeper. Maybe around her heart?”

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