Page 71 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

“High Esteemed,” I corrected her. “And no, I didn’t.”

Corey said, in a more coherent tone, “You all knew what I was before. I had four affinities but couldn’t center. I never understood why until Tempest took a look at my magic. She said it was a mess, and her magic knew how to unravel it.”

Damn, I was sounding more Mistress of Darkness by the second.

Shut up, Corey.

“In the process, you lost an affinity, and then she happened to gain one,” Josie said next.

There was a shocked intake of breath.

I was left blinking too. Of all the ways to put things together, that one had never occurred to me. Then again, I was well aware of what truly happened. “Josie, if you have questions, then Corentin and I are happy to answer them, but you’d do well to lose the accusatory tone in the process.”

“Just trying to make sense of things,” she said after a beat.

“Are you just,” I replied, holding her gaze until she dropped hers.

“Some of you know that our high esteemed’s magic has a special way of taking form,” Corey said, and I could tell he was back in the driver’s seat and well aware this conversation wasn’t turning out great. “Her magic knots and braids information together using thin rope to form something she calls a quipu.”

“I’ve done this since I was young,” I put in. “It’s how I analyze a lot of information at once.”

“I’ve seen the quipu,” Spyne said from a few magus to my left. “It’s incredible.”

I hadn’t realized he was there.

Ruby was in the second centering ring and off to my right. “It’s how our high esteemed was able to put Caves together so easily too.”

There was a subtle shift. Not one in my favor.

“You used the quipu to win Caves?” another magus asked. One from Fertim. Another regular at Frond’s tables.

I said drily, “You didn’t use your magic to win Caves, Grove? Using magic isn’t cheating, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“We don’t have magic like that,” he said, bursts of color appearing on his cheeks.

I lifted a shoulder. “And I don’t possess your magic, or that of any other magus. In any case, Vero didn’t need to win Caves. The game ended when the relics chose me.”

“How did you gain a fourth affinity to end the game?” Josie called out.

The volume in the learning center had increased. This was getting out of hand.

“I gained a fourth affinity,” I replied calmly. “I didn’t seek it out; it sought me. As I can see you’d like to believe I had some kind of agenda with all of this, I’ll let you know that Corentin had already lost his divination affinity prior to that.”

“It’s true,” he quickly confirmed. “I tested my magic on the affinity vials earlier that night.”

Spyne asked him—genuinely asked, unlike Frond’s lapdogs, “You’re okay with losing an affinity?”

“Tempest told me in advance what the cost of fixing the mess of my magic would be. She didn’t want to do it, but I got the truth out of her. She thought I would blame her, even though she understood how much agony my soul was in—and has been in my entire life. I couldn’t live that way anymore. If there was no end to the pain, then my thoughts had become set on ending my pain in other ways.”

He took my hand in the subdued response to his words. “I could feel her working on me. It wasn’t painless, but I marveled the entire time at the way her magic weaved mine together. What she has is a gift—one that this coven and others can benefit from if one like me is born in the future. I have never felt lighter or more at one with myself. I don’t see myself as having lost anything because I gained my life.”

I swallowed real emotion at his words.

That seemed to do the trick for most of the others too. At least enough that Josie felt pushing further would work against her.

The mood had taken a dive, however, and many of the magus were deep in thought.

Great.

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