Page 102 of Destroyer

The only person missing was Fen.

Ru stood at the artifact’s table, facing her audience. She had dressed in her most professional attire, a dreary brown high-collared dress that Gwyneth had once told her looked like it belonged at a funeral in a swamp.

It was morning, just after breakfast. In a fit of stubborn determination after leaving Fen’s room the night before, Ru had sent out the summons — she would complete the demonstration or fail in the attempt, but it would beherchoice.

“Thank you all for assembling again on such short notice,” she said, directing this particularly at Lord D’Luc. He had been visibly disappointed in her when she’d tracked him down the night before. She had found him in his makeshift office in the professorial wing, and had plied him with contrite curtsies and remorseful apologies until he’d agreed to see the demonstration in the morning.

But she had known he would. For what other reason was he here?

“We’re eager to see what the artifact can do,” said Lord D’Luc. “Will you be giving us a summary of its chemical properties, perhaps even its purpose? I was most interested in your hypothesis, and am rather happily shocked that you’ve all but proven it. Magic indeed.”

Magic indeed. The word alone sent shivers across Ru’s skin. Would her questions about the artifact, her connection to it, finally be answered? If her demonstration worked, if the golden light appeared, her life could change in an instant.

But there was no way to explain the artifact’s chemical properties as Lord D’Luc had asked, nor its ultimate purpose. The small black stone remained an enigma, even to Ru. All she knew was that the truth of it lay only in her mind, nearly impossible to convey. But she would try.

“I will begin by allowing the object to speak for itself,” she said.

Gwyneth looked as if she might be ill, and Archie’s expression was like carved stone; even his freckles had paled.

Her friends would be safe — she would make sure of it. The artifact was hers, hers to do with as she liked. Since she’d wept in her room, it was as if her worries, her sadness, had fled with the tears. Now, all that was left was determination and full belief in herself. The artifact would not harm her friends.

Ru took a deep breath. She laid her palms on the table and opened whatever small connection she still had with the artifact. It lay darkly on its blanket, silent and still, a helpless thing with unknowable power.

Ru closed her eyes.

She imagined that Fen was there next to her, his fingers entwined with hers, their bodies sharing space, breathing the same air until they were one soul. She imagined molten white-gold light pulsing out from the artifact, spilling like sunshine until it wreathed the black stone in an infinite brightness. She imagined the ropes of light connecting her to the artifact, the hot flame of want, the weightless energy.

She opened her eyes.

The artifact lay there, dormant. An ordinary stone.

More than anything, Ru wanted to speak to it, admonish the thing, demand that it shine for her, glow for her. But she would never speak to it again, not with words. Not after what had happened last time. And it was easy to stop herself, to resist. Because now, the artifact didn’t seem to care; it didn’t seem towanther to speak to it.

Beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip as she concentrated every corner of her mind on the artifact. She pulled on the thread between her and it, so thin it felt like gossamer, a spider’s silk, and still nothing.

Nothing.

She could have stopped there, made up an explanation of some kind, wiped away her sweat, and constructed a complex lie. Countless possibilities sped through her mind, thoughts of how she might improve the situation, turn it on its head, transform it into something beneficial.

Lord D’Luc’s eyes were hard in the low light. Professor Cadwick coughed wetly, his white hair lank in the dimness. She longed for Fen’s reassuring presence, yearned for his wordless guidance, but he was gone.

A surge of uncontrollable frustration rose suddenly in Ru, and with a sound that was something between a sob and a scream of anger, she slammed her fist on the table, pushed her way past Lord D’Luc and the nonplussed group of onlookers, and rushed up the stairs and out of the dungeon.

* * *

Gwyneth foundher in the smallest of the Tower’s courtyards. It was more of a garden, surrounded by tall leafy hedges, overgrown in a deliberate way that made it look like a painting of wilderness. Trees, blooms, and cascades of colorful flowers burst unpredictably throughout the garden; the stone paths were almost impossible to make out or follow amidst the greenery and moss underfoot.

Ru was perched on a stone bench underneath a weeping willow that took up almost a quarter of the courtyard. She stared absently into the distance as the sun climbed up the sky, hot and glaring, even through the willow’s cascade. A golden-haired figure appeared then, picking its way through the foliage toward her.

“Hi Gwyn,” Ru said, patting the bench methodically, her gaze far away. She had been there all morning. If she tried hard enough, if she made sense of the series of events leading up to this moment, she could make herself understand her sudden distance from the artifact.

“Ru…” Gwyneth began.

Ru held up a hand to stop her.

The solution couldn’t be reached with the work of her brain alone; she urgently needed a second mind. “Gwyn, what would you say if I told you that I can, for lack of a more accurate term, communicate with the artifact?”

Gwyn opened her mouth, frowning as if to protest.

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