Page 42 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

“Shut up,” I growled.

He sighed, walked over, and gripped the handle. Dark grey eyes met mine before I jerked my head in a nod, and I hissed when he quickly but smoothly pulled the blade free. Clearly, I needed to adjust the spell a little bit. Warm blood leaked from my hand as I held my palm out and used my fingers to draw the healing glyph on it.

“Thanks,” I mumbled to Vail.

He grunted and studied the glyph I’d drawn on the dagger. “I’m impressed you were able to get it to return to you on the first try.”

“I used a similar spell at Drudonia.” Trying to ignore the pain radiating from my hand as the wound stitched itself back together, I moved towards the remaining knives on the workbench. “I used that spell to close the window in my room because I always forgot to shut it at night and then didn’t want to get out of bed because it was cold. The tricky part of that one was it had to pull the window panels shut without breaking the glass.” I winced at both the memory and a particularly painful spot of my hand being healed. Tendons always sucked for some reason. “Might have taken a couple of tries. Rynn and Cali helped me fix the window before anyone noticed.”

“Nothing about that surprises me.” The amusement I heard in his voice made me look over my shoulder at him. He was still focused on the knife, but I could just make out the ghost of a smile dancing across his lips. “You hate the cold.”

I pressed my lips back together before returning my attention to the daggers. Vail was officially more confusing than Alaric.

After some consideration, I tried a few different modifications of the glyph on three of the daggers. This time when I recalled them to me, I was a little more careful. One of theglyphs didn’t work at all, another made the dagger only wobble enough to fall out of the target, and the third did come flying back at me, but it was still coming blade-first.

The aim was off, and instead of going towards my palm, it headed straight for my face. I yelped and barely managed to duck out of its way as Vail snatched the blade out of the air without comment.

“Damn it. I really thought that last one would work.” I stomped back over to the workbench and scowled at the remaining daggers. Maybe I needed to use a completely different type of glyph. I was using a modification of one that meant summon.

Warmth brushed against my arm as Vail moved to stand next to me. He set the first dagger down, my blood still coating the blade. “What if you use the same spell, but add something to the blade for ‘away?’”

“I’ve never tried to use two glyphs in unison like that.” I chewed on my lip as I looked at the original dagger. “In theory, I think it would work.”

“Worst case”—Vail swiped the dagger up once more and passed it to me—“you get a repeat performance of getting a blade through the palm.”

“Hilarious.” I grabbed the edge of Vail’s tunic and used it to clean the blade. Then I grabbed another dagger and etched a glyph onto the tip of the original one so it wouldn’t get rubbed off when it sank into the wood. I pinched my fingers together where I’d wiped my blood on Vail’s tunic and then smeared it over the glyph, letting it absorb the magic.

Flipping the dagger in my hand and focusing my intent, I flung it towards the targets. As soon as it hit the center of one, I called it back to me. The worn handle smacked into my hand seconds later, and my fingers closed around it, a wide grin on my face.

I’d forgotten how good it felt to figure out a new spell, andthis would be even more useful than closing a window on a cold night.

“It worked!” I threw the dagger at the targets again but called it back midair, the handle slapping against my palm. I could already feel the magic in the glyph getting depleted. Roth periodically soaked their ribbons in blood to charge up the spell. I’d need to embed a gemstone in the daggers to keep it charged up, but I’d at least figured out the hard part.

I looked to Vail to find him staring at me, that same faint smile on his lips. It slid away as soon as he saw my attention on him though. “Thank you for helping my rangers. You didn’t need to, but you did anyway.”

Ah, so that was why he was here—and being nice to me.

“My loyalty has always been to House Harker. That didn’t change when I married into House Laurent. It will never change.” I flipped the dagger a few times in my hand. “Don’t ever forget that.”

Vail stared at me for a few seconds before giving me a nod. “I won’t.”

Chapter Fourteen

Samara

The worn,brown, leather satchel I’d been carrying around all morning sat next to my curled-up legs. It seemed so innocuous, but the journals resting inside it were anything but harmless. My mother had a whole other part of her life that I knew nothing about. Granted, I’d been young when she’d died, but notthatyoung. Was what she wrote in those journals so bad or dangerous that she hadn’t wanted to share it with me? Had my father known?

I’d probably find at least some of those answers in them . . . if I could bring myself to pick one up and start reading. Five more minutes. I’d give myself five more minutes to enjoy this tranquility before I dove into my mother’s secrets.

Two minutes into my respite, I let out a sigh and raised my head from where it’d been leaning against the tree. Someone was coming—their footsteps were light, but I still heard them. Like most of the Fae fortresses, House Harker was made up of multiple towers with courtyards and gardens interspersed between them. There wasn’t space for any serious agriculture, so most of our gardens only had flowers, herbs, and a few easy-growing fruits and vegetables.

I’d chosen to sit in this particular one because it was the least popular of all the gardens. It was nestled in a space behind the main tower and received very little direct sunlight, so it was mostly neglected.

Lavender grew freely and was doing its best to take over the small patch of dirt, though one lone tree sat in the center. We had no idea what type of tree it was, but there was one at every Fae fortress, so everyone just referred to them as the Fae trees.

They bore fruit every year just before summer ended. The palish pink fruit was hard and bitter with bright purple seeds at its center. Aside from tasting horrible, they were highly toxic. One bite, and you’d be hating your life for at least two days. They didn’t kill us, but the pain was unimaginable. Or so I’d been told. We discarded the fruit once it fell from the trees to prevent any mishaps.

Maybe the Fae had a different reaction to the toxin. They must have had some reason for growing the trees.

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