Page 94 of Lana Pecherczyk
“What the—?” River gasped.
Blake lowered her hands and found him staring at his blades, confusion in every line of his face. “Did Trix break them?”
He brought one down on the booth’s bench seat, testing the sharpness. The blade sliced through leather and wood like tissue paper, sending stuffed feathers exploding outward. He winced. “Oopsy.”
“Why won’t it work on the door?”
“I don’t know.” He tested the blade’s edge with his thumb. “Metalalwayscuts through magic. Always.” His frown deepened. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“No.” Disbelief colored his voice, and he started pacing. “I’ve never seen a spell like this. She must have used Guardian blood—myblood, but…” He halted, staring at the open chest. “Ah, shit. My uniform is clean.”
“Planning on filling me in this century?”
“Um.”
He looked lost, nervous, and unmoored in a way that sent alarm bells ringing through her head.
“River, sit down.” She guided him to the dining booth. In a daze, he allowed her to push him onto the intact seat.
“Now give me those sharp thingies,” she said.
“Yeah, sure,” he mumbled, extending them.
The instant she touched metal, agony ripped through her. The Well’s power drained like water through a sieve. Her cry of pain snapped River back to awareness.
He snatched his weapons back. “Why are you touchingPeacemaker?”
She gripped the table, heaving in lungfuls of air until her connection to the Well was restored completely. “You said I could.”
“You’re right. I did.” He hand-signed an apology, horror replacing the fog in his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“No worries. Neither was I.” She eyed the chakram warily as he searched for somewhere to set it among the baskets and boxes crowding the table. “You’re starting to scare me.”
“You might want to sit down.”
“Uhh.” Her gaze fell on the mangled bench seat.
“Right.” He vacated his spot, stowed his weapon back in the chest, and gestured for her to take the bench seat.
“We can both squeeze in,” she offered, sliding across the leather. “It fits two. Sort of.”
“You won’t want to be near me after this.”
“Oh my god, spit it out before the suspense gives me an aneurysm!”
He pulled a handwritten letter from one of the baskets. “Read that.”
“Okay…” She unfolded the paper. “It’s from your parents.”
“Makes sense. They’re the ones who supplied the dowry.” He kept pulling items from the basket—ink bottles, wooden skewers, a leather-bound book. “Keep reading.”
She scanned the first lines. “Dearest lovebirds, we’re so thrilled that the Donna approved a union of our two families. The Cardonas and the Um?—”
“It’s not for us?” River snatched the letter, eyes brightening. “Maybe us being trapped here is a mistake.” His eyes narrowed again. “But then, why can’t we leave?”
She reclaimed the paper with a sharp tug. “I wasn’t finished.”
