Page 95 of The Demon's Delight
“And your eye? What happened to cause the color shift?”
I took a deep breath, the sting of what Sal had said still fresh. “I was very, very angry.”
All three of them made thoughtful, understanding sounds in their throats, heads nodding as though this was the most logical thing in the world.
“It’s interesting that you don’t have any feeling as far as that power is concerned,” Lovette said, dusting muffin crumbs off her fingers. “How are you supposed to control it when you can’t even tell it’s there?”
Ophelia turned to me, eyes squinted with thought. “Hailon, have you tried on that necklace yet?”
“No, I put it away.” In truth, I’d been a bit afraid of it. Too much about my mother was a mystery, I didn’t know what such an object might do.
“Would you mind getting it?”
“Of course.” I retrieved it from my pack in the guest room and held it out to her as I sat back down.
“No, no. Put it on.”
I did as she asked, the stone somehow warm against my skin despite the fact that it had been nowhere with outside heat. Now that I was wearing it, I could feel a low vibration tingling just under my skin. I plugged both ears with my fingers and wiggled my jaw, trying to gently rub away the itchy sensation there.
“It feels … strange.”
“Lovette, do you mind seeing if you can shift now?”
Lovette got to her feet and stood behind the furniture again, putting her wings out and then closing her eyes. “Oh!” She beamed and transformed from her human self into a slightly larger version with a grayish-green stone skin and fierce claws where her fingernails were, fairly feline paw feet, and brutal fangs.
“Lift the necklace by the chain, away from your skin please?” I did so, and Lovette immediately shifted back into her human form.
“Ouch.” Her hand went to her forehead.
“Sorry!” I apologized.
“Not your fault.”
“Fascinating indeed. May I take a closer look at the stone?” I took the necklace off and handed it to her. She turned it over and around, up and into the sunlight streaming through the window. “Imogen, would you mind?”
Imogen reached for the necklace and did the same kind of thing, twisting and turning the quail’s egg sized stone around in the light. “It’s in the stone, not the setting. It’s mirrored.”
“Yes.”
“Care to share with the whole class?” Lovette asked, daintily sipping her tea as she glanced between the two.
“Whoever made this necklace inscribed a powerful incantation directly into the obsidian. It’s covered by the metal they set it in. They reversed the letters so that their power is turned the correct direction as viewed through the stone.”
“And that… stops me from blocking magic?”
“Would seem so.” Ophelia smiled. “It’s something to get us started at least. Now, you can go into the city, if nothing else. Just don’t lose that necklace.”
Imogen handed it back to me. “I’m sure there’s an apprentice or two at the conclave I could conscript to craft a duplicate or two. We’d need Rylan to do the incantation though.”
“It can’t be that simple, can it?” I blurted, unexpectedly angry about how easy that seemed. “If it were that straightforward, why was the necklace hidden in that horse? Why didn’t anyone know? I’ve had it with me since I was a child but couldn’t make use of it. What if I’dlostit? It wastakenfrom me not all that long ago, I’m ridiculously lucky it wasn’t thrown away or sold off for the gold on the hooves.”
Ophelia patted my hand in an effort to soothe me. “Hailon, would you look at me, dear?” I snapped my head her direction and her eyebrow went up as she took a good scan of my face. “Safe to say anger’s a trigger then.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your eye. The color has shifted a bit more.”
I jumped up and went into the little bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror in stunned disbelief. The colors were now somewhere in the middle between vertical and horizontal.
