Page 12 of Bonds of Blood
Sylvain looked up at me wide-eyed, though I didn’t detect any guilt on his face. Ember was kneeling beside a large piece of parchment, Satchel sitting behind him. Satchel glanced up at me and wrinkled his nose.
“Locke, you’re supposed to be hanging out with your dad and stuff. Shoo. Get out of here.”
I crossed my arms and tapped my foot, immediately getting shushed by Mr. Brittle. What? Everyone else was laughing and talking at the top of their voice.
“What’s all this, then?” I asked. “You all conspiring to have some fun little meeting without me? Wait. Is my birthday coming up? Are you planning a surprise?”
Mom placed her hand on mine. “Nothing of the sort, dear heart. Alister and Ember here were trying to piece together what they remembered of the cursed parchment. And Satchel spoke the truth. We didn’t want to bother you with anything until we were certain we had something worth bothering about.”
I stood on the tips of my toes, angling for a better look at the table. “Are you guys serious? That sounds really dangerous to me.”
Alister clucked his tongue. “Not at all, Mr. Wilde. I have access to my own magics, and Ember to his, but even combined we would be incapable of inscribing any real power into the parchment. This is merely an intellectual exercise. We thought that consulting with another elemental — your dear mother, naturally — might shed some light on the meaning of the glyphs.”
“I did the very best I could,” Ember said, never looking up, using his bare hand to scorch and sketch out more runes onto the parchment. “No worries, Locke. This won’t hurt anyone. I’m just making a flimsy copy. That’s all.”
Sylvain shut his eyes and nodded smugly. “Oh, indeed. It’s like one of your human photograph-copying machines. The facsimiles are never as good as the genuine article. All your fancy human bureaucrats will always demand to look at the original document. That’s the thing that holds all the power.”
I squinted at the book resting under his clasped hands. A guide for operating one of the rickety old photocopiers that had found their way into the library. The man was spoiled for choice, and here he was reading an instruction manual for obsolete electronics. Gods, how I loved this silly man.
“And now we’ve pieced together some of the puzzle,” Alister said. “At least enough for someone familiar with the language of the deep elementals to make something out, or so Ember tells me.”
Ember and Satchel each picked up the opposite edge of the parchment, fluttering up to offer it to my mother. She accepted it with whispered thanks, too busy scanning the letters to say anything more. Her eyes seemed to harden, darkening as she read.
“There is nothing new to learn here, I’m afraid. You’ve all been correct from the start. This is indeed a powerful work of magic, specifically meant to drain moisture from everything around it. Why, I still cannot say.”
I shook my head, reading — or at least trying to — over her shoulder. “To kill? That’s all we can think of. Everything alive is water, at least in part, and we’ve seen the horrors of the Withering firsthand. Their victims start to prune up, but there’s an extra component to the curse, as if their accelerated dying makes them want to take others down with them, too. It’s horrible, Mom. Just the worst thing we’ve ever — Mom?”
The parchment fell from her hands, her features frozen as she stared at nothing. “The dryness. The thing that called me out of the well. The world needed water. It was the very thing that lured me out. This parchment, it — gods above and below. The elements were out of balance. Not enough water. The world called. I answered.”
“Was it the real reason you awakened?” I took her by the shoulders, struggling to look her in the eyes as her gaze flitted wildly, searching the library for answers. “To fight the drought of the world? To counter the Withering?”
“Rain on the dirt,” she muttered, hands cupping her elbows as she shivered. “Water the desert. Quench the thirst. The throat of the world is parched, Lochlann. We need to save it. We need to — ”
She looked me in the eyes at last.
“Lochlann. We need to run.”
Alister Brittle cried out as he toppled to the ground, his arms and legs bound in ropes of shimmering green magic. Satchel and Ember sprang away as the parchment on the table burst into emerald flames. Sylvain leapt to his feet, vaulting across the table to tend to the fallen librarian.
And I held my mother close, scanning the room for the attacker, hating that I already knew in my heart of hearts exactly who it was.
“You shouldn’t have meddled, Alister,” said the cold, hard voice of Baylor Wilde. “You just had to put the parchment back together again.”
“It was you!” Ember shouted. He flitted up from the table, leaving a trail of flames in the air as he sped toward Baylor.
The words caught in my throat before I could warn him. Father flicked his hand. A flash of green light sent Ember flying across the room. He crashed into a bookshelf. Satchel flew after him, eyes huge with terror, wet with hurt.
“We never should have trusted you,” I snarled, pulling my mother away, her body heavy against mine as she, too, cowed under the weight of Baylor’s betrayal.
“For once we agree, Lochlann.” He reached out his hand. “Marina. Come. We leave this place.”
“No,” she said, shuddering in my arms. It wasn’t cold at all in the library. “No, Baylor. I remember it all, now. Never again.”
He took one step forward, teeth gritted in anger. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
“She said she wasn’t coming,” I shouted, raising my voice specifically to warn away the rest of the younger students, to hopefully summon the aid of our betters. Where the hell were the headmasters? “Leave, now. Before anyone else gets hurt.”
He never once looked at me, and it stung my pride to know exactly why. He didn’t see me as a threat. Another stupid thing I had to grapple with. Why did I open up like that, leaving myself and all my loved ones so vulnerable?
