Page 85 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
Viren pressed her thin lips together and nodded. “Fine. Probably better that you don’t.”
I sank to the stone bench, and she slowly sat back down beside me. Her skin had more color than the last time I’d seen her—more olive now than sickly gray—but she was still wearing a patient robe. It was pale blue and patterned with polka dots. Rather cheerful, considering the reason she was wearing it—but maybe that was the point.
“Phina has me going over your notes,” I told her.
Viren’s smile was wan. “Told you she’d bring you deeper into the fold.”
“I’ve been reading up on Gildium, too.”
“Have you asked Noble about it? He’s a great resource.”
I kept my face carefully blank as I said, “I haven’t gotten around to asking him yet.”
“He can be a bit aloof,” Viren remarked.
Have I made myself clear?he’d asked against my cleavage.
Abundantly, I’d said.
“Easy on the eyes, though,” Viren added, oblivious to my inner turmoil.
“I’ll ask him,” I promised, “but what I need to know right now ishowdo curses happen?” I’d been wracking my brain on the way here—the Gildium, the Hylder, Noble’s blank Fate—but couldn’t put all the pieces together.
Viren frowned. “I don’t know, exactly. I wasn’t made privy to that information.”
“Truly?”
She shrugged. “Like I said before, no one is allowed to know everything. Well, except Phina.”
I shot to my feet. “Any idea where she is?”
“In class, probably?”
I swore. I’d forgotten all about my afternoon class.
“Hattie.” Viren let out a long, wheezing sigh. “Whatever you’re hoping to learn, Phina’s not going to tell you.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, marching back down the path.
“No, Hattie. Shecan’ttell you.”
I halted. Turned. Our voices were still muffled by her magic, no sound permeating our bubble.
“She has an Oath, remember?”
Right. I groaned through my teeth, feeling edgy and agitated by the dead-ends. The non-answers. The man I loved was caught up in…whatever this was…and I couldn’thelphim. I couldn’t be there for him. Judging by the look of shame on his face and the way he’d run off, he wasn’t interested in my help, either; I had no doubt in my mind that in addition to the limits of his Oaths, he’d kept this from me because he wanted to protect me.
I returned to Viren. “Phina’s program is about binding Hylder to the Gildium in cursed blood, right?”
“That’s what they tell us.”
“Do you think Phina’s lying about the purpose of her research?”
“No, but I don’t trust that Lord Haron isn’t using our findings for other purposes, too.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know, Hattie.” Viren’s eyes took on a sheen, tears glittering at their inner corners. “All I know is that I was brought on to bind Hylder to the iron in regular blood. But every time I tried, the iron wasn’t receptive. I eventually got frustrated, and—knowing that Gildium was part of Phina’s research somehow, given Noble’s presence—I tried adding Gildium into the mix, just to see if a magically potent metal would help with the alchemical weaving. When I did, the blood turned black.”
