Page 71 of Crossroads Magic
“But calendars aren’t arbitrary,” I pointed out. “They’re based on seasons, the turning of the earth.”
“Wards obey no seasons. They tap into a different power.”
“Is that why my mother could not raise them? She couldn’t find a spell that worked.”
Trevalyan didn’t answer straight away. We moved passed the last of the houses, and the end of the sidewalk, and moved onto the road itself, and into the trees.
“If only good intentions were enough, your mother would have been the most powerful woman in the north,” Trevalyan said finally.
“She was…weak?”
“She had a little talent, which she maximized with hard work and study.”
Despite his charitable words, I understood. My mother had neither the skill nor the power to raise the wards. Trevalyan had done it for her. “So you spent the night of the solstice raising wards?” I asked him.
He smiled. “I spent the evening smoking, and the night dreaming,” he said gently. “After an excellent dinner of turkey and stuffing.” His smile faded. “The last meal your mother cooked,” he added sadly.
I stayed silent. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I did not kill your mother, Anna,” Trevalyan said.
“But you would have to say that, wouldn’t you? If youdidkill her, you would still say you did not do it.”
He turned to face me and I stopped beside him, right there in the middle of the road. Not that we were in any danger of being hit by passing vehicles. No one had passed this way in ages. Black, moldy leaves covered most of the asphalt.
Trevalyan picked up my hand. “You don’t need to ask anyone this burning question you want answered. You can see the truth for yourself.”
“I can?”
He turned my hand over, so my palm was face-up. “Your mother tried. You, though, have merely to reach out and the power will be yours. You are the fire to her kindling, Anna.”
My heart hurried along. It was not panic driving it, though. “I’m nobody.”
“No one is no one in the Crossing. That’s why we are here.”
I shivered.
Trevalyan threaded his long fingers between mine and held up our joined hands. “Read the truth for yourself. You can, if you but try.”
“How?” I whispered.
“You know how. You’ve done it before. Knowing the truth comes to you like a certainty. And if you reach deep enough, you’ll knowwhyyou know what the truth is. You will see it for yourself.”
I realized I was staring into his eyes.
“Yes, look deeper.” His voice was low.
How had I been so certain that Benedict had been lying to me? How had I known he was about to tell me my mother was dead? It had just come to me. But…no, ithadn’tbeen a simple certainty.
My phone had buzzed, and I had…reached out. I had felt the tug from the east and followed it, andthenI knew. But it had all happened subconsciously and so swiftly that I had learned the truth while pulling out my phone.
I’d had no idea what I was doing, but I had instinctively done it, anyway.
And Benedict…I had encompassed his…spirit? Soul? Juju? His essence? I don’t know what it was I had touched, but it had told me, not in words, but in feelings that weren’t seeing wrong colors or feeling too much heat, or hearing a sour note, but somewhere between all three sensations. I had felt the rot of lies and recognized it.
I encompassed Trevalyan now, in the same way. It took effort this time, because I was trying to do it deliberately, which short-circuited my instincts. I tried to think of how I had felt, what I had done, in Benedict’s front room, and recreated it.
And for a brief second, I saw Trevalyan as no one else in the world did. The tired, mourning spirit in an ancient body, who carried a hole in his heart that would never heal. I saw no rot, no shadows nearby.
