Such a Daring Endeavor (43 page)

Ren squeezes her shoulder. “Jo—I’m sorry you were having such a hard time.”

She folds in on herself. “Turns out I did what I do best. Mess things up.”

“But you didn’t.” I guide her to face me. “You forced my hand. I was too weak to meet Gwynn face-to-face. I think deep down I didn’t want to accept what everyone else could see, that she was too far gone. It’s good that you went.”

Her brows jump. “It is?”

“We found out what Tyrus’s next move against Feihria is. He’s going to use that machine Warwick made to trap them. We never would have known about it if it wasn’t for you. I would have kept thinking my friend was still…”

That she was still good.

Jomeini relaxes the tiniest bit. “I’m sorry about that. I know what it’s like to lose a friend.”

For a moment I wonder who she could be speaking of. “Maybe we could be there for each other instead?” I offer.

She smiles. “I’d like that.”

R
en and the others excuse themselves, but I stay, soaking in the solitude. I haven’t talked to Talon since we returned. I assume he’s been handling damage control with Shasa.

A soft knock steals my attention. I turn to find Solomus’s crooked form in the doorway. He holds that large book in his hands, along with Jomeini’s cards tucked under his thumb.

“Where did you find those?” I ask. Then again, this isn’t the first time he’s appeared to know more than he lets on.

He licks his lips, his eyes glowing with hesitant contemplation. “I hope you don’t mind. Jomeini told me she gave them to you. May I come in?”

“Please,” I say, clasping my hands together. It might not be a bad idea to discuss the cards with him, actually. Jomeini was honest enough when she gave them to me, but I still don’t know what they mean.

Solomus separates the small stack of cards from the book. “These were crafted by wizards. Did you know that?”

I shake my head, a sense of guilt wriggling in. “You warned me,” I say. “Not to venture into the dreamworld, but to focus on those cards instead. Did you know what would happen?”

“Did I know Jomeini would leave us and share our secret with our enemy? No, I didn’t.”

“Sorry,” I say, sensing the hurt he must be feeling. I know a part of him blames himself for the fact that she left at all. “Did she tell you what was on those?”

“What, these?” Without warning, Solomus tosses them into the fire.

I nearly fall off the cot. “What did you do that for?”

The astonishment coursing through me is short-changed. The cards don’t shrivel. The flames continue to spit and crack against the wood, and the cards lie inert, waiting to be plucked out of the blaze.

“They won’t burn,” says the wizard.

I gawk at him, but he gestures adamantly to the fire. Sighing, I crouch for a better view.

The ink comes to life in the flames, and just like before, the image on the cards begins to shift. I squint, seeing a small motion. The flowers are shriveling, burrowing back into the ground as though blooming in reverse.

“Incredible,” I say. “Did she tell you what’s on them?”

“That is for your eyes only,” he says, making his way to the chair he sat in during our disastrous bout of dreamwalking. “At least, that’s the way I understand it.”

“Do you understand it, sir? Does anyone?”

He shrugs, bobbing his head. “Jomeini does.”

“How do I get them out of there?” I watch the card now devoid of flowers. In slow motion, the flowers begin to bud once more, starting as small sprouts and elongating with shoots and leaves until new flowers form.

“Reach in for them,” he answers.

“Sir?”

“You won’t be burned. Not if you ignite it yourself in the process.”

I rise to my knees. The flames I called when I protected Talon from the Arcs and again when I destroyed Warwick’s machine pop the closer I get to the fire. The orange flames part, leaving a way for my fingers to close around the cards. They’re warm to the touch.

“How did you know I could do that?” I ask.
How did I know I could do that?

Solomus props the book open on his lap and flips through several delicate pages. “I believe you are of the lost Ithillian race. I believe that is why Jomeini—of all the people she could have Seen—Saw you. The evidence is here.” He points to the page with a gnarled finger.

“You think I’m what?”

Solomus irons his palm to the page. “I told you this was a book of history. The Ithillians lived long ago, and each possessed the five traits that have now been split among each of the races. They had both elemental and electrical magic.”

“And you think I—”

He pulls a small notebook from within his shirt. “I’ve been watching you for some time. I’ve seen you do things no ordinary human should be able to do. You can wield fire. You hold siren song.”

“The sirens gave that to me—I wasn’t born with it.”

His eyes twinkle. “Oh, I think you were. I think they only helped awaken it in you. No human can possess their song and remain human. Whenever humans are entrusted with it they take on the full transformation. As you have no wings, my guess is that the ability was already in you.

“You were also able to assist Jomeini in restoring life, a feat no human would be able to do no matter what magical trinket they used while doing so. Do you know when Ithillians Torrented, Ambry? When they were sixteen. At what age did you get your magic?”

The blood has escaped my head, leaving empty pulses in its place. “Sixteen,” I say, my voice a whisper.

“This could also explain why you retained your emotions after your Torrent, while every other human around you lost theirs.”

“It can’t be possible. My brother, my parents, everyone I know Torrents at twelve. Why me?”

“That I don’t yet know,” says the wizard. “Something in your genetics, perhaps? But I believe it’s also the reason you were able to make it through the archway. It’s the reason I’ve been hunting for the Firsts for decades, and yet they come to you in dreams.”

“What does it all mean?” I ask, trying to keep up. I want to argue, to contradict the things he’s claiming. But they resonate, too real to deny.

“I wanted to pass my theory by Jomeini and see what her thoughts were, but she was so…so broken, Ambry. I hated to put more on her. So instead I pushed her away.”

“We could tell her now, sir. See what she has to say.”

His lips form a smile and he pats my shoulder. “While I intend to, I think it can wait a day at least. Let’s give her some time. She’s just been through a lot.”

“Time,” I say. She was barely hanging on by a thread before she left for Gwynn’s. I can only imagine what she must be dealing with now, after having been taken and shrunk to be stored in a gem, no less. “We can give her that much.”

“Knock, knock.”

Shasa enters, and the open unity collecting between Solomus and me slams its door shut in an instant.

“What do you want?” I ask, bristling.

Talon appears behind her, tilting against the door and crossing one foot over the other. Though he was there when Mirage delivered me safely back, though he hugged me and asked if I was okay, I haven’t told him much since. And with Solomus’s monumental revelation about my lost Ithillian heritage, all I want is to be alone with him as soon as possible.

Solomus’s bushy brows wobble. “I’ll give you three a moment,” he says.

I clasp his arm. “Sir.” He pauses between sitting and standing. “Thank you for telling me.”

His mouth thins, and he totters out the door.

Shasa lifts her hands, the movement shifty. “Okay, so I just have to say, he didn’t put me up to this.”

Up to what?

“Who didn’t?”

“Ren,” Shasa says at the same time Talon says, “Me.”

Awkwardness strings between us. Shasa glowers at Talon, who raises his hands in surrender as if to say,
Fine, leave me out of it
.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Shasa,” I say, feeling suddenly exhausted. “I’m too tired. I can’t handle anything else right now.”

“Me neither,” she says, shuffling forward. “The truth is, I owe you.”

I blink through my fatigue. Is she serious? “You don’t owe me anything.”

Her full lips spread into a weedy smile. “I owe you a lot more than I’ll ever tell, but for starters, how about when you helped Jomeini save my life?”

Talon’s forehead wrinkles.

Unsure of what else to do, I give off a laugh and sink back on my heels.

Shasa urges on. “I never thanked you. I never wanted to have to look at you, to be honest, let alone talk to you.”

I press a hand in her direction. “You really don’t—it was—”

“Let me finish. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For accusing you, with Ren. I should have known you’d never hurt him.”

This one rings with more clarity than the first confession, plucking at the strings between us.

“Thank you,” I say.

She purses her lips and dips her head before leaving the room.

“That was interesting,” Talon says, coming to me.

I almost don’t want to look at him. I remember him in my dream—the real Talon, the one who gave in, who crushed me to him and expressed his love for me in a way I could never have invented on my own. It was devastating to wake, to shelter those feelings and know I could never share them beyond what we did behind closed eyes.

I consider telling him of Solomus’s discovery, of my true heritage, but there will be time for that. For now he sits beside me, not speaking. Just providing the straightbacked beacon of support he always has.

I hold Jomeini’s cards between my palms. I think about Gwynn, about Jomeini, about Ren, and especially Talon.

“What are those?” he asks after a while.

Jomeini said my heart in the vision she Saw was full of love. I couldn’t fathom what she meant until I felt it there, facing Gwynn who wanted to hurt me and all I could do was pity her for it.

You are their hope
, Ren said in my dream, probably not realizing how those words would impact me. And if what Solomus told me is true, if I really hold the traits of the lost Ithillian race, then that hope is that much more rampant.

“These,” I say, trying to decide where to start. “These are
my
hope.”

For the first time since meeting Nattie, I believe it. Heart and soul, blood, tooth, nail, and all the other parts of me, I know I can break the spell. These cards will help me know just how to do it. Talon’s warmth beside me assures one more thing. I have friends—true friends—who will be there to back me up along the way.

The tears purr from their place inside my pocket, adding themselves to my list of assets. I cup my hand to feel them there. Back where they should be.

Thank you for reading
Such a Daring Endeavor.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do! If you liked it, would you mind leaving me a review? Reviews on retail sites like Amazon, in addition to Goodreads, really help authors, especially indie authors like me. They also draw readers to other books they might like! I appreciate all honest reviews.

Stay Tuned for the Final Installment in the Stolen Tears Series: 

Coming Soon!

And don't miss Talon's story before he heard of a magical vial of tears.