24. Nora

24

NORA

" P ull everything you have on healing. I'll grab us a table."

"Do I at least get a ‘ please, Silas ?'"

My footsteps come to a halt, and I shoot Silas a glare.

"Seriously?"

I would get them myself, but it would take hours of searching through the rows of shelves. They're ten feet tall and twenty rows deep around the entire study area. Silas, on the other hand, knows exactly where each catalog lives.

Silas shrugs, spinning so he walks backwards between the bookshelves, forcing me to follow. A playful smile tugs at his lips—I've quickly learned over the past week that Silas is a trickster and a brat wrapped into one. He doesn't discriminate with his jabs, subjecting Wrath, the staff, and me to his antics.

"I've been bored. Wrath is holed up in his workshop until all hours of the night, and you only hang out with me when you're killing people."

"This isn't sleepaway camp."

"I mean, it could be," he says.

Silas stuffs his hands in his pockets; his sleeves are rolled up to his elbow, putting the matching tattooed gauntlets that circle his forearms on display. Over the past week I've studied the designs. They're a swath of black linework florals, which seemed an odd choice at first, but they fit him.

"If you're so bored, shadow-walk back to Anwynn."

"Security risk, going back and forth too often."

"Then I don't know how to help you," I say. I stop at the fork in the bookshelves. Turning left goes deeper into the stacks, while turning right leads to the open center of the library. I heave a sigh. " Please , will you gather all the books on healing you can find?"

He beams.

"I'll be right back."

It's not long before we're both hunched over stacks of ancient tomes. The downside to Silas having cut off formal contact with the Seelie means that everything in the library is out of date.

A few hours pass with our heads tucked between yellowed pages.

Silas huffs a frustrated sigh, pushing his book away. He's been screening books for me, passing on the ones that may be relevant and tossing the others aside.

"Is any of this making sense to you?" he asks.

"Huh?" I ask, only half paying attention.

I finish the sentence I'm reading and put my pointer finger on the period, marking my place. It's a transcript of an ancient healer's medical journal. Most of the entries are tonic recipes, lists of herbs and solvents, but every couple of pages, there are notes scrawled in the margins.

Don't force it. This one needs time for the magic to settle with the herbs. Make sure they're fresh. Magic connects with the spark of life.

Our magic isn't finite. Don't be afraid to part with a piece of it.

Some make more sense than others, but they all read like a teacher advising their student. They're personal, and I wonder who this journal belonged to before it ended up here.

The entries on infusing tonics don't relay the knowledge I had hoped for. But at the end of the journal, where my finger presses into the page, I find what I'm searching for. It's an entry on tethering—a technique for healing long-term ailments, where the healer establishes a lasting connection between them and their patient. The cursive instructions have my lips tilting upwards.

We're dealing with the bodies, not souls. Hearts, not minds. Remember that your magic can only do so much to bring someone back from the edge. But if you tend to it like a garden, with intention and persistence, their resolve will grow—and with it, your connection.

It will be strange at first, the tether. Unlike tonics, you're not truly parting with a piece of your magic. It's not a gift, but an active lifeline between you, your magic, and your patient. It is a constant draw on your power to keep the connection flowing. Over time, it will settle in the background, but don't lose sight of it for too long. If you do, it'll fade away.

Emotion is the root of our magic. The urge to heal, to save, is tied to that. Therefore, fluctuations will test the strength of your connection.

Tethers are fragile things.

My hand cuts off the rest.

My gaze flicks up and Silas gestures to the open book in front of him.

"This isn't how magic feels. When I use my shadows, it's not a separate entity to carve away at—it's an extension of myself. A fifth limb."

"Maybe it's just not what magic feels like for you ."

He tilts his head at me. "And it does for you?"

"My magic…" I search for the right words. I hadn't realized it before now, but the way I was taught to use my magic is different from the way it flows through my body. "Think of it as a second soul that I can manipulate. It's part of me, but it also isn't."

"How strange," Silas murmurs. He fiddles with the small silver earring dangling from his lobe. "I wonder why yours is so similar to theirs."

I drop my gaze back to the journal. "Death and life are two sides of the same coin, are they not?"

Silas's lips part, but he's cut off by Wrath's voice calling through the stacks of books.

"Ah, good. You're both here."

Wrath appears seconds later. I sigh, giving up on keeping my place and shutting the book. I want to reread the whole section over anyway.

"He has emerged from his cave!" Silas says, giving Wrath a cheeky side-eye. "Nice of you to finally pay us a visit."

Wrath's expression is less than amused. "I have a prototype ready."

He drops a bundle of fabric on the table, sheer and black, right over the book in front of me.

"What's this?" I ask.

Silas leans forward, eyes glinting with delight.

"Those," Silas drawls. "Are your new gloves. Right?"

He looks up at Wrath, to which Wrath nods.

"Try them on," Silas commands. There's a wicked edge to his excitement.

I quickly shuck off my leather gloves. Then I pick up one of Wrath's, and it unfurls, hanging long and glossy between my fingers. I pull it on, though it scrunches around my forearm, fighting for space with my blouse. These sleeves were not made to pair with elbow-length gloves.

I rub the fabric between my fingertips; they're like no fiber I've touched before, as if air and silk were woven together.

"They'll appear and feel like real gloves, but there isn't any actual separation between your skin and who you touch. So be careful," Wrath says, a glint of pride in his eyes as he explains.

My brows knit together as I examine the dark fabric.

"How?" I ask.

"Shadows. It took a while to realize the answer was simple." He holds his hand up and a twirl of inky black dances between his fingers. "If they can be corporeal one moment and not the next, if I can mold them into barriers and use them to travel across great distances, then why can't we apply the same logic to something more mundane?"

I flex my fingers, and the fabric shifts over my skin. It's subtle, but one minute they're real and the next they don't exist at all. As if they're merely a shadow on my skin.

"I have to admit, it's quite genius," I say.

"Thank you." Wrath bristles under the praise. "They're connected to my magic, so I'll know when to phase them in and out."

The gloves vanish, dissipating into fading tendrils of shadow around my fingers.

"Will you teach me how to do it too, Robbie?" Silas asks, staring up at Wrath with wide puppy-dog eyes.

Silas has developed a habit of using both our given names. And while it still makes me uncomfortable, I can't help but chuckle at how I'm not the lone victim of his larks.

Wrath's frown deepens. "Fine."

"Oh, we also need more people to test these out on," Silas adds.

"You ran out of prisoners already?"

"Mhm."

Wrath levels me with a glare. "You're going through them too fast. At this rate, the Royal prisons will be empty, and we'll have to go catch Seelie exiles."

"Oh, that's a good idea. We should test it on some Seelie," Silas says.

"It wasn't meant to be a suggestion. That's a huge security risk, bringing one here."

"I don't think it matters." I cut the two of them off as I stand, tucking my book under my arm. "The next test will work."

Wrath held up his part of this plan. Now it was my turn to prove myself. Between the knowledge tucked in this book and the power simmering in my gut, I have everything I need.