“Only time will tell. We’re going to need to keep feeding her magic every hour, on the hour. I have a few honeycombs that should help.”

Clover’s eyes widened. “Honeycombs?”

“The legal kind,” she assured Clover. “They hold my own magic. I keep a stash for when I need to perform particularly difficult healings. I’ll use them now to keep her stable.”

“How long can she stay like this?” Fordham asked.

Helly shook her head. “I’ve never treated magic sickness in someone this young. I’ve never seen it in someone this young. It could be hours or days.”

Fordham nodded. “Thank you for your help. I’ll wait here with her.”

“If you aren’t in training, your absence will be noted.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Then, make an excuse for me.”

“You know what they’ll think if you’re gone. You can’t afford it.”

“I’ll stay,” Clover said, putting a hand on Fordham’s arm. “You can trust me to look after her.”

He deflated and nodded before departing. Helly and Clover exchanged a look once he was gone.

“How bad is it really?” Clover asked.

Helly sighed and shook her head. “We’re lucky she’s not already dead.”

53

The Spiritcaster

Kerrigan spun in a circle. She was in the spirit plane.

She wanted to scream and scream and scream. To fall to her knees and weep for what Mei had been forced to do to her own people. All this time, she had been told that the House of Shadows had been contained for their own good. A thousand years of isolation for their part in the Great War and the sin of wanting to continue with slavery. But it had all been a lie.

A pretty lie spun by the winners, as so often happened in history.

The truth was much worse.

The Society had been ready to bring down the mountains and kill everyone inside—men, women, and children. They decided it was easier than continuing the war with such high casualties. And they even asked the ambassador to the House of Shadows how best to do it.

After her years in Kinkadia, with a daughter and her lover in the Society, they believed she would choose them first. But she defied them all and put up the boundary around the House of Shadows to protect them.

She’d done it, knowing it might kill her. Knowing it would leave her daughter orphaned and her lover empty.

What she hadn’t known was how the spell would morph. Yes, it was to keep their location secret from the invading army. To have the Society forget where exactly the boundary to the House of Shadows was. But it had an unintended consequence—trapping the House of Shadows inside.

And Mei hadn’t meant for it to stay up forever.