“Is that even possible?” Niklas asks, leaning forward. “I thought the binding ceremony stifled all other magic.”

“I thought so too,” Tessa echoes.

A bead of sweat slips from the nape of my neck and inches slowly down my spine. The air in the cell is damp and so thick that it’s suffocating. “No, it’s abiding by the promises in the binding ceremony—ceasing to practice magic in all but one small area—that causes any other abilities to slowly ebb away.”

Jacey dabs her forehead with her sleeve. “Tell us what else you saw.”

So I do. But I’m careful not to reveal that I saw the past. Instead I tell them the story came from Jensen’s memory as he sat in the cell. I give them as much detail as I can from beginning to end, hoping they’ll feel as I do—that Jensen had no choice. That any father would do the same. They listen carefully to the end.

“But I thought you said he didn’t do it,” Niklas says. “Now you’re saying he did?”

“I said he wasn’t guilty. What else was he supposed to do? Let his son suffer? Considering the circumstances, how could we possibly convict him?”

“Maybe we should go talk to him again,” Jacey suggests.

“Yes,” I say, unable to keep the tremble from my voice. “We should.” I stand up and hurry out of the cell without waiting for the others.

“Jensen,” I say when we reach him, ashamed that I didn’t ask his name before. “Tell me what happened with Boe.”

He looks up sharply. And then his eyes go soft, like his child’s very name is a ray of sunlight that can soften his edges and melt away his severity. Now his expression looks more like the father I saw in the vision than the callous man we encountered when we first arrived.

“He got hurt,” Jensen says, his voice barely above a whisper. “And I healed him.”

“With what magic?” Tessa asks, not unkindly.

Jensen’s gaze finds hers and holds it. “With the magic he needed.”

“But, what I mean is, did you—”

He holds up a hand to stop her. “Is there anything I could say that would make a difference?”

Tessa frowns. “You could say you didn’t do it.”

He sighs. “The law is the law. And I’d do it again to spare my boy. Just tell me this: When is the trial?”

This time it’s Bram who answers. “It’s in three days.”

We leave the prison in an even more somber mood than when we arrived.

“We can’t convict him,” I say as we walk back to Ivory Hall. “He did what any parent would have done in the same situation.”

But the others are quiet, and it makes the discomfort inside me squirm like a restless serpent. “Doesn’t anyone agree with me?”