“So, what did you want to know about Endla?” she asked after a few minutes. “Or were you just hoping to spend time alone with a pretty girl?”

At that, Jaren dropped Lupin’s arm and took a sidestep away from her. “No, I’m sorry. I hope that’s not the impression I gave. I would never presume...”

She had a high, tinkling laugh that he imagined some people would find charming, but the sound made him uneasy. “I enjoy making you blush,” Lupin said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite.” She reached for his arm again and he gave it reluctantly, wondering why he wasn’t enjoying spending time with an attractive girl as much as he suspected he should.

“Go on, then,” she said. “Ask me your questions about Endla.”

Jaren resumed walking. “I suppose I was just wondering why you were sent away,” he said, hoping he wasn’t being rude. “Lars made it sound like you were forced to leave your family.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you hear, city boy? I’m incantu. Without magic. Endlans send us all away before we reach our teen years.”

“So it’s true? There really is magic?” Jaren was grateful there was no one around to hear him. If he’d said something that asinine in Tindervale, he’d have been laughed out of town.

“You city folk and your skepticism. Of course there’s magic.”

Jaren didn’t doubt that Lupin believed what she was saying, but he had direct proof that Endlan “magic” hadn’t worked the way everyone said it did. “I heard the singing myself.”

Lupin stopped abruptly and turned to face him. “What?”

He nodded. “Twice now.” He thought of the night he’d camped by the lake and the strange music that had been stuck in his head after. “Three times, maybe.”

She glanced around at the trees, as if she was listening for something. “And you didn’t feel the urge to cross the lake?”

“No,” he said. “Far from it.”

“Interesting.” She started walking again, but Jaren could feel the tension in her body. “I suppose it’s possible that you didn’t hear the right songs. Or you were too far away for the magic to work. Or perhaps your skepticism protected you somehow. Either way, you were lucky, Jaren Kask.”

He knew the lake was poisonous. After seeing what happened to the bird and the rose, that couldn’t be denied. But he didn’t feel as though it were luck or skepticism keeping him safe. Certainly the songs had gotten in his head. They had affected him. Just not the way he’d imagined.

“How does an Endlan know if they have magic or not?”

“If their voices hold no power by their twelfth birthday, then they are incantu. And anyone without magic on Endla is vulnerable.”

“To what?”

“To the Forest, of course.”