“What?” She stiffened, stepped away from him, instantly mistrustful. “But I’m not a mage! I told you! I’m not going anywhere with you—I don’t even know you!”

His expression grew serious. “Lena, I know you don’t know me yet, and you’re probably very confused. If you weren’t from Duke’s Forest, there are documents and certificates and all manner of things I could show you to convince you of who I am and what my duties are. But none of it will mean anything to you. I just have to ask you to trust me.” He smiled slightly. “Think of it as a kind of repayment for saving your life.”

“But I’m not a mage!” she protested a second time, clenching her fists: it felt as if her body was rebelling, attempting to defend itself against the very idea.

Emris spoke with infuriating insistence and calmness. “You are a mage.” He pointed to the snake’s still corpse. “And there’s your evidence. You may not understand it yet, but I assure you I am right. Now, I have one question for you—it may seem odd, but I need an answer. When did you first experience something unexplainable, something that happened to you, or around you, that you felt you could not control?”

Lena blinked. She looked at Emris’s grave face and resisted the urge to protest again. Instead, she thought back to the first time it had happened, the time the dead man had fixed her with his eye. “About a year ago,” she replied quietly, panic rising in her chest, tightening against her lungs.

“And it’s been getting worse? More powerful? Less controllable?”

She remembered the last time, a few weeks past: the cold, bony hand of the Duchess closing around her wrist, painfully tight. She had barely been touching the body, brushing her fingers against its lips. Lena nodded, unable to speak.

He looked at the snake. “And I suppose you didn’t particularly mean to kill that serpent either.”

Lena shook her head.

“Then if we don’t get you to the temples soon, you and everyone around you could be in terrible danger.” He stepped closer. “Lena, you might not be ready to know it yet, but magic is a part of you. And whether you like it or not, you need to learn about it and accept it, so that you can control it.”

She felt herself nodding. Could it really be true? Her heart said no, but he sounded so certain. She gazed down at her hands wonderingly, as if she’d find the answers written on her palms.

Emris started walking through the thinning trees toward the pale, growing sunlight. When Lena hesitated, he turned back. “Come on. Or don’t you want to understand what’s happening to you? You won’t find any answers here.”