He smiled, and the captain spoke up. “He doesn’t—I do.”
Of course he did. “Do you use them for him too?”
The captain tilted his head in mocking amusement. “You’ve forgotten he has other talents that don’t require the use of weapons.”
Right. The mind-takeover thing. Wouldn’t it be nice to just have the bad guy stab himself in the thigh for you?
As I shifted closer to the guns, the scent of CLP wafted from the stand. I could taste the tang of steel in my mouth. One step down from the coppery metal of blood.
Despite the allure of the guns, my fingers tingled in anticipation of latching on a sheath and sliding a shiny black blade home.
“Huh,” I said, peering around the room.
“What is it?” Fin asked, stepping closer, no doubt sensing the shift in the room. Same as me.
It wasn’t something I could explain. I could just feel the bite of a handle in my palm and my reflection in the glass in front of me had changed. I could see the blades in the reflection. The weapons that were meant to be mine.
“Is there a knife, almost wide like a machete, in here?” I asked. “Black, not silver.”
Fin blinked rapidly a few times and studied me anew, his chest rising and falling faster.
“What? No? Yes? Should I phrase it in the form of a different question?”
He shook his head and knelt down in front of the knife case to reveal—hallelujah—more knives. It took him a moment to sift through all the boxes and knives already visible to the eye, but after a few seconds he pulled a large box from the case and sat it on the counter.
Even the captain crept forward to get a look at what Fin had taken out. My knees hit the case and my fingers itched to open the box. The order pounded in my head: Open the box. Open the box. Open the box.
Fin flipped the clasp, threw back the lid, and stepped away as if a jack in the box would launch itself at him. I had no such fear. The blades sang to me, not like a symphony or a drum, but like a heartbeat. A steady thump I could feel in my hands, under my skin, in my chest.
“Talk to me,” Fin said. “What do you feel?”
The captain hovered to my right as I came around the display case to get a better look at the knives. They were beautiful, a long as my forearm, almost as wide, and slick black, like ice.
“What are they?”
Fin stayed back a few feet but answered. “Black steel. Forged by mages, for mages.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “For mages?”
He inclined his head. “Take them out. See how they feel to you.”
“Will I catch fire or start doing a chicken dance or something?”
His chuckle shot through me, waking things up, sweeping into nooks and crannies. “No tricks, I promise. Touch them.”
Needing no further prompting, I reached into the box and gripped a knife in each hand. The second my skin met the hilts, it was as if a wire travelled through me, arcing around my shoulders down my other arm to the second knife.
“How does it feel?” Fin asked.
“Cold. It feels cold. But also, a little like a possession. They’ve connected to me. I can feel them waiting and ready to draw blood, to defend me. Damn, I hope they don’t make me wake up in the middle of the night and slaughter everyone. If they are mage crafted, does that mean they will the people around me...”
I trailed off, not wanting to discuss the rest of my personal history with the captain present.
“If they claimed you, then they can’t hurt you,” Fin said. “Even if someone stole them and tried to cut you, they wouldn’t be able to.”
I stared down at the shiny, sharp edges. “That’s handy. Someone tries to jack you and they can’t do anything with them.”
Fin turned to the back of the room and returned with a hip sheath. I let him attach and adjust it on me. Then I slid the knives into the leather pockets and waited. They still sang to me, yet another presence inside my head.