Romeria
“It’s not going to work. I always waited until people’s attention was divided. You’re staring right at me.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe it is because I know what you are doing. But let us try one more time.” Gesine holds out her hand.
I drop my ring into her palm.
“Ianca?”
“Silly game,” the seer mutters.
This silly game started when Gesine handed her the ring to see if she could sense anything of the spells Sofie cast over it. Ianca merely shook her head and mumbled something unintelligible about nymphs.
“I know. But we’re trying to help Romeria.” Gesine slips my ring onto Ianca’s finger for the seventh time and then shifts in her seat to give me her peripheral vision. Her orb of light floats to the other side of the wagon, throwing her into the shadows. “There. Is this better?”
“No.”
“Try anyway. Pretend Ianca is a wealthy socialite, you are at a ball, and Korsakov has hired you to steal her precious ring.”
With a heavy sigh, I focus on the seer, her cloudy eyes staring at me, through me. My affinities are packed away in a tight ball in my chest. It took only seconds for me to enclose them this time. It felt like an achievement.
But with this, I’m failing miserably.
The familiar adrenaline flares as I reach forward and carefully slip the ring off Ianca’s gnarled finger.
Gesine’s shoulders sink.
All I can do is shrug. “I guess you’re wrong about this skill set. Maybe people in my world are too easily distracted.”
“I was so sure.” Disappointment laces her voice, and I feel its weight. I was hoping she was right too. It would be a connection to my past life. Despite how I crumbled that cave, that I could have been one of these key casters without knowing still doesn’t seem real. This would have been proof.
“Are we done now?” Ianca asks.
“Yes, we are finished for today.”
“I need to lie down.” She fumbles with her ring finger. “Where did it go?”
A beat passes as realization settles in. Gesine and I share a look.
“Did you not feel Romeria take the ring from you?”
“She took it?” She paws at her hand again as if to confirm it’s not there. Another second passes, and then she lets out a raucous cackle. “Do it again, Other Romeria!”
I’d feel more confident in my abilities if my target wasn’t a seer with no vision and a scattered mind, but even still, a wide grin stretches across my lips.
I slip the ring from Ianca’s finger five more times without her notice before the novelty wears off and she demands rest. With a soft “good night” and a promise that we’ll continue tomorrow, Gesine helps her under the skins and settles in next to her, curling a protective arm around the seer. The globe fades until nothing exists, casting the wagon in darkness.
I contemplate venturing out to find Zander, but it’s silent outside, and I know his concerns about the Legion losing faith in him aren’t overstated.
Pulling the soft gray pelt over my torso, I drift off replaying so many old memories through a new lens.
A key caster’s lens.
It’s still pitch-black when I’m jostled awake by hands groping my body, digging, searching.
I open my mouth to scream and brace myself to defend.
“Where is it, where is it, where is it …”