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In a way, she was immune to protective enchantments because she became any protective enchantment she faced, and it didn’t recognize her as a threat. And ever since Chrysanthia had gained this ability, Mydusia had been utilizing it by having her pour her magic into the same ink that enforced an oath: tilu naha.
That way anyone marked with the ink could be granted the same immunity.
“Did she stop forcing you to make it?” Jagaros asked.
Chrysanthia shook her head. “No, the opposite. Before I set sail, she had me make hundreds and hundreds of bottles until I…” Her bottom lip quivered. “Never mind. Let’s just say she has enough stocked up for the next five centuries. She won’t be needing my services for just as long.”
Jagaros had gone as lethally still as the cliff itself.
“Don’t go back to Sorronia,” he said. “Stay here.”
“You know I can’t. I promised Mydusia I would be back before the quarter moon. If I fail to show, she’ll just send someone to hunt me down.”
“Then hide. You’re good at hiding.” He ran a thumb along her jaw, catching a crystal-clear tear. “And I’ll help cover for you.”
The mist changed. In this new memory, Jagaros still donned his brother’s form, but that form looked a shade older, a shade more worn. He was peering through a fan of wide-leaved foliage at a sliver of sandy beach when Chrysanthia burst into view, appearing as if out of thin air.
Drenched in saltwater, seaweed clinging to her sopping dress, she didn’t look quite as fragile as she last had. Definitely more haunted, though, more flighty.
Especially when Jagaros ran to her with her name peeling from his lips.
“Do not,” she said, swiping up a gut-wrenchingly familiar crescent knife before he could make contact with her, “assume I am who I am. Do you know how many powers my sister has stolen? She has an infinite ability to cast illusions, create mimics, or send a shifter your way to trick you.”
Despite the fierce pummel of her eyes and the blade near his throat, a smile twitched in the corner of Jagaros’s mouth. He bowed his head.
“My apologies. How should I make sure you’re the love of my life rather than an imposter sent to kill me?”
Love of my life. The phrase jolted through my bones. However this all ended, it couldn’t possibly be good or else I wouldn’t even exist.
Chrysanthia nearly smiled, too, her knife hand deflating slightly. “Just ask me questions first. Any questions. You know me well enough that if my answers are off by even the slightest, you will be able to tell.”
“Okay.” Jagaros took a slow step toward her. “Who are you?”
“Princess Chrysanthia Aguin Reeve. Daughter of Her late Majesty, Queen Eshol Reeve of Sorronia, and the seemingly ordinary but wonderful Yenatin Aguin of Ranuq, best faerie finder in the world.”
Jagaros’s smile cracked. Apparently, this answer satisfied him, but at the stern look on Chrysanthia’s face he asked another.
“And what are you doing here, Princess Chrysanthia Aguin Reeve?”
“I have come to seek momentary sanctuary with the king of Ranuq, Jagaros Kalaidesique … if you’ll have me,” she added quietly. “Not publicly, of course. I must remain a secret.”
Now Jagaros’s smile slipped. Pain shot across his face. “Are you okay?”
Chrysanthia dropped her knife completely, her lips pressed together.
“No.”
They collided then, and I nearly had to look away. Cracks shuddered beneath my feet as the mist continued playing out, like Jagaros’s fire was trying to break free. To roar back to life and consume a past it could never have back.
Something horrible had definitely happened to my mother, but it hadn’t been Jagaros’s doing after all. What could Mydusia have possibly done to make her youngest sister run away, if not sell her to the very king she’d ended up escaping to?
The mist changed too quickly for me to piece it together. Now, two harpy eagles were soaring through a bruised sky, swooping down toward an unfamiliar isle, aiming for a five-steepled church with stained-glass windows.
No, not a church, I realized with a jolt like a hook through my gut.
A temple.
The harpy eagles morphed into Jagaros and Chrysanthia as soon as their talons scraped ground. She must have been mirroring his shifting power, and they’d both chosen the form of a bird to fly to the place where vigates were made.
