The Hunter and the Mage (The Raven and the Dove #2) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,30

clenched his teeth to keep from barking back, remembering one of Xander's former lessons about catching flies with honey or some such nonsense.

"Your anger is adorable too."

"Brighty!"

"I may look like an honest member of a dragon-hunting crew, but once a thief, always a thief, Rafe. No one steals from me, not even something as simple as an extra answer, and I don't give anything away for free. You want more? You'll have to earn it."

"How?"

"I'm glad you asked." She grinned, pulled a rope from behind her back, and tossed it into his lap. "For every knot you tie correctly, I'll answer another one of your questions, with one caveat."

He fingered the rope. "What's that?"

"No questions about me."

It was Rafe's turn to snort. "No problem."

Her gaze bored into his side, but Rafe kept his attention on the fog as the ship rolled back and forth, the movements more pronounced from this height. It would take most of his energy not to be sick, especially as his focus dropped to the wooden deck far, far below, making him dizzy.

"We'll start easy. Show me a square knot."

Rafe tightened his grip on the rope, trying to remember the endless stream of information Brighty had been doling out ever since his conversation with the captain. He switched his hold, grabbing the two ends in his fingers before twisting them around each other twice.

"Good. Ask away."

"What's an aethi'kine?"

"You're so obvious."

"Just answer."

"A spirit mage."

He waited, giving her the chance to say more.

She didn't.

"Brighty, if all I'm going to get are one- and two-word answers, I'm not playing your ridiculous game. Go find another person to annoy. Oh, wait—you can't. You're just as stuck with me as I am with you."

"There's one difference," she commented, voice so smooth it immediately raised his hackles. "I'm not the one in need of answers."

His hands balled into fists, accidently tightening the knot. How in the world had he tumbled out of the sky just to find someone more frustratingly stubborn than his brother? Even Taetanos didn’t have a sense of humor this cruel.

"Sailor's knot."

With a sigh, he untied the first knot, then looped and twisted the rope around into the new one before holding it up for inspection. Brighty nodded.

"What's a spirit mage?"

"Before you learn that, you need to understand what spirit even is," she said, dropping her head back against the mast but keeping her attention on the sky. Rafe expected her to stop, but instead of tossing out the name of another knot, she kept going. "When you look at this view, you see fog and water and wood. But if an aethi'kine looked at this view, they would see beyond all of that, into the very essence of what the fog and water and wood are, into the unseen force holding them all together. Did you ever wonder why no one else could see your magic in the world above?"

Rafe nodded, though in truth one person had seen his magic—the same person who had let him see hers, a moment so special to the two of them yet so benign to someone of this world, where magic freely lit the air. Brighty would never understand.

"It’s because people without magic can't see it. They're not attuned to it. It’s a form of energy invisible to their eyes. There's a similar divide between those with and those without aethi'kine power. We don't sense spirit, so we can't see it, but they do. And spirit is in everything. The air we breathe. The food we eat. The water we drink. Nothing in the physical world exists without a little bit of spirit holding it together. And that is what a spirit mage sees, what they touch with their magic. There's no limit to what they can do, including giving a raven back his wings."

Rafe snapped his face to the side. "What makes you say that?"

"You're an easy mark, Rafe," she said, meeting his eyes, her own expression inscrutable. "You wear your every emotion like a new bauble on display. Now, show me a dragon's nostril."

He didn’t bother to press her, but instead focused on the rope, tying it into a new shape. As soon as Brighty nodded, another question rose to his lips. "What's my magic called?"

"Invinci," she said without hesitation. "We think it's a form of spirit magic, but no one knows for sure. I've never met anyone else who has it, but don't let that go to your head."

Invinci, Rafe thought, mulling over the word. It was strange to