contained mainly personal items but also a small collection of texts and parchments acquired from a monastery of healers. They too were water damaged, though he had wrapped them carefully before jumping overboard.
Wynn had not seen these. Considering what Welstiel had done to the monks who had first possessed them, Chane was uncertain whether he would ever show them to her. But it had seemed wrong to abandon them in high, barren mountains.
Most of the works were written in old Stravinan, which he could read somewhat. One often stuck in his mind. It was the thinnest one, an accordion- style volume of thick parchment folded back and forth four times between grayed leather cover plates. The title read, The Seven Leaves of . . . something. The final word was obscured by age and wear.
Though Chane had taken these texts from others, he saw himself as their keeper now. There was no one else left to care for them. This sentiment did not carry to the second pack’s contents, which had once belonged to Welstiel.
Chane had stolen it the night in the ice-bound castle when he had betrayed Welstiel to Magiere. He crouched to flip open its canvas flap and look inside. The pack contained an array of arcane and perhaps mundane creations. Though technically they were now his, Chane never stopped thinking of those items as belonging to his old companion. Perhaps he never would.
Hunger flushed through him, and he began digging into Welstiel’s pack. Aside from two arcane journals, with scant Numanese writings scattered amid pages of indecipherable symbols and diagrams, there were odd objects and boxes.
Chane eyed three unmarked rods, each a forearm’s length and as thick as his thumb. One was red brass or copper, the second gray like pewter but harder, and the last looked obsidian, though it clinked like metal. Lying against them was a thick, polished steel hoop the diameter of a plate, with hair-thin etchings that smelled of char.
Two boxes lay in the pack’s bottom.
He ignored the long and shallow one bound in black leather and wrapped in indigo felt. Instead, he pulled out the other walnut box. Inside of it, resting in burgundy padding, were three hand- length iron rods with center loops, a teacup-size brass bowl, and a stout bottle of white ceramic with an obsidian stopper.
Chane had partially fathomed the steel hoop, but he had not learned its full power. Welstiel had been able to pick it up while it was still searing hot, and Chane could not. He understood the brass cup as well, though he could not use it. Welstiel used it to drain and trap a mortal’s life energy in thrice-purified water from the ceramic bottle. This had allowed him to go for long periods without feeding otherwise.
Chane had drunk that burning, bitter fluid more than once. The draft was revolting, devoid of the hunt’s joy and feeding’s euphoria. But as he was Wynn’s companion among the living, feeding had greater risks. Foremost that she would learn how he continued to survive—to exist.
So far, the cup’s actual usage remained unfathomable. But his intellect and knowledge of minor conjury made him long to learn the secrets of Welstiel’s creations, including that filthy little cup. If he could feed only once per moon, it would be one less obstacle to remaining at Wynn’s side. But he would still have to keep such an act from her awareness, for the victim still died in the process.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Are you awake?” Wynn called from the other side.
“One moment,” Chane rasped loudly.
He hurriedly returned the cup’s box to Welstiel’s pack, went to open the door, and then froze.
Wynn carried a glazed clay urn. She looked visibly queasy, a thin sweat leaving a sheen on her face.
“Are you ill?” he asked.
When she did not answer, his gaze dropped to the urn. A familiar scent began to reach his nostrils.
“What is that?” he asked.
Wynn swallowed audibly and pushed past him into his room. Before Shade could follow, she kicked the door, slamming it shut. Shade began barking and scratching outside, but Wynn ignored her.
“It is . . . is . . .” But she never quite finished, and Chane already caught the coppery, salty scent.
“Blood?” he whispered.
“Goat’s blood,” she blurted out, nearly squeaking. “I went to a butcher . . . so it’s . . . it’s fresh.”
Wynn swallowed again, or rather gagged. Chane quickly snatched the urn out of her grip, horrified at what she had done.
“I told the