I paced between her bed and mine, and pulled the lockbox I’d stolen from one of Emilie’s trunks out from under my bed. Inside, I’d been storing little things, mostly. A few tonics for pain or fever, some silver lunes, and most importantly a half-empty tin of balm to help with damage caused by magic that one of the girls had left in the silver room on accident. There was no telling when someone would find me out. I had to be ready.
“Here.” I sat it on the high wooden back of Isabelle’s bed frame. “What did you see?”
“Him dying,” she whispered. She stared straight ahead, eyes red. “My aunt keeps telling me he’s fine, but I saw it and know she’s lying. Blood and steel or a noose and gasping or his body wearing out and crumbling or once a horse hoof to the head. So many possibilities and all of them death.”
I pulled Alaine’s necklace out from under my dress. It was always best to use things well-loved. “You and Gabriel aren’t alone anymore,” I said softly. “You don’t have to be ever again.”
I held the image of her brother—mousy hair like hers that he kept long and knotted at the nape of his neck, her nose beneath a startling set of blue eyes that were all his, and the black coat of a hack covering him from neck to knees—in my mind. I rubbed my hands together as if I were gathering wool, and power condensed around the silver crescent moon. My skin grew cold and clammy. I didn’t need to open my eyes to see this future.
I had gathered so much power, too much of Mistress Moon, to ensure that what she sent me was the future that would come to pass. Most divinations didn’t.
Gabriel, bloodied and worn down, on his back in a field. Black-hearted bruises speckling his white skin. Blood in his throat. No pain. Only stars above and memories.
My first divination in ages, and it was certain death.
I tried to pull my hands away, but they held fast, the divination arts not done with me. Part of the danger of working the midnight arts was not knowing when to stop and getting trapped—the illusion, present or future, playing out forever. A pair of small hands grasped my wrists and pulled them apart. I opened my eyes.
“What did you see?” Coline asked, her hands holding a cloth beneath my nose. “Emilie, that was the most power I have ever felt anyone pull together without preparation.”
Isabelle’s trembling arm pressed to mine. “Please don’t lie. What did you see?”
I glanced at her. She should know. She’d done it downstairs and nearly worn her hands out. “You—”
Pain tore down my throat. I coughed, choked, and Coline pulled back the cloth. Blood drenched it. I dropped Alaine’s necklace against my chest, the soft tap of it painful, and touched my nose and mouth. Blood dripped down my fingers, flecks of silver magic floating in the red. It clotted almost instantly.
“I—” Instead of words, blood and snot filled my throat. I sniffed. “This is why I don’t divine. It never works.”
Coline pressed the cloth back to my face. “Stop talking. I know it will be hard but try.”
I scowled, but she couldn’t see it through the cloth.
“Did you see him?” Isabelle asked softly.
I nodded. Even that hurt.
Gabriel would die, worn down far too much to be saved.
Not all artists die young. Only the common do. Why?
Because they were killed, by magic or by their artist’s hands. I needed to talk to Yvonne. Something bad was coming. Rich folks always needed hacks because hacks kept them alive. They wouldn’t kill them for nothing.
Demeine wore us down as surely as magic did.
“The last time I saw someone gather that much power, his heart stopped,” Coline said. “And he had to resort to hacks.”
I waved her worry off with a hand and picked up my necklace. Some of the power I’d gathered but not used still lingered in the room. It curled around my shoulders like a mantle of wool on the hottest day of summer, and I gently pushed a single strand of it into the necklace. I had enough in me for one more midnight art. Something quick and easy.
If I was going to help Isabel, Gabriel, and Laurel, I needed to be better, and for that, I needed Estrel. But she wasn’t teaching us yet, focusing on the older, better students instead. How did she get better?