Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,9
using my real name in Blauberg. Besides, not having to remember to answer to another name made my spying much easier.
I smiled back at the other woman. “Yeah, I’m still finding my way around the city, and I went down the wrong street. Why are you late, Penelope?”
I had met Penelope when I’d started working in the mine two days ago. There weren’t many women here, so she had come over and introduced herself. I had liked her immediately, especially given her inherent cheerfulness, and Penelope had been showing me around ever since. A few butterflies of guilt fluttered in my stomach that I was using her to gather information on the other miners, but I swatted them away. As a princess and especially as a spy, I couldn’t afford to indulge in such a treacherous emotion as guilt.
Penelope smiled again. “Oh, my daughter needed some extra help getting ready for school.”
We reached the mine entrance, and she fell silent and faced forward.
Going from the morning sunshine into the darker confines of the mine was like stepping into a different realm, as though I had traveled through a Cardea mirror, an enchanted glass that let people see and talk to each other over great distances, as well as move from one place to another. In an instant, the crisp mountain air turned ten degrees cooler, and the natural sunlight gave way to black iron lanterns filled with round fluorestones. The lanterns hung on the walls like strings of popcorn on a yule tree, while the glowing fluorestones inside ranged in shade and intensity from cool, moody blue to bright, piercing white. The combined lights and colors painted the inside of the mine a pale, muted gray.
This first, topmost level was called Basecamp, since it was the base for all the mine’s operations, both aboveground and below. The front part was an enormous hollow dome, with a hard-packed dirt floor, curved walls, and a ceiling that soared several hundred feet overhead. Carts filled with chunks of ore and buckets of tools squeaked, creaked, and rattled along the metal tracks that crisscrossed the ground. Adding to the commotion were the miners loading carts, hauling empty buckets away, and calling out directions to each other.
I drew in a deep breath to steady myself. Then I exhaled, reached out with my magic, and carefully skimmed the thoughts of everyone around me.
When I was first learning how to use my magic, Alvis had told me to picture my mind magier power as some task that I could complete, that I could control. Skimming thoughts was like leaning over the deck of my tiny internal ship and dipping my fingers into the sea of emotion that constantly ebbed and flowed all around me.
In some ways, skimming thoughts was much harder than moving objects. I could easily ignore the strings of energy surrounding people and objects, but once I dipped my fingers into that endless, churning sea, anything could happen.
Oh, I could hear people’s whispered thoughts easily enough, but dealing with their emotions was much more difficult. Alvis had told me to treat other people’s feelings as things that I could experience for a moment, then set aside. Like someone’s seething jealousy was only a pinprick of pain, as though a thread master had accidentally poked me with a needle. Or boiling anger was nothing more than heat from a fireplace warming my face. Or bitter rage was merely an icy rain pelting my skin before dropping away. Brief discomforts that I could brush aside as quickly as I could close a book I had finished reading.
But try as I might, I couldn’t always close that book.
Sometimes, people’s thoughts and feelings were so strong, so vivid, so intense, that they completely overwhelmed me. Sometimes, if enough people were thinking and feeling the same things all at once—like fear, panic, dread, and terror—then my internal ship capsized in that raging sea of emotion, and my own magic crippled and paralyzed me, rendering me as useless as a fountain that had frozen over in the winter.
Just like I had been useless and frozen during the Seven Spire massacre.
A familiar combination of guilt and shame bubbled up inside me, burning like acid in my throat, but I shoved it down and focused on the people around me.
Gotta get back down into Shaft 3 . . .
Need to replace this cracked bucket . . .
Hope the baker has raspberry tarts for lunch . . .