suddenly how close she stood to him, so close her arm very nearly brushed against his. She shivered and took a half step back. “Are you making magic, sir?”
He grunted and nodded, his silver eyes briefly swiveling up to her face, then focusing on the wyvern. “I am attempting to, yes.”
“How does it work, exactly?”
At that he chuckled, a warm, low rumble in his chest. “I couldn’t begin to explain exactly.”
Nelle prickled. With a sniff, she flicked his ear with the same force she’d used on the wyvern’s nose. He started, but before he could protest, Nelle moved to her end of the table, grabbed her chair, and dragged it around to his side, where she plunked it down, plunked herself down on it, propped up her elbows, and cupped her chin.
“All right,” she said. “Don’t explain exactly. Explain un-exactly. And use very small words.” She blinked at him with exaggerated doe-eyed wonder.
He had the grace to look chagrined. “Forgive me, Miss Beck. I didn’t mean to give offense.”
“You condescending snobbish sorts never do, do you?”
He tipped his head slightly to one side and rubbed his forehead with one silver-crusted finger. “The theory behind what I am currently attempting is complicated. But in layman’s terms, if you will, the wyvern is a creature born of parchment and ink. Not to say that the beast itself is made of parchment and ink—only that this was the medium through which it was birthed. It is also the medium through which it can be healed.”
Nelle nodded. “I . . . think I understand that.”
“You do not, I assure you.”
She glowered at him, then turned her glower to the wyvern’s wing. The wyvern chortled and shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. “So, when you spelled this little beastie into being, was it sort of like when you created the Thorn Maiden?”
“The process was similar, yes. Unlike the rendering of nightmares into reality, the rendering of daydreams is not forbidden by the Miphates. But it is considered low magic. I learned the trick as a schoolboy, quite by accident. Not until years later did I recognize rudiments of the greater, darker magic in this foolish little hobby. Then I began to practice, producing more and more of these daydreams until their creation was like second nature to me.”
“Could you see them?” Nelle asked. “Back in the mortal world, I mean?”
Silveri shrugged. “They manifest as shadowy forms in our world. But they are happier in Eledria, where the air is lighter. More conducive to magical beings.”
“They seem to like it here well enough.”
“Yes. The farther Roseward has drifted from our world, the more my wyverns have flourished.”
Nelle chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. “You told me once the wyverns were prisoners here. Like you. Did the fae king curse them too?”
“No. I did.” His voice was heavy. Shamed. “One year after my sentence began, I was . . . I feared I would fall into madness if left alone much longer. I went back to the original spellbooks in which I had crafted the wyverns and wrote bindings into their creation spells. My skills are not what they once were”—he held out his ruined hands, palms up—“but I had the drive. I forced my fingers to comply until each of my little creations was bound to me even as I am bound to Roseward.” His voice sank to a lower register, barely above a whisper. “They were angry at first. Furious. Ferocious. But we have grown used to each other. And they offer much relief from the silence, from the monotony.”
He bowed his head, casting only the briefest glance her way from beneath his pale lashes. “You see, Miss Beck, I am not a kind man.”
Silence fell between them, broken only by the wyvern’s chirruping breaths and the crackle of the fire on the hearth. Silveri’s gaze remained fixedly downcast, but Nelle could see by the way his scarred cheek twitched that he was aware of her scrutiny.
How much shame could one man bear? The proud mage seemed bent beneath the weight of it. But Nelle found she could not despise him. Shame, after all, could be a virtue of sorts, if a crude one. This man had spent fifteen years staring his sin in the face every night. He could not look away, neither could he pretend blindness. The experience had changed him. Shattered him to pieces. The scars covering every inch of his skin were only the outermost signs of worse damage within.
And yet