Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,26

a child.

Feeling like a silly schoolgirl, Nelle swallowed her grumbles and set to work shaping the letters, one after another. It had been some while since she’d picked up a quill, and her penmanship left much to be desired. Still, she finished each letter, forbearing from adding any flourishes, which she knew would only irritate the mage.

Silveri picked up the sheet of parchment and studied it for rather longer than she thought necessary. It was as though each individual letter told a complete story, which he analyzed in painstaking detail. She watched his eyes slowly travel down the page, and by the time he reached the last line, she was sweating.

“Well?” she asked when he finally set the parchment down and looked at her again.

“Well.” He nodded, and his twisted mouth quirked thoughtfully to one side. “You are not wholly without skill. There may be . . . something there.”

“You said that already. Last night. Remember?”

“Yes, well, I’m saying it again. But don’t get your hopes up.” He placed another sheet of parchment in front of her. “Once more, Miss Beck.”

She spent the better part of two hours writing out the alphabet over and over and over . . . By the time she was through, her hand was cramping, her head was spinning, and she was beginning to rethink the wisdom of this entire idea. When Silveri picked up the most recent sheet and studied it, she dropped her forehead to the tabletop and groaned.

“Head up, Miss Beck.” His voice was sharp enough to make her tilt her head to one side and glare at him, still with her forehead against the table. “Come,” he said, “you’re making progress already. It’s time you tried a spell.”

“Really?” She bolted upright, surprise coursing a line down her spine. “Do you mean it, sir? I’m ready to try magic?”

“No.” He planted another blank parchment in front of her. “You couldn’t manage magic at this time even if your life depended on it.”

She huffed and tossed her hands. “Then why get me excited for nothing?”

“Because, magic aside, you are ready to try a written spell. Don’t look so crestfallen,” he added, lifting a long white quill from a well of indigo ink and placing it in her unwilling hand. “I wasn’t permitted to attempt any spell writing for months when I began my training. I am far more lenient than my masters before me.”

“Lucky me,” Nelle growled and crouched over the parchment. “What am I writing?”

“This.” Silveri produced a small soft-leather volume from within the folds of his robe. He flipped through its pages, his nilarium fingers fumbling, then opened the book near the middle and held it up for Nelle’s inspection.

Her brow puckered. “Here, that’s not proper writing, is it?”

“You know all the letters, don’t you?”

“Yes . . .” She nodded uncertainly. She did recognize most of the characters from the familiar alphabet. But the words formed were utter gibberish to her. “Is this Old Araneli?”

Though she fully expected him to snap out another “Wrong,” Silveri nodded solemnly. “Indeed. It is the language still used among the High Fae of Eledria . . . or a close approximation. Fae tongues were never intended to be captured in written form. But here it is rendered down into crude mortal characters, with a few additions to the alphabet as you know it. Each word you see before you brims with magical essence, with the purity of spirit captured in physical confines, ready to be transferred from mind to mind. Can you feel it?”

She didn’t. Not the way she’d felt the magic emanating from the grimoires in Gaspard’s quillary. Not even as she’d felt the power vibrating in the characters Silveri had written on the wyvern’s torn wing.

But she hated to admit this, so she bit her tongue.

Silveri wasn’t fooled. He hummed an inscrutable, “Hmmmm,” and placed the book open on the table in front of her. “Try it, Miss Beck.”

She took up the pen, carefully shook out the excess ink, and held the tip poised over the fresh page. For a moment she froze, panic thickening her throat. But really, what was her issue? It wasn’t as if Silveri expected anything of her. She couldn’t disappoint him unless she refused to try at all.

With a shrug, she bowed to the work, copying out each letter. She thought she was careful, thought she was precise. But when she reached the end of the line, she found she’d made the letters a little too large and