acquainted?” He turns the stone over in his fingers. “We’ve been sparring for years. It’s like a game of cat and mouse with her.”
“Who’s the mouse?” I shakily ask.
Lukas laughs and shoots me a sly grin. “We switch off.” He narrows his eyes in consideration. “If Chi Nam wanted you dead, you’d be quite dead. So you must be in her favor for some reason. She certainly wouldn’t have given you this if you weren’t.” He rubs slowly along the stone, trying to work it out. “Yet her people want to kill you. Interesting.”
“Not all of them,” I blurt, the compulsion to be honest with him building. “Maybe only...the one who came after me...”
“And that one was after you because...” he prompts.
I bite my lip in an effort to force back the truth, the wood shards under my nails now sending small spirals of fiery energy up through my wrists. The almost irrepressible urge to tell him everything is like an avalanche straining to break free.
For a long, agonizing moment Lukas studies me as he turns the stone over and over in his palm. Then, seeming to have worked out the puzzle, he clenches the stone tight and leans forward, his green eyes searing.
“Here’s what I think. I think you’re working for the Resistance and you’ve aligned yourself with the Vu Trin. But somehow they’ve sensed the growing power in your lines. Power that could easily be passed on to your children and lead to another Black Witch’s emergence. Perhaps they toyed with the idea of killing you.” He pauses, watching for a reaction. “But Chi Nam thought better of it, didn’t she? She’s letting you live because she wants something.” He seems to take my troubled, stubborn silence as an affirmation and sits back, looking satisfied. “In any case, at least one sorceress was deeply alarmed by the power in your bloodline. Alarmed enough to go against Chi Nam’s wishes.”
I thrum my fingers, my dueling thoughts waging war on each other. Not telling Lukas the truth leaves me more vulnerable to further attack. And Damion might suspect what I am. But telling Lukas the truth would be just as dangerous if he’s still aligned with the Gardnerians in any way. Part of me desperately wants to cling tight to him and not let go. Part of me wants to wrest the rune stone from his hand, leap from the carriage, and make a run for it.
“Will you go after her?” I ask. “The sorceress who escaped through the portal?”
Lukas shakes his head dismissively. “I have no idea where that portal led. And I suspect she’ll be disciplined by her own kind if she did, in fact, go against Chi Nam’s orders. Chi Nam’s decisions carry a fair bit of weight.” He rolls the stone to the tips of his fingers then raises it level with his eye, drawing my gaze to his. “Elloren, why did Chi Nam give this rune stone to you?”
Dance around the truth, Elloren. Let him believe his version of events. “Chi Nam gave it to me...in case there was trouble. To help me...”
“No,” he cuts in, shaking his head. “Chi Nam’s not one for charity. She’s ruthless in the defense of her people.” He slips the stone into his pocket and leans in, his expression taking on a harder edge. “What did she send you here to find out?”
I bite at the sides of my mouth, trying to hold the answer back, but it bursts from my lips before I can contain it. “What is it that killed the Lupines, Lukas? It’s that Wand, isn’t it? Vogel’s Shadow Wand.”
Silence.
The question hangs in the air between us, dark and terrible.
Lukas’s smug look has disappeared, his eyes turned to flint. And there’s something else in his gaze that sends trepidation straight through me—fear.
“That wand,” Lukas levels with me, “is the most powerful wand I’ve ever encountered. Yes, I think it was involved in the slaughter of the Lupines.”
A chill snakes down my back as I remember the immobilizing effect Vogel’s Wand has on me. The sudden destruction of Diana’s people, all in one night, sent shock waves through all the Realms. It’s monstrous, the power of that Wand—monstrous enough for even Lukas to fear it.
“You told me you’re not aligned with Vogel,” I say, leaning toward him as well, my voice hardening as I pin him with my stare. My gaze flicks over the silver Erthia orb on his chest. “Yet here you are, dressed in a