element,” he said quietly and even the room seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the rest. “The metal focuses, enhances, a witch’s power—”
“Wait a minute.” Shea looked at him in confusion. “Gold’s an element, too. So why does it drain us?”
“White gold drains. It’s not a natural element, Shea. It’s an alloy, made by man. They take gold and taint it with other metals. Nickel and palladium usually. Separately, the metals are harmless enough.” He frowned and shook his head. “Combined, there’s something in the metallic makeup that acts in the direct opposite of silver.”
Nodding, she asked, “Okay, and black silver was created by us, so it’s even stronger than natural silver.”
“Exactly. Back in the day, the coven decided that if silver focused their energies, channeling their power into it would increase its strength immeasurably.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
He laughed shortly, passed her a soda and nodded. “Hell, yes, it worked. The element itself was more powerful than any had imagined it could be. Over time, black silver was incorporated into objects of power that came to be known by many names.”
Shea took another bite of her sandwich, knowing she had to eat. But her gaze never left the Eternal sitting opposite her at the rickety table. “What do you mean?”
Opening his soda can, he took a long drink and set it down again. “It was impossible to contain,” he said, lost in his memories of an ancient time. “Power sang through the pieces of silver and called to those with the will to wield it. Depending on the nature of the one holding it, the black silver became the epitome of evil or a force for good.”
“Oh, God . . .” Shea’s mind raced with possibilities. How many terrible things had been done under the flag of good intentions? she wondered. “Tell me,” she said. “Give me some examples. Ones I would know.”
Torin scraped one hand across his face and she watched as he silently argued with himself. He was a completely disciplined man. Some would probably think him cold, detached. But she had reason to know that the unapproachable mask he wore disguised a man—Eternal—of deep passions and unswerving loyalties.
She’d never felt more safe in her life than she did in his presence. Which, she thought, was fairly ironic considering that the first day he’d saved her, she had run from him, landing herself in prison, for God’s sake. But since that night, she’d come to understand that she hadn’t so much been running from him as she had been trying to escape the feelings she had for him.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
He nodded. “Very well, then. A few that you will recognize. In 1776, a pen crafted of black silver was used to sign this country’s Declaration of Independence.”
Shea smiled. “Well, that’s a good one.”
“And in 1862, the land mine, also crafted of black silver, claimed its first victim of many.”
“Oh, God.” Her stomach lurched unsteadily and she set her sandwich aside, no longer able to bear even the smell of it.
“Twenty-one years later, black silver seeped into the crust of a dormant volcano. The magma within instantly flashed and the sound of Krakatoa exploding could be heard three thousand miles away.”
“Volcanoes, land mines . . .”
“The Wright brothers’ first flying machine. Then later,” Torin added solemnly, “the Titanic. Hitler wore an Iron Cross made of black silver, and Albert Einstein’s desk lamp was created from the element.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I have had many years to follow its trail.”
Shea shook her head, as if simply denying the truth of what he was saying would make it so.
“Neil Armstrong’s lunar module in 1969 carried black silver in its casing, and in 1994 the black silver machetes carried by the Hutus were used to massacre eight hundred thousand Tutsis in a few short weeks.”
“Right and wrong,” she murmured, “good and evil.”
He reached across the table and folded his fingers over hers. Shea felt the heat of him slide through her system, chasing away the bone-deep chill enveloping her.
“The element itself was neither good nor bad,” he whispered. “It simply was. It was man who made the choices in how to use it.”
“And that makes it okay that the witches created it?” Shea asked, pulling her hand free and standing up. She walked to the front window, and with the tips of her fingers pulled back just enough of the drapes to look outside. The lights in the tiny parking lot were dim, since only two of the