Page 322

She grinned, as if to say,now, you’re asking the right question. “Have you ever wondered why no Genesis Lord has ever been soulbonded. Wed, mated—yes. But a soulbond—that changes the shape of you. It changes the nature of your magic. It makes you…”

“Less compatible,” he whispered. “So, Taly and Skye, the soul bond between them—it will protect her?”

“Potentially.”

“What does that mean?”

Cori shrugged. “Their souls are reaching for one another, but they haven’t merged yet. Until a soul bond is complete, it can still be severed.”

He wanted to ask about Skye, if they were still together, still bonded.

If her eyes were still gray, then maybe. Possibly...

“I won’t answer,” she said.

“I’m aware.” Maybe she really was reading his mind. “Though it would be useful if for once you would just tell mehow and if there’s a way for me to help you without making it a guessing game.”

She said nothing, as expected.

He needed to find the right question. The bond wasn’t complete yet, but Taly was projecting, and they were already sharing dreams, speaking mind-to-mind. That meant they were advancing.

He asked instead, “Is there a way to, I don’t know… speed up a bonding? Strengthen the connection? Enough that when the Shard finally makes its play, it won’t be able to find its grip?”

“Yes. There are ways.”

Ivain felt a fleeting stab of victory. Getting information out of a time mage was like squeezing water from a rock: challenging, headache-inducing, and most of the time an exercise in futility.

Cori pushed off the window and paced to the fire, inspecting the glamographs and bric-à-brac along the mantle. “A soul bond, at its core, is about the choice two people make to be together, and it grows stronger every time that choice is reaffirmed. Over and over, year after year, until that choice becomes permanent. If you want to strengthen it, then test it. Force the choice. Though, I would argue, you’re venturing into a moral gray area.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The choices can’t be meaningless,” she said, picking up a framed glamograph. A much younger version of herself beamed back, sandwiched between Skye and Ivain. “These are life-and-death reaffirmations of two people wanting to be together. What are you going to do? Throw one of them in a volcano to see if the other jumps in?”

She replaced the glamograph on the mantle, circling back around to stand in front of the desk.

“So, you’re saying there’s nothing I can do then?” And Shards, he’d never felt so helpless.

Reaching past him, Cori grabbed a fountain pen and a clean sheet of paper from beneath his letters. “The humans have a saying: focus on what you can control, leave what you can’t.”

Despite the pit in his stomach, Ivain smiled. “I taught you that.”

“Yes, you did.” Head down, she began to sketch out a shape. “I know you’re worried about Aneirin. That he might retaliate.”

Ivain sighed. Yes, that was a concern. “I can’t imagine he’s very happy about Taly taking his keys.”

Cori’s eyes flicked to his. “Oh, he’s not,” she said, grinning.

With another heavy sigh, Ivain pressed a hand to his face. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “How do I fight something if I don’t even know what it is?”

“Don’t you, though?” Cori countered. “Come on. I know you have a theory or two rattling around up there.”

But Ivain’s mind still rejected it. That was the problem with being old—too much time for patterns to form, for connections to take root whether they belonged or not. Because if hyaline really was magic, it would imply the existence of a patron.

“What if this is only the beginning?” he said lowly. “What if we’re on the edge of something far worse than we can comprehend? I’ve spent centuries building a foundation of knowledge and safety, and now it’s all falling apart. I have no way of protecting this city from something I don’t understand. No way to protect my family from this creature, this…”

Ivain faltered. What could he even call it? Not a shadow mage, that much was clear. If Aneirin was a jumper, there would be limitations, and this…thingseemed to have none.

He rubbed a hand to his chest, the unfamiliar tightening there. It took him a moment to recognize the feeling—panic. “He could be anywhere, inside anyone. He could take any of them at any moment he chooses, and I would be powerless to stop it.”