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“How can we help?” Samuel asked, and Shan took the opportunity to grab a scrumptious looking apple tart.

“It’s complicated,” the King admitted, folding his hands in front of himself. “And I first want to thank you both for coming on such short notice. You are both clever, formidable people—discreet and trustworthy. But most importantly, you both don’t have strong ties to the various factions in my court.”

Shan cocked her head to the side. “And our independence makes us valuable, Your Majesty?”

“Yes.” He inclined his head towards her. “As always, Lady LeClaire, you are quite astute. Let me get to the heart of it. It is about these bodies, these murders. Shan, I believe you know that a second one was found.”

She didn’t flinch, even though it was clear what he meant. He knew that she was at the theatre with Isaac when he had been summoned to duty. But the King wasn’t looking at her, his eyes cold and distant. “He was murdered in the same exact manner as the first victim, the one that Samuel found, and left in the streets to be discovered. Dead by Blood Working, and not just any Blood Working—but used for dark and despicable experiments. The kind of magics that are illegal in Aeravin.

“I’ve called you here because one body is an aberration, but two is a pattern.”

Samuel spoke first. “I don’t understand. You want us to… what? Become private investigators?”

“It’s not just that,” Shan said, and the King turned towards her with a sly smile. “If it was just some random murders, he’d leave it to the Guards. It’s their job. He thinks there is something more at play here.”

“Very good, Lady LeClaire.” The King leaned back, steepling his hands in front of him. “There is a bigger problem here than most people realize and I fear that I cannot trust my own court.”

“What is it, then?” Shan asked. Trouble in the court? This was precisely the kind of thing she was looking for—an opportunity to prove her skills.

“What I am about to share cannot go beyond this room. There are many secrets about Blood Working—about its limits and its potential—that have been between me and the Royal Blood Worker for centuries. Am I understood?”

Shan met Samuel’s eyes, and he looked as curious as she felt. “Yes, Your Majesty,” Shan said, at the same time Samuel muttered, “Crystal clear.”

For a moment it seemed the Eternal King wouldn’t speak at all, but he let out a sigh. “What you know of Blood Working, Lady LeClaire, is only the beginning. It’s only a fraction of the potential that is open to us—and I have worked hard to ensure that Blood Working doesn’t surpass the bounds that I have set upon it. Our position, as a nation, is fraught enough. But should we realize our full potential, I fear the fragile peace I have kept for centuries will shatter.”

Shan realized that she was leaning forward, gripping the armrests of her chair so hard that her claws were leaving indents in the wood. A part of her had always wondered if there was more to their gift, if there was a way to push their magic forward, but to hear it from the Eternal King’s own mouth thrilled her in a way that she hadn’t felt in years.

Knowledge was power, and this knowledge might be the most dangerous thing she had ever touched.

“What sort of potential?” she asked, and the King turned his eyes on her—green and burning, and she felt as if he was peeling back her soul.

“All kinds of potential,” he said, his voice soft and dangerous. “We can do things to the human body, manipulate it in ways that nature never intended. We can create gods and monsters. I’ve spent centuries exploring this—both in theory and in practice.” He looked over at Samuel. “Including when I gave my family their gifts.”

Samuel shot to his feet, trembling with anger, but Shan was already moving. She rounded the desk and took Samuel’s hand in hers, taking care to thread her fingers around his so that the claws did not pierce his skin, trying to ground him before he lost control.

But it was too late.

“You did this to me? To my family?” Samuel spat, the kindness bleeding from his eyes, replaced by a darkness that took Shan’s breath away. When he spoke again, she could feel that power that slipped past his lips, magic that hung in the air like a cloying mist. “How could you?”

The King flinched, breathing in hard through his nose as Samuel’s gift hit him. “Curiosity, mostly.” He glanced up at the ceiling, as if he was trying to fight the words as they crawled up his throat. “I had already achieved so much with Blood Working and I wanted to see just how far I could push it.”

Samuel snarled, and Shan moved, pressing her hands into his shoulders and forcing him to sit. Perhaps it was because he was so focused on the King, perhaps it was because she had spent years training her body as well as her magic, but he crashed into his chair. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” she whispered, and she could feel the fire in him, threatening to break loose. “Let him speak.”

The King smiled at her. “Thank you, LeClaire, but it’s all right. I understand why he is angry.” He turned his attention to Samuel, trying to smooth his expression to something like contrition. It would have been almost believable if he wasn’t actively sizing up Samuel and his potential. Shan could see it in his eyes—after all, she had turned the same gaze upon so many others.

If anything, the King might regret the anger and hurt Samuel felt in this moment, but he wouldn’t regret the power the Aberforths had brought to his rule. For generations there had been whispers about this, and the Aberforths had been feared and respected for it. This gift was power, and no King regretted that.

She just hoped that Samuel saw it, too.

“This wasn’t my decision alone,” the King said, far more collected now that Samuel’s command had run its course. “The Aberforth I experimented on—Perry—he volunteered for this. He wanted it, too. He was a scholar. Blood and steel, he was the Royal Blood Worker of his time. And what he could do was nothing compared to you. It was mere suggestion, not control, that was easily broken, and it gutted his ability to use Blood Working. We wrote it off as a failure and we didn’t know that it would pass to his children. I didn’t know that it would grow stronger with each generation until it happened.”

Samuel shrugged her off, and Shan took a step back, watching him and the King with a careful eye. After several deep breaths, Samuel finally said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s all right, son,” the King said, and Samuel’s flinch was barely perceptible. “I know that you haven’t had training, that you don’t have control. We’ll fix that, I swear. But right now, I need your help. Both of you.”

He looked to them. “I never repeated the experiment with Perry Aberforth, but that doesn’t mean I have been able to hold back the flow of knowledge completely. Knowledge and theory are harmless, on their own, but in practice—in execution—there is no telling what might be done. And it seems that one of our own is determined to find out where the limits lie.”

“Blood and steel,” Shan swore.