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‘Perhaps it would be better to try again tomorrow?’ Lyn cautiously suggested around attempt number twenty.

‘I’m close,’ I said curtly, wrestling with the magic between my hands. It wouldn’t allow me to grasp it, like a wisp of smoke. But trying tomorrow meant trying without Creon, and I’d be damned if I put myself through this without his advice and suggestions to keep me sane. ‘Just give me a few more tries. I’m pretty sure I can—’

She groaned, interrupting me. ‘Then at the very least take a break for something to drink. Here, elderflower juice? Mint tea?’ She held up a glass as she rose to her feet and tottered towards me – too close to me. ‘Let the magic go for a bit and—’

‘Watchout,’ I blurted, trying to snatch the bubble of magic away.

Everything happened too fast to process. Lyn hastily yanked the glass aside, I lost control of my iridescence – and with that infuriatingly familiar sizzle, the magic shot back to the still motionless figure before me.

Except that Lyn was in its way.

And rather than circumventing her and returning to the nameless fae thief anyway, the iridescent flash flew straight into the glass in her chubby hands and dissolved within the blink of an eye.

I gaped at it, too baffled to curse for an infinite heartbeat.

‘Em?’ Lyn was saying. ‘Em, are you—’

‘Put that down.Now.’ There was a hoarse edge of authority to my voice that I didn’t recognise, and she blinked but did as I’d asked, questions buzzing in her amber eyes. ‘And step away from it, before I accidentally pull outyourmagic.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘I think … I think I accidentally bound it to the glass.’ I planted my left hand in the glistening moss again, aiming the fingers of my right at that innocent object before me. And there it appeared again, that familiar blob of magic – drawn from smooth crystal, now, rather than from skin.

A watery laugh escaped me. I let my magic go, and it slipped back where it had come from, dissolving into the glass.

‘As if it’s another body,’ Lyn said dazedly, reading my expression correctly. ‘You gave that magic a new body to bind to.’

‘But if that’s the trick …’ I stared at the glass, shining innocently in the late afternoon sun. ‘If that’s the answer, that would mean she boundyourmagic to objects, too. Did she have a whole army of magic containers at hand when she—’

‘Those damned pens,’ Tared interrupted me, stepping forward so abruptly that Naxi jolted back with a little squeak. ‘The pens Thysandra was using.’

Lyn frowned. ‘What of it?’

‘She used a different one for each name she wrote down.’ He finally sank into a seat, his long legs folding in as if they’d run out of strength entirely. ‘Orin’s eye. Didn’t you notice? I wondered about it for a moment, but then I figured I had better things to do than fret about administrative quirks …’

‘You’re saying she bound our magic topens?’ Naxi said shrilly.

‘Well, it does make sense,’ I said, glancing at Creon. He’d gone dangerously taut, lips shaping a soundless curse. ‘She doesn’t want anyone to know how those bindings work, does she? Even if no one can break them, people could figure out ways to protect themselves against them. Soifthe method requires binding magic to objects, she needs objects that wouldn’t draw too much attention during a giant administrative endeavour.’

‘Like pens,’ Lyn said, sounding numb.

‘But that means she must have tens of thousands of pens lying around somewhere.’ Naxi uttered a high-pitched chuckle. ‘We should have noticed that, shouldn’t we?’

They don’t have to be pens anymore, Creon signed. His eyes were shooting from the glass to the fae thief and back again.She could have changed them into anything more convenient with yellow magic. Also …He hesitated, fingers stiffening.

‘She could have destroyed them,’ I said.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment.Yes.

‘But wouldn’t the magic return to us if they’re destroyed?’ Lyn said, fidgeting with a red curl and audibly hoping she was right. ‘From what we’ve seen so far …’

‘Who wants to test it?’ Tared said wryly.

For a heartbeat or two, no one moved, five pairs of eyes glued to that innocent glass before me. Then Naxi muttered a curse, snatched it up, and chucked it against the nearest stone with more strength than I’d expected from her slender arms.

The glass shattered, elderflower juice spraying everywhere. Between the drops and the shards, two wisps of something else entirely drifted away from the rubble – a bubble of iridescence that had to be the fae male’s magic, and something even more insubstantial, barely more than a breath of mist, floating in the perfect opposite direction.

Neither of them seemed to be aiming for their previous possessor.