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“You don’t have to trust me,” he murmured, his head tilted towards her, tremulous urgency in his voice. “I know you don’t, I doubt you ever will, but please, Fern.Be careful.”

“Of what? Of whom?”

“Everything.Everyone.”

“Even you?”

“Yes.” Anguish was in his voice and in his features. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t let you follow me. So turn away. We’ve regrets enough between the two of us, we need no more.”

Lautric finally let go of her, turned, and disappeared through the door into the Gallery. Fern raised her hands in front of her; her fingers were trembling. But it was not fear she felt. It was something else, something more troubling than fear, something that burned her insides and sent them curling in on themselves in a flurry of embers.

She knew she should follow him, but Lautric had spoken the truth. There were already too many regrets between them. And Fern was getting closer to the truth, she sensed it. She needed to be careful, now, tread softly and pull slowly. If she pushed too hard, she might lose the thread altogether.

Sleep was long to come that night. Fern lay in her bed tossing and turning, full of thoughts of Lautric and his fingers resting on the nape of her neck through her hair, and his soft voice, and the memory of him standing in her bedroom, unbuttoning her shirt, and his kisses, which had felt so good—the most delicious poison.

And when sleep finally came, Fern’s dreams were writhing and black and gold, and Lautric’s petal mouthfound hers as they lay in a bed of pulsing darkness. And Fern’s chest was gashed open, and the bleeding red rose of her heart rested, a glossy pulsation, between Lautric’s long fingers. Fern started awake in a shock of horror and desire.

After that, she dared not go back to sleep.

The next day, exhausted and cold and restless, she returned to the top floor of the Elemency Tower and walked over to her small desk to find that her trap had worked exactly as she expected.

Everything she had left there—every single book, notebook, and sheet of paper she’d left as a decoy of her work—it was all gone.

Chapter forty-four

The Ward

Instead of the hotflames of anger from the previous days, Fern stared at her desk and the frost of a cold dispassion settled within her.

This was exactly what she expected. Lautric had warned her, after all. He’d told her she had other things to worry about than Srivastav’s work. Now, he had fallen for her trap and taken the work she’d left for him to find, probably as he had taken Josefa’s.

The only difference was that Fern had merely left a decoy; Josefa hadn’t been so lucky as to know there was a predator for whom to set a trap. He probably would’ve taken Srivastav’s, too, had Fern not interrupted him.

As for Fern… Lautric had all but told her he would take her work, so there was no point in surprise, resentment or anger. Now, she could finally set aside all those strange, complicated feelings, that irksome plume of affection that had steadily been rising within her. She had been right about him all along, and everything other than mistrust had been a mistake.

Now, she knew she could not trust him, and it was time for her to get to work.

Her chosen element was fire, and she had finalised her selection of spells, thanks in large part to the general’s advice. The oldest spell was a straightforward flame-making spell with a simple incantation. But the newest spell could be traced back to a Sumbra incantation for channelling fire.

Fern hated channelling spells: they required that one use their body as a conduit, and the human body, though resilient, was poorly fitted to that purpose.

Most candidates would shy away from that spell; Srivastav would not. A pyromancer of his skill would be well-versed in that kind of spell, especially given he was from a military background. But Fern was willing to do anything to succeed, and she was not afraid of pain.

Besides, learning this channelling incantation would be a stone with which she must kill two birds.

She needed to learn the spells for her assignment, but she had not forgotten the Astronomy Tower ward. Breaking such a ward would not be an easy feat. There were only three ways a ward could be broken: if the ward’s creator died, if the ward was undone by reversing its spellcraft, or if the ward was destroyed by sheer force.

The first option was unlikely. There was probably more than one creator and the closure of the Astronomy Tower had happened too recently.

The second way would require intimate knowledge of the original incantation, which Fern had no way of finding out.

And the third was the most difficult of all: wards were designed to be protective and would sustain a significant amount of damage before cracking.

But like most things on Earth, there was only so much fire a ward could withstand.

Fern faced the AstronomyTower door, incantation in hand. She had slept for most of the day and eaten as much food as she could stomach during dinner. She still had some remnants of the energy Lautric had given her—she would need to use all that was left of it.

The incantation was complex and long, split into multiple parts, each part with its own purpose. First, a finding incantation, for digging deep inside the earth and seeking the source of fire. Then, a summoning, for calling forth the fire and gathering. A holding incantation, for stockpiling the fire inside oneself—the most painful part of the spell. Then, the channelling, for opening up the body on both ends to form the conduit: allowing magic in and out. And finally, the incantation for calling forth the fire. A wild, destructive incantation, the one that required most precision and energy.