Page 39 of Inked in Emeralds (Inkbound #3)

I hefted two of the pavers up. “These already have some sort of magic going on in them, right?”

Hook nodded. “The heat induction you mentioned.”

“Right. So I need to dig out all that coal,” I motioned to the pile of steaming black rocks in the bottom of the forge, “take out the bricks that are probably welded into the bottom of the forge, and then set these in.”

“What if they don’t fit?”

Question of the day. “They have to,” I whispered.

Hook stepped up and lifted his hands, calling the Tideblessing he’d taken from the old pirate leader, Davey. The wind was controlled as he lifted the coal still steaming from the forge, and set it down behind us. “Figured faster is better yes?”

“And easier on our hands.” I leaned over the forge, grabbed a bucket of water and poured it in. The blackened bricks sizzled and hissed. The steam rose up fast and hot and I jerked back, stumbling into Hook.

His arms went around me, holding me tight. His good hand was nestled just under my breast, pressing against my ribcage. A single move and he’d be cupping me.

Fucking hell.

My body reacted and I fought not to shake in his arms.

“You’re trembling, are you hurt?” His voice was at my ear like the night before. I turned my head, laying a hand over his. My eyes travelled up over his lips to his eyes.

“Not hurt.”

Was that a whisper? Yes, yes it was.

His throat bobbed and his lips parted. “We should hurry.”

A boom from the backroom had us jumping like teenagers caught holding hands.

“I’ll go see what’s going on back there.” He wheeled around and headed off, which gave me a blessed moment to gain my composure. One that I sorely needed.

My lady bits were out of control.

“Get it together, woman,” I muttered under my breath.

I had my pulse close to normal and my hands on the old bricks in the forge when Hook came back. “The old codgers dropped a bin of tools. Nearly knocked themselves out.”

“Here,” I motioned with my head. “Can you help me pry these out?”

The bits of metal and slag that had slipped below the coal had spent years building up along the bottom, welding the fire bricks together.

With much sweating and no small amount of cursing, and fighting not to touch each other, we got the bricks out.

Now for the real test. I swallowed hard and lifted the pavers into the bottom, settling them in as if they’d been meant to lay there. “Perfect.”

“Coal back in?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

Look at us, so proper…like we were both doing our damnedest not to wind up tearing each other’s clothes off when we were supposed to be trying to save the world.

Hook used his Tideblessing again, lifting the coal back into the forge.

Next was the piping and small reservoir for the steam.

Moving on instinct and with as much speed as possible I put the copper pipe together, feeding it from the bellows, to the cast iron pot at my feet, to more piping, all the way to the back side of the wall.

Lighting the forge I had a good heat going in moments, the gold pavers cranking the heat way up. I melted down some metal to liquid form, and used it to seal the cast iron lid tight around the pipe going in and out of it.

I panted, wiping sweat from my brow as I stepped back over to the forge, jabbing my finger toward the wall. “Okay, this is the last thing we need you to do with your magic. I need a rectangular hole, big enough for this.” I gestured toward our makeshift reservoir.

He lifted his hand, and I winced as the stone began to tremble and crack under the power of a wind like no other.

But the lines appeared a moment later, carving out the perfect little brick of stone, just large enough to do what we needed.

He dug in with his hook and wedged it out, dropping to the floor below with a thunk .

I leaned over to slide the water tank into the little hollow. We’d shut off the forge a good hour earlier, but the wall was still blasting me with heat. Experience told me that it’d be a solid day before it cooled. “That was pretty amazing.”

“You didn’t do too bad yourself.” He flashed a rare smile.

I slid the tubes into place, connecting them to the ones we’d fastened to the ceiling. “When we close this, try to seal the hole around these pipes. If we crush them, we’ll have to try again.”

He watched in silence as I slid the rest into place. If we did this right, Smitty would be able to refill the water using a tube on the other side of the room. Sweat poured down my face, but I kept moving anyway, the anticipation was almost too much to handle as it came together, piece by piece.

Finally, I stepped back, giving Hook a nod. “Okay. Do your thing.”

He put his hand out toward the opening once again, closing his hand little by little. The stone responded in kind, warping and stretching from the edges to cover the middle like it was made out of rubber. I glanced over, worried, as he let out a grunt.

His progress slowed to a crawl, as if the stone was straining against him. But he pushed through, seeming to find a second wave as it slid the rest of the way shut, sealing the water reservoir inside.

“Good as new,” I said, glancing at the smooth section of wall where the hole had been just a moment earlier. “Now let's hope it worked.”

“It better’ve worked,” he grunted, pulling his sleeve up to glance at his inner bicep.

“Hmm?” I cocked my head.

“Tattoo’s gone. We’ll have to find another way if we need to do more of that.”

I chewed at my lower lip, “That was the last of that kind of magic?”

“Unlike the memories I absorb when I kill a Tideblessed, the magic eventually runs out.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for you to use up all your?—”

He held up his hand to stop me short. “If we get through those trials in one piece, it’ll be worth it.”

“Thank you,” I mouthed, leaning closer to him as we eyed the nearly finished contraption. He would’ve known how close he was to using up the rock magic, and it meant a lot that he was willing to do it for something like this.

“Glad I could help. You did most of the work, anyway.”

I sucked in a breath, walking over toward the back door and rapping on it twice. And now for the moment of truth.

The two Smiths stepped back in, pulling a cart full of yellowish rock. Billy and Duncan followed just behind them, copper fittings and wool in hand.

“Well, young witch, think it’s ready for a test?” Smitty asked, eyeing the cluster of tubes and gauges next to the bellows.

I nodded, as excited as I was anxious. “Light it up. Let’s see how hot this thing can get.”

The next few minutes seemed to stretch on for hours as Smitty reignited the forge. Little wisps of steam rose from the pipe, currently funneled right into the chimney where it blended with smoke and disappeared into the sky. All that was left was to flip the switch.

Smitty wiped his hands on a rag, joining me by the controls. “Well? Are you just gonna stare at it, or do you plan on showing us what it can do?”

I swallowed, glancing at Duncan, Hook, and Billy. There was a lot riding on this. But no one but Hook knew how much of my own confidence was riding on this…how desperately I needed it to work.

“Okay,” I muttered, resting my hand on the lever. “Here goes nothing.”

I pulled it, setting the steam in motion toward the bellows.

And nothing happened. The gears stayed silent, and the bellows didn’t budge. Panic bubbled up in my chest, and I froze, too worried to even look at anyone else.

The groan that came from the pipes sounded like a beast of Almira’s making, and my stomach did a flip flop.

A second later, steam hissed through the pipes, rattling them and sending the gears spinning.

With an audible woosh , the bellows expanded, pumping a fresh gust of air directly into the heart of the forge.

Sparks danced, coals glowed, and the bellows were already pumping again before the fire could truly flare.

Better yet, it seemed to be pumping faster with each passing second, blasting more air into it than any human could’ve managed.

If working the bellows by hand was like breathing, my contraption was full on hyperventilating.

As the fire roared to life in a blinding flash, hotter and more intense than I’d even dared to hope for, I felt a little spark of that magic inside me now. Faint…just a flicker, but it was there. As if responding to my efforts here in the forge…where my magic had first woke all those years ago.

“Fucking hell, lass.” Smitty spun on me, his eyes wide with shock. “You did it!”

Billy and Duncan whooped and cheered from the back of the room, and Hook tipped his head in approval.

“Think it’s hot enough to make the sword?” I asked, turning back to Smitty.

“And then some,” he grunted, already pulling on his apron. “Good work, lass. I wasn’t sure you had it in you. It’s a little later than I would’ve liked, but we’ll drop everything and get it done. You have my word.”

“If the fire stays this hot, it will take half the time,” Smithson chimed in, striding up to get to work.

“Told you she’d do it.” Smitty strode up to me as his father went to work.

While we could have left them to it, I felt compelled to stay.

Near the forge, the heat searing my skin, the glow of the metal as it morphed and changed…

this was my safe place. The place I felt most at home in the world.

So, I stayed and helped where I could, handing them tools, sweating alongside them, working in tandem as they used a pair of hammers while I held the sword steady with oversized tongs.

The time flew by, I barely felt the hours slip and when the sword was done it glimmered with a deep vein of gold that slid from hilt to tip.

I took a step back to admire it.

“And in half the time we figured!” Smitty grinned.

I blinked. Three hours had gone by, and I’d barely felt them.

Yet I wasn’t done here. My fingers went to my pouch and the coins there. One from Alabaster. One from Neverland.

One from Oz.

“I…can I use the forge? I need to…fix something.”

The pull to the coins and to my whip that had cracked fighting Noru, had me moving, not even sure if the two blacksmiths had given permission or not.

I just went to work.

The three coins went into a crucible—the fire hotter than anything I’d worked with before—and melted them down. Poured them into a rough shape and with only a little more sweat had a new tip built for the whip.

“Holy sheep shit,” Smithson breathed. “I never seen a blacksmith work that fast! Like magic!”

My head jerked up and I snapped out of my second trance of the day. “I’m sorry…I…” I looked to my friends and two were dozing, only Hook still had eyes on me.

He smiled. “Good job.”

Smithson rubbed at his chin. “You gonna use the sword, and that whip against the witch?”

I pursed my lips, the thrill of victory dimming, making way for a rush of fresh nerves. “We’ll need every advantage we can get.”

“Are the trials tonight, then? The Wizard’s been cagey about it. Doesn’t want anyone interfering or distracting you.”

“That’s why we’re in such a hurry,” I confirmed. “It’s supposed to be late, sometime around midnight.”

“No blackberry mead for us at dinner this time, then,” Duncan cut in with a wince.

Smithson cocked his head, “What’s wrong with blackberry mead? It’s a local favorite.”

“It’s delicious, but it knocked us out cold last night. That’s why we got here so late, and we’ve had raging headaches all day.”

His frown deepened further, and his voice went deadly quiet. “How much did you drink?”

“Three cups, maybe?” I shrugged, glancing at the others for confirmation. The memory of it was still fuzzy.

Smitty and his partner exchanged a long look, and Smitty turned his amber gaze on me.

“There’s only one place in the city that makes it, and part of the reason it’s so popular is that it barely has any alcohol in it.

They give it to teething babes. Hell, I was practically raised on the stuff.

You could drink half a barrel of it and hardly feel a buzz.

Certainly, it wouldn’t affect you the next day. ”

Billy, Hook, Duncan, and I all exchanged a look and there was no question in my mind that we were thinking the exact same thing.

The drink had been laced with something.

My mind raced as I replayed the events of the day before: Fenwick, coming to the courtyard to watch us spar. His disappointment when we’d skipped breakfast. His insistence that we attend dinner that night. The drinks that he’d personally brought to our table. Then that second pitcher…

Bonnie, the beautiful, brilliant falcon that she was, had swooped in, knocking it over before any of us could drink from it.

“That bastard tried to poison us,” Billy blurted, sounding more offended than angry.

“He sure as hell did,” Duncan replied through gritted teeth.

But I was already past that. Because, to my mind, the far bigger question…

Had he been working alone, or had The Wizard of Oz, this story’s version of my own father, been behind a plot to kill us all?