Page 148 of Stormvein

She goes very still.

“In the moments before they sealed the tower, I cast a summoning spell.”

“A … what?”

“It was designed to draw someone who could break the binding they used to imprison me.” The admission comes easier than I expected it to. “I thought it would find a Veinblood, or Varam, or one of my people, and alert them of where I was. I never expected it to reach beyond this world, or to find you.”

The silence that follows is deafening. I can see her processing what I’ve said, see the moment the full meaning of what I did hit her.

“Wait … are you saying …” She stands straighter. “You’re telling me that I ended up here, that my entire life was turned upside down, because of a spellyoucast?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re only just telling me thisnow? My job. My apartment. My life in Chicago. Everything I knew—gone. Because you decided to cast a summoning spell?”

“I didn’t know?—”

“You didn’t knowwhat? That your magic was powerful enough to reach across worlds? That you were gambling with someone else’s existence? You casually decided to summon help without thinking about the consequences?”

“It wasn’t casual, Mel’shira. I was facing imprisonment, possibly death. The spell was a desperate attempt at survival.”

“At my expense.”

“I didn’t know the cost would be yours. If I?—”

“What? You wouldn’t have cast it?” She whirls to face me. “Or you would have, but maybe felt a little bad about it afterward?”

I don’t have a good answer. Would I have cast the spell if I’d known it would tear her from her world? Would I have chosen eternal imprisonment over destroying her life?

I want to say I would have chosen imprisonment, but I’d be lying. Had I known it would drag a stranger to my world, I’d have still cast it. She meant nothing to me at the time. She was a means to an end. And I needed to protect my people.

“My entire life was turned upside down because of a spell you cast, and you just … decided it wasn’t worth mentioning.”

“At first, my focus was on escaping the tower.” I’m aware of how inadequate this sounds. “Then returning to the Veinwardens, and then survival.”

I don’t add that I also feared what it might mean. That if I had summoned her through worlds, then I bore responsibility for tearing her from everything she knew. That knowledge has been sitting like a stone in my chest, growing heavier with each day we’ve become closer. With each moment her silver eyes meet mine. With each time her power flows alongside my shadows.

I told myself that revealing this truth would only complicate our immediate needs for survival, but the real complication is what I’ve begun to feel for her. How can I expect her to forgive being ripped from her world if it was my doing?

“You should have told me from the start.”

“You’re right. I should have. I didn’t understand why the spell reached so far. Why it found you specifically. But after the dreams, and Blackstone Ridge … after Sereven recognized you, called youElowen, it’s clear there’s far more to your arrival than even I understood.”

She stops pacing and turns to face me.

“The summoning spell should have drawn someone fromthisworld with the ability to break my binding. Instead, it reached across worlds to find you.”

“And this prophecy might help us discover how?”

“It may. It doesn’t mention the nameElowenspecifically, though. But referring to someone who walks between worlds, a tower, and silver eyes seems to suggest that it’s talking about you.”

“Why would Sereven recognize it, though? How would he know to call me by a name I don’t use?”

“That’s what we need to find out.”

I roll the scroll carefully, and return it to its case.

“The Authority destroys anything that contradicts their doctrine, but they may preserve it for themselves. Sereven might possess knowledge that we don’t have access to.”