Page 45 of Witchbane
Dozens. I glanced his way, again awed at how he’d changed. A man, physically older than I was. How long did that take when one became a scion? Did he age naturally?
“There are too many questions in your eyes.” Nick waved toward a set of chairs near one of the far windows. “Sit. I’ll bring you some things about legends of the kitsune to start with.”
“Can you tell us about being a scion?” Liam asked.
I made my way over to a plush chair, happy it was big enough to fit Liam and me, even though there were two chairs. I wanted to curl up with him if there was bad news coming my way. Liam sat down first and dragged me into his lap, arm tight around my waist.
“Don’t get lost in the potential. We can’t stay here,” Liam reminded me.
Maybe we could find a way to transport the library back home? But it was large enough that we’d need a football field to house it. I certainly had enough questions to fill a space this size. Were there any answers?
Nick began piling books on the table beside the chair, five or six at a time. I picked up the top from the pile and flipped it open, wondering if I’d be able to read them at all. If they were ancient fae texts, would there be a way to translate it? But when I opened to the first page, the characters, which began unreadable, shifted and morphed to look like a normal book page written in English.
“You seeing this?” I asked Liam. Did they change for him too?
He nodded, and took the next book from the pile that Nick kept adding to.
“The books are enchanted. I’ve got them set to be readable to anyone I let borrow them,” Nick said.
“Like a magic computer,” I said in awe.
“That seems to be the biggest difference between this world and yours,” Nick said.
“Technology?” I asked.
“Structure,” Nick corrected. “Your world is filled with structured magic. Underhill is wild magic.”
“That’s some crazy magic you have there,” Liam said.
“Not mine. It’s Kiran’s. A perk of being a scion. I use it with structure… spells and symbols, while he only has to think it and it happens.” Nick motioned to the library and everything in it. “All of this is Kiran’s magic. The books, the walls, the wards, the castle. Without it we’d be helpless against Underhill.” Nick looked out of the windows behind us, though they didn’t appear to show anything other than blue. “We used to have fields of trees, flowers, and grass. Now there’s not much left beyond the walls. I can shape Kiran’s magic using symbols and spells, but it’s still Kiran’s magic.”
And Kiran’s magic was weakening.
“A scion is someone who can use the magic of the fae?” I had thought it more an exchange than that, and didn’t understand why Kiran would want one at all.
“I am his immunity,” Nick said. “The high fae were the first to be corrupted, first to be devoured by Underhill, because they were the most powerful. They were also the first to run when it began to change them, taking with them the bulk of the magic. Kiran only survived because he’d been bound in ice. Ironic, how their attempt to contain him to save themselves saved him, and destroyed them all.” Nick dug through the books until he opened one and showed a picture he must have drawn. Of Kiran in the ice and the glowing symbols around him. “He needed someone who could not be corrupted to be his scion. I was human. Useless to Underhill. The corruption can’t touch me. Underhill can’t use me. It could kill me, but I’m little more than a bug to Underhill because I am not magic.”
“He wanted me to become his scion. Does that mean I can’t be corrupted?” But I had, even if it was for a brief time, and that energy was still inside me. I tried not to think of it as some sort of virus spreading.
“You’re not wholly of this world, which means it would have been a gamble. One he was willing to risk at the time. Underhill obviously recognizes you, the power you have, or at least the potential, else it wouldn’t have tried to take you over.” Nick put the sketchbook away. “I help keep his head clear, tie him to a living world when his is dying, and in exchange I get an extended life and power.”
It didn’t sound all that bad when he put it that way.
“He did not force you to be his scion?” Liam asked softly. “He’s not forcing you to do anything, is he?
“We are a partnership,” Nick said, seeming to miss Liam’s concern. I knew what Liam was asking. Was Nick a pawn in this game? Was he being abused and manipulated and coerced by the guy with power? Would he even know?
I reached over to squeeze Liam’s hand.
“The symbols you use look like alchemy,” I said, trying to shift the focus. “But none that I recognize.”
“Fae symbols,” Nick agreed. “I have books of them. And only one of your alchemy that we found. Half the pages are missing. It’s not been much help.” He added another book to the stack, moving around the library like he had every book and location memorized, and he probably did. “Before, when you talked about the portals, I began looking into the symbols. The few that had visible symbols seemed to be more location markers than anything else I can define.”
“But they are all gone?”
“Most. The few that remain are unreachable.”
“I opened dozens…” I said thinking back to our escape when the black mass was trying to get us.