19. Telecommunication 101
Orla and Fana were not to know the plan. After the Second Sentinel, we couldn’t risk Orla choosing her uncle’s life over ours again. As for Fana, she was young. None of us wanted to burden her with the death of anyone, no matter how deserved.
Because if Iseult’s idea worked, all of their deaths would be ours to bear. Ferrin deserved it, and I’d happily kill him in battle if that’s what it came to, but having to sit with the fact that I was planning to kill a man ate at my stomach, even if that man was Ferrin.
The plan was straightforward enough. Draw them into the canyon, escape through the upper levels of the keep to the moorlands above, and unleash the reservoir of water resting behind the copper gate.
Orla herself had mentioned the keep’s primary defense.
I almost felt bad using that information against her family.
Almost.
When Ciarán returned laden with fresh rabbit meat, he already knew the plan, having listened in on our discussions through my head.
We’d just started working out how to lure Ferrin and Caitria into our trap when Fana and Orla rejoined us with a mystery soup they’d made from our dwindling rations.
I couldn’t bring myself to look Orla in the eye as I took my bowl and excused myself to eat it alone on the steps outside.
I stirred my bowl idly, running through our options and ignoring the fact that I was planning the death of one and probably more people.
Tiernan had suggested we light a campfire in the canyon so the smoke would give away our location to anyone searching for us, but Ciarán insisted smoke was too obvious. Ferrin would know we knew better than to light a fire so close to the Second Sentinel.
Iseult thought if a few of us ventured outside the canyon to pretend to patrol the area, Ferrin and Caitria might see us from a distance and think they had the jump on us, but that left too much up to chance.
We could end up waiting days for them to spot us, especially if Orla was right about Ferrin being unlikely to look for us in the area.
“Rabbit?” A skewer of meat interrupted the view of my soup, and I recoiled, looking up at Ciarán where he stood over me, passive and cold.
“I have soup.”
“You have something resembling soup, yes. Now you have rabbit. Eat it, my Lady.”
I took the skewer, and Ciarán’s cloak brushed my shoulder as he turned to retreat into the keep.
“I told you not to call me that,” I snapped.
“I’m sorry. I’ll refrain from referring to you.”
“Why can’t you just call me Wren?”
“That level of familiarity is improper between a Grimguard and a Saergrim.”
Of course. He’d crossed the invisible line that was supposed to exist between us, and now had to retreat back into his usual brooding self to reestablish that arbitrary boundary. I had half a mind to throw my rabbit kebab at his back, but thought better than to waste food.
“Sure, don’t use my name, but go ahead and intrude on my bath,” I said coolly.
“That was a mistake.” He whirled around to face me, blush rising in his cheeks. “I should’ve stayed out and kept watch.”
“Oh, yes. Watching me bathe is so much better.”
“That is not what I meant, and you know it!” The blush in his cheeks deepened as did the Skal-light in his eyes.
“And we’ve been over this. You keep saying familiarity is improper between us like you aren’t in my head.”
“I have to be in your head to keep Ferrin out. It’s different.”
“I hear you sleep talk in my thoughts,” I seethed. “You can at least drop the ‘my Lady’ crap and call me by my name.”
“Fine,” he growled. “But no more bathing together.”
“I’ve been told those are very normal to have with friends here.”
He stood so still, I was certain he was holding his breath as he surveyed me. I watched for the tiniest movement, the smallest hint that I hadn’t been imagining things in the bathhouse. That whatever feelings Liam had harbored for me were maybe still steeping somewhere within Ciarán.
I could just ask, of course, but I was afraid of the answer, whichever direction it might fall.
“Bathing with friends is very normal, yes,” Ciarán said through a tight voice and rigid posture.
“Great.” I forced a smile. “Then we’re good.”
“Very good. Eat your rabbit.”
I swiveled back to face the canyon, somehow angrier at him than before, but my anger fed back into itself because why should I be angry? He was Ciarán. I did not want to kiss him in a bath. I did not want to kiss him out of a bath.
Maybe it was our mental link messing with my emotions. Maybe once we got rid of Ferrin, Ciarán wouldn’t have to be in my head anymore, protecting my consciousness.
Until then, unfortunately, Ciarán would remain a mainstay, keeping Ferrin away from my thoughts and—
“Ciarán!” I jumped to my feet, sending my soup splashing down the steps. Ciarán stopped in his retreat to stare at me. “When was the last time Ferrin tried to reach into my head?”
Ciarán’s eyes bore into mine, bright and orange and dark and black all at the same time.
“He’s there right now,” he said softly. “Calling your name, waiting for you to answer. Has been for the last twenty or so minutes.”
My stomach swooped at the news, but I held Ciarán’s gaze. “Let him through to me.”
He inhaled sharply through his nose. “You can’t respond to him if I do.”
“What happens if I respond?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Depends on how powerful he is. He’d likely be able to see into your mind to a degree.”
“Like you could at first.”
“Yes.”
My fingers itched at the back of my neck, but I resisted the urge to pull out the hair there.
“If you let me hear him, and I replied to him—”
“I won’t. You won’t.”
“If I did,” I asserted, “would he be able to see what I see? Like when you were in my head?”
“Maybe. The bond between a nocturmancer and their Nightmare is unpredictable.”
“What’s the worst case scenario?”
Ciarán sighed and rubbed at his temple. “He could summon you.”
“Even if I don’t yield like I have to with you?”
“Our tether goes against the nature of our roles. Grimguards are not supposed to command Saergrims. Ferrin doesn’t have that limitation.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “But you’re strong, right? You could keep me here if he tried to summon me.”
“No, because we aren’t giving him that chance at all—”
“But you could.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted evenly. “I’d rather not find out.”
“Except it would be the perfect way to lead him here.”
Ciarán exhaled heavily through his nose, and his jaw clenched. “No.”
“You used my mind to track us this summer. Why wouldn’t Ferrin do the same?”
“He probably would, but there’s got to be another way to draw him here.”
“Not a way we know would work,” I asserted. “We are on a time limit to save my grandma. We can’t wait for him to find us on his own.”
“I don’t want him in your head.”
“You’re the stronger Magician,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I closed the distance between us.
He wasn’t much taller than me, and the collapsing bun on top of his head made him feel shorter than usual. I stuck my chin out, silently daring him to try defying me.
“He was able to project his own Nightmare into Keldori for a decade,” Ciarán reminded me. “Only your grandmother has ever achieved that. He is a much more powerful nocturmancer than I am.”
“I thought magick was about willpower,” I said. “You just have to want to keep me safe more than he wants to hurt me.”
“Wren,” Ciarán shook his head. “Wren, he’s so strong.”
“And I trust your conviction as my protector more than I fear Ferrin’s need for power.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. I wouldn’t force him to do this the same way I’d forced him to bring me on this quest. He would decide for himself, and his tight frown said I might have to find a back-up plan.
But then—
“Alright.” He nodded.
An odd mixture of relief and terror flooded my insides, turning my knees weak and my palms sweaty. I’d won, sure, and now that meant going through with the plan.
But I’d been telling the truth when I said Ciarán was the stronger Magician. Ferrin was power hungry and evil, but I’d seen how Ciarán had looked at me earlier that day, even if he pretended that part of Liam wasn’t in there. He wouldn’t let Ferrin hurt me.
“You’ll do it?” I hated the way my breath caught. “Now?”
He looked up at the distant lip of the canyon. “We don’t know how close he is. If he’s within a day’s journey, he might get here before we’re prepared.”
“And if he’s still in his mountain, he’ll take longer, and we’ll be wasting time waiting for him.”
“We’re injured.”
“Tiernan’s ankle might never fully heal, and you’re doing a lot better than you were a few days ago. Gams doesn’t have time to wait for us to be one hundred percent.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ve been managing just fine since we left Sorcha’s.”
I strode out onto the mossy canyon carpet. Puffs of glowing moss spores swirled around my boots with every step, and water droplets clung to my skin as I made my way through the clouds of steam that rose up from the ground vents.
I didn’t want to do this somewhere Orla might stumble upon us mid-conversation with her uncle we were planning to murder, and after retreating a satisfying number of twists and turns into the canyon, I figured we were far enough.
I turned to stare defiantly at Ciarán through the haze of glowing haze.
“You really want to do this now?” Ciarán stepped through the steam, slow and deliberate. “Even if he tries to summon you to him?”
“He can try. He won’t be able to.”
“Fine. But don’t look at me. If he sees me through your eyes, he might know we’re up to something. That would be too obvious.”
“Right.” I turned away and faced the next bend of the canyon trail, trying to ignore the quake in my voice.
“Brace yourself, Blue.”
Ferrin’s voice was distant at first, but slowly strengthened in volume and clarity until he could’ve been standing next to me.
“…picked up the first book in her series, just to see what has everyone talking about Eliza Warrender in Keldori. Can’t say I’m impressed.”
“He’s talking about my mom’s books!” I hissed at Ciarán.