Page 114 of First Ritual

Phew. Glad that was over. I felt better for explaining the situation between me and Wild, even if I’d lied to do so. I truly hadn’t misled Bedwyr—this relationship with Wild blindsided me too.

I banished the bedding and the towels to the laundry bins, then shut the wardrobe door. I’d so much rather stay in the room I was accustomed to when everything else felt so unsettled.

Male voices rose in the tunnel outside. I identified Wild’s quiet tones amid Bedwyr’s raised one.

Great. Now they were fighting.

They were also grown-ass men. I’d said my piece. They could sort it out themselves.

I’d been forced to visit my new quarters earlier when Winona whisked me from breakfast and the announcement. Focusing on the vision of the new room, I shoved a burst of magic through my battle affinity. The space before me revealed the chamber, and I stepped through the portal, letting the rip in the fabric of this world close behind me.

I took a deep breath and looked at my three-level cave apartment. “Fuck me.”

The room echoed, fuck me, fuck me. Which seemed fitting.

To say the place was three levels was incorrect, as I’d noticed this morning. The third level rose to the surface, narrowing in a funnel to the top. The bottom level, as with Varden and Birch’s quarters, was a lounge and meeting area. The second level, Winona had informed me, was generally for affinity practice and projects. The third level was for sleeping and washing. Rooke had been and gone. Grabbing the duffel she’d left, I started up the stairs.

I placed the bag on the ginormous bed and stared upward to the tiny pinprick of light visible one hundred feet above. Beautiful. But this place felt cold and foreign.

I felt cold.

I didn’t want to be here.

I didn’t want to be me.

Swallowing first, I forced myself to drag out my freshly washed quipu. The third-level sleeping chamber had four walls, unlike the bottom levels, which were open on one side with a balustrade. The wall opposite the bed was blank and kind of perfect for my quipu. Starting at the end of the piece where Wild and Rooke’s braids were, I magically pinned up the spine along the top of the wall so the braids and knots of various lengths hung down. Three knots were so long, I had to coil them and pin them on the wall. The demon braid, Wild’s braid, and the Caves’ braid. Rooke’s was pretty long, so were Sven’s and Huxley’s. Corentin’s was a stub. Like him.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, I stared at my filing system, my quipu. Wild had sensed the magic in it. Rooke had reacted subconsciously to the magic contained within. But when hung like this, I could see what the system really contained. My magic, of all three affinities, zipped between braids to connect certain knots and sections of braid.

Patterns, connections, weaknesses, strengths. If I’d looked at my quipu sooner, for instance, I might have glimpsed the weak trail of magic between Sven and Rooke that, with its vibrant color, denoted something romantic. I didn’t know how it worked. Even after fifteen years all I knew was that as I formed the piece, my magic infused it, and after the fact, my magic revealed all sorts of information that I either hadn’t been aware of picking up or—my preferred theory—that magic operated on a level that, even as its vessel, I would never understand.

I avoided looking at Wild’s braid, instead walking down the other end of the twelve-foot piece to where some space still remained. My aching fingers itched. The last braid would go there. I’d been waiting for the subject to reveal itself. The original coven would get a braid. Which I was glad for. I had to understand how they interplayed with everything. I could see a strong connection between Winona, Frond, and Barrow, but a similar connection existed between Varden, Opal, and Sage who were also council members and on the same Caves team.

The Caves braid was the most unusual braid I’d ever made, one filled with loops and the same repeating pattern. Deciphering it was easy. The braid showed how fruitless victory had been because both teams kept doing the same thing over and over. I was guessing that each loop was a possible mission. My lips curved. This would be very helpful indeed.

Steeling myself, I walked to the demon braid. Red still tinged the places where it intertwined in magic. The ugly magic in the braid pulsed, the reason I felt cold and… trapped—because it sure as hell wasn’t because of this room, no matter how hard I may try to convince myself of that. This was the reason I didn’t want to see anyone, Rooke included. The reason I needed space.

Demon.

I wanted to run.

I’d come here looking for the other end of a tether, and instead of finding anything that could anchor me, I’d only found that which uprooted and disturbed me.

Everything seemed hopeless.

I was a demon, and who knew what the hell that meant? I was already messed up, and what else was yet to be discovered?

I trailed my fingers over a knot halfway down the demon braid that denoted my mystery tether. The tether that had just appeared. The tether that seemed locked away or bound and that didn’t obey the rules of normal magus tethers.

“Mother be,” I whispered.

A demon was on the other end.

28

I watched Winona’s gliding approach, wondering how she could bear to pull her graying auburn hair so tight in its bun. She did look regal, I’d give her that much. But ouch.

The council member stopped before me. “Miss Corentine, good morning. How did you enjoy your new quarters?”