Quill of Thieves

Chapter 27

The flames churning the steam, which powered the tram up the mountain, flickered.

With her back to Sebastian, Astrid clenched her teeth, holding onto the hot threads of Fire with everything she had left. It was true; her connection with the elements had returned in the time it had taken Sebastian to pull off his rather amazing water feat. Not that she would ever tell him that. But healing her own broken bones, getting the engine into the tram, starting a fire by hand in the middle of a snowy forest because Sebastian surely didn't know how to do that, and then manipulating that meager fire's threads to get them this far up the mountain had nearly depleted her reserves.

Again.

She really shouldn't be such a showoff.

One of her flames flickered out entirely.

The tram was an open-air contraption. Snowflakes whipped into her face as it climbed upwards. She pulled the edges of her hood around her head as tightly as she could, but it was difficult when she only had one free hand. Behind her, she felt Sebastian move; he'd been unbearably restless. She wondered if he felt as claustrophobic as she did. The space inside the tram was ridiculously small. When she inhaled too deeply, her spine pushed back into Sebastian's shins.

At least he was warm.

"You asked me who I am," Sebastian muttered into the howling air, "back there before this whole task started."

Astrid gripped her slipping threads a little tighter. "I asked what you are."

"The truth is I have no idea," he said. "My parents took me in. I'm not of their blood. And now I've come to learn that everything my ma had ever told stories about was all true. Elementi, Scribes and Authors, even Elves—"

He choked on the last word, his exhale wavering. It somehow made her believe him.

"If it makes you feel any better," she began, "those creatures were news to me, too."

"Really?"

"My mother only taught me what was necessary, it seems." The flames she nurtured fluttered again. "I mean, I knew of the Elvin Folk, fae, merpeople, the fire Elementi in Demue—I knew they had all existed. Once. Centuries ago, maybe. I just can't make sense of it." Her pause hung between them. "If The Purge erased all our memories of the elements and the magic of Elementi, how did my mother remember enough to preserve her Fables of Monverta?"

Sebastian's boot slipped against the frosty floor of the tram. "Fables of Monverta?" he asked. "That's the name of Queen Davina's book? The one with the bloody ink that we blew up?"

One of Fire's threads surged hotly against her thumb. "You know something more about it," she accused. "What is it?"

"Monverta," he said again, "It's a Scribal word. It means 'my blood.' It was the name of the books Authors used to imbue the elemental threads into. It was a way to share the seven elements between the realms. Scribes would detail the information with ink and Authors would call it to life with their gifted blood. My ma—" he broke off, clearing his throat before he continued—"I always thought they were just stories, but they weren't. She knew, but how? Like you said, The Purge erased memories of it all."

Astrid's hands shook. "Not well enough, it seems."

Sebastian leaned closer; she didn't even have to look at him to know his eyes would be alight with curiosity, his scholar brain whirring. "You can wield all seven elements, can't you?"

When she nodded, he released a breath. "My ma claimed only Authors had that power. Gifted to humans by Queen Branwyn of Galandreal. Is that what you are? An Author?"