Darius stepped forward, following him. “If Verene is harmed again—in even the smallest way—I will not hesitate to destroy you.”
The silence that filled the room at that pronouncement was dark and choking.
“Do you understand, Father?” Darius’s voice dropped almost too low for me to hear, and yet the threat it contained did not diminish. “I will destroy you in every possible way.”
Cassius swallowed visibly. His eyes narrowed.
“All this fuss over a girl,” he said, trying for nonchalance and failing. “I can assure you I have no further interest in her.”
Darius didn’t loose his father from his gaze, holding him for another long moment before shaking his head and turning for the door.
“You were always ungrateful,” Cassius spat after him. “I should never have wasted my time on you instead of your brother.”
Darius paused by the door, a harsh laugh rolling from his lips.
“You think Jareth would be more grateful? It is you who are the fool, Father. You held a kingdom in your hands, and you lost it. The sooner you accept that, the better your remaining years will be.”
“And how many years might that be?” Cassius asked, regarding his son with narrowed eyes.
Darius shrugged, his voice uncaring. “That’s up to you, Father, and the decisions you make next. Kallorway is mine to protect now. You can accept that and get out of my way, or you can become one of the threats I must guard the kingdom against.” A dark note reentered his voice. “I wouldn’t recommend the latter.”
He pulled open the door and was gone.
My legs trembled despite the seat that still supported me. Darius had said I was more important to him than anything. Had he meant it? Everything in his manner had seemed sincere, but he had been talking to his father. Was it all just part of the act his father had always forced him to play?
Cassius stood still for a long moment, his eyes on the closed door, and his face ugly. Fury and bitterness warred for dominance, but slowly something else took hold. A dark determination that made me shiver. Cassius’s own ability was sealed, and with a unanimous vote of the Mage Council, he had no discipline to support him. But my composition had blocked someone from coming to his aid. He still had an ally or allies. And if I was right, and it was Jareth, then we were still in deadly danger.
I waited, but Cassius left the room a moment later. With his exit, I felt the power that had ringed the room dissipate. My composition had completed its task.
I slipped out of the hidden cupboard, my breath coming fast, and my legs still shaky. My left hand clenched and unclenched repeatedly around the two halves of parchment hidden in my pocket.
My composition. I had completed a written composition—not taken control of someone else’s working but initiated one myself. And I had used the strength, control, and expertise of someone else to accomplish it.
When I found myself at the door of my suite, I blinked in surprise. I couldn’t even remember finding my way through the maze of back corridors. I had received too many shocks in the last few hours to be thinking clearly now.
Slipping into the room, I hurried straight to the desk and sat down. Picking up a pen, I laid it against a piece of blank parchment and then hesitated. The certainty I had felt while linked to Duke Gilbert was gone, and I struggled to call up the right words.
Withdrawing the crumpled composition from my pocket, I smoothed it out and carefully aligned the two halves. Using the words as a guide, I began to write.
I hadn’t even made it through the binding words when I stopped. I didn’t need to go further to know the experiment was a failure. No power built at the shaping of the words, straining to be released. It felt nothing like it had done in that hidden cupboard.
I sat back, taking several deep breaths. The events during the Council meeting had not unleashed some latent ability for written compositions. Instead it seemed I had stumbled on a much stranger ability.
The door to the corridor opened with force, but I didn’t even turn around, still staring blankly at the parchment before me.
“There you are! Where have you been?” Bryony’s voice asked breathlessly. “Have you heard the news? The Mage Council has voted Darius king-elect, and they’re saying he’s to be crowned immediately after graduation!”
I nodded numbly.
“Verene?” Her voice approached behind me. “What’s going on? Why do you look like that? This is good news! It’s everything you’ve been trying to achieve. You’re safe now!”
She reached the desk and leaned over my shoulder. Frowning, she picked up one half of the torn parchment.
“What’s this?” When I didn’t answer, she spun my chair around, giving my shoulders a gentle shake. “Verene? What’s wrong?”
Her actions snapped me out of my state of shock, and I stared at her wide-eyed.
“Sorry, I just…It’s all a bit much…” I drew a long breath, trying to regain my equilibrium. “Yes, I did know about Darius. I was there.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You found a way into the meeting after all?”
I shook my head. “No, but it turns out the room they used had a hidden viewing spot. Zora showed it to me.”
“Ooh!” She looked delighted. “How brilliantly sneaky. So it’s all true then?”
I nodded.
She glanced down at the parchment in her hand. “So were you needed to protect them? Did someone try to interfere?”
I bit my lip. “I think so. And I don’t think the Council was expecting it. Not here in the Academy, I suppose.”
“Then it’s a good thing they had a guardian like you watching over them.”
“Bree, I…” I swallowed and tried again. “Bree, I composed that.” I pointed at the parchment she had just returned to the desk.
She frowned at it. “I don’t understand. You mean that’s the composition you took control of? How did you end up with the pieces?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I wrote that. I composed it.”
She looked at me anxiously as if she thought I had lost my mind under all the pressure.
“Verene…”
“Sit down.” I pointed at one of the sofas. “I’ll tell you everything, but it might be a shock. It was for me.”
She obediently positioned herself on the sofa, and I let everything that had happened pour out of me. Her eyes grew rounder and rounder, and several times she looked like she was refraining from jumping to her feet.
“So you actually composed that,” she said when I finished, pointing at my desk.
I nodded.
She seemed to be struggling for words.
I gave her a pleading look. “It doesn’t make any sense. Does it?”
“Not in the normal definition of sense, no.” She laughed abruptly, delight breaking across her face. “But when were you ever normal, Verene?”
Leaping to her feet, she danced across the room to grab my hands and pull me up as well.
“You can compose! For yourself!”
“Not exactly for myself,” I said, my lips twisting. “I stole his power, Bree! All his training, even his energy—the essence of him. I just reached in and stole it.”
She frowned. “You say that as if you took something permanent from him. Did he lose some of his knowledge because you borrowed it?”