Page 16 of Alchemy of Souls

She glares at me. “I didnothingto that discernment spell,” she says with so much feeling that if I didn’t witness it with my own eyes, I might believe her.

“And who did? Me? The Council? My uncle, maybe?” I reply with one hand guiding the steering wheel and my other elbow resting on the center console.

“Damn it, I don’t know,” she says and runs her hands over her hair, doing exactly nothing to tame it.

“You touched the spell,” I continue. “Itpaused. And then your face showed up above my head.”

“I did touch it. But I didn’t cast,” she says with a frown. “I don’t know why it did that any more than you do.”

But I can smell her doubt, enough for me to surmise she’s withholding information. “You’re not doing either of us any favors by lying,” I say. My uncle knew it in his office. And so did I. “At least if you tell me what you did then maybe I can help sort out how you called that Key.”

“And if you’d believe the truth then maybe we can start looking for the real reason the Key showed up,” she replies, and I honestly don’t know how we’re going to survive this car ride, much less anything else.

“Do you know how you summoned it?” I ask.

“No,” she says and nothing more.

“Did your spell feel different? Did you change the components of it?”

Her mouth pinches with annoyance and she glares at me.

My hand tightens on the wheel. “Silence. Good idea. That’ll definitely help.”

But instead of replying, she shifts her body toward the window and stares out it like her life depends on it. For the next half hour or so we say nothing, Eloise maintaining her scowl until she loses steam and her eyes flutter closed from exhaustion. The next time I look over, she’s asleep.

By the time Eloise wakes up, we’re most of the way there, having left the main road behind for the smaller ones that wind past the lakes and villages.

“Wow,” she says, rubbing at her eyes and staring at County Mayo’s rolling hills and moss-covered trees. “This place is so… pretty.”

She presses her hand to the glass, decides that’s not good enough and rolls down her window despite the drizzle, practically sticking her head into the wind. “This feels like… magic. Real magic. Wild and green.”

The statement skewers me in a way I don’t expect. Because it’s similar to something my brother Liam used to say when we were kids. No matter how many times we came here, he never got over this place. He thought there was more magic in the land of Ireland than in any Mage.

“There’s a pull-off,” she says with a twinge of awe, the loose strands of hair whipping around her face. “Right there by the lake—” But she gets one look at my expression and stops, like she suddenly remembered where she is and why.

“I’m not supposed to stop,” I tell her, which is mostly true. It’s the Guardians’ job to get us to Uni with no delays to minimize any threat by the Lawless.

“Right,” she says, falling back in her seat, her eyes still following the lake with longing.

And I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the unexpected memory of my brother or the fact that we might be dead in two weeks. But I swing into the lookout at the last possible moment.

The Guardians’ SUV screeches its tires to stop and I smirk at the curses I know Jack and Damien are spewing.

Eloise wastes no time; she jumps out of the car the moment I park. As I climb out to stretch, Jack graces me with a death glare from his rolled-down window. I hold up my hand to tell him to give me five minutes, and even though he looks less than pleased, he doesn’t say anything. He’s known me since I was seven.

I don’t join Eloise on the bank of the lake, framed by jagged rocks and mountains. But I do watch her lips stretch into a grin as she lifts her hands up into the rainy wind. She’s most likely never spent time outside the wards, probably hasn’t traveled past Portland, Maine. A lot of Laboring families haven’t.

I get back in the car, feeling ten kinds of conflicted. I’m annoyed at myself for being so soft. At Eloise for a whole litany of reasons, and at this crap situation in general. My eyes pinch shut and I push my palms against the steering wheel.

It doesn’t take long before she slides into the passenger seat, her cheeks flushed from the fresh air and her eyelashes dewy from rain. I pull back onto the left side of the road, something I’m used to, considering I’ve spent half my life here.

“Thanks for that,” she says as she closes her door.

“I needed to stretch my legs. It was nothing.” I take a sip from my water bottle as she fastens her seat belt.

“I think we’re gonna die,” she says, and I choke.

“Excuse me?” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.