Page 61 of Spellcast
“Wh-what?” I stammer. “I don’t—”
“Do it,” he instructs in a tone that allows no argument.
I obey, my trembling hand stretching forward again to touch him. Instantly he calms beneath my palm.
Tage and Viggo study me like two hawks tracking prey.
Cyphus returns, noting the quiet that fell. “What’s happening?” he asks.
“Are you a healer?” Tage demands of me.
“No,” I respond, even as my mind instantly leaps to Maretta and all the time I spent with her in her cottage. Did I inadvertently pick up a few tricks in the healing arts from her? Can such a skill be passed from one to another like an ague contracted from frequent exposure. Is it possible that I learned something from her? No. It can’t be.Maybe...
Shaking my head, I start to pull my hand away, but Tage quickly covers it with his, keeping me in place. “No. Keep it there.”
My breath catches at his words, at his hand on top of mine, at his face so close, at the velvety sound of his voice in my ear.
“Your touch is like...magic,” he adds.
Magic.
That loathed and bewildering thing, responsible for so much loss, so much pain. The villain in my life. I never considered it could be good.
If I’m to believe magic has its good, then, relatedly, Tage, born of magic...can be good, too.
The warmth of Tage’s touch is only heightened by the sensation of Arvos’s ice-cold flesh beneath my palm. “You give him relief.”
The way he says those words, the narrowing way he looks at me, I’m not sure if it’s praise or an accusation. Whatever it is, he won’t let go of my hand.
Cyphus makes a sound of disgust. “Thishumanis no—”
Tage cuts him a quelling look that silences him. “The only thing that matters right now is Arvos.”
Cyphus’s lips flatten in a mutinous line, but he doesn’t speak again.
“I’m not a healer,” I insist. As though to prove it, I tug my hand out from under Tage’s, stepping back from the table.
Arvos stills. His eyes close and his chest eases into deep and even breaths.
I nod to him. “He’s fine. See?” Whatever peace Arvos found hasn’t anything to do with me. I’m no healer. “Nothing to do with me.”
Tage’s unreadable gaze holds me in a vise. “Whatever you say.”
“The svefn finally claimed him,” Danhy says excitedly.
I nod with renewed vigor, as though to say,See, not my doing.
Danhy seizes Arvos’s hand and bows over it, pressing her lips to the back of it with palpable relief.
Tage spares only a quick glance for Arvos. He studies me in a way that makes me long to be invisible again. It’s probably for the best to be largely ignored by your captors—to fall beneath their notice. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable it could be to find yourself under intense scrutiny.
My hand still hums and tingles from where he’d held it, the pressure from the contact throbbing even now.
I cross my arms over my chest, tucking my hand between my arm and body in an attempt to kill the lingering sensation.
All attention is fixed on Arvos. Viggo begins to tend to the wound, directing Danhy and Cyphus to help.
Only Tage isn’t looking at Arvos.
