Extraits

“My father told me I have to wear the amulet until Cannon produces an heir,” I said. “As soon as he left, I took it off. But that night, when I was in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I took it out of the drawer and opened it.”

“What’s inside?”

“Blood.”

“Cruce.”

“I already knew about the blood—some of it was my own,” I said. “But as I was looking at it, I heard someone say my name.”

“Heard someone … where?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was inside my head.”

“You may have imagined it.”

“I thought of that.” Suddenly, talking about this over supper with Tucker made it seem less than believable. “I’ve never touched the magic before. I’ve never wanted any part of it. He was very insistent about the locket, though.”

“I guess I didn’t realize the king was so serious about his superstitions.”

“For the past three days I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” I said. “I thought I’d mastered it by putting it in the drawer, but…”

Tucker emptied his tankard. “May I see it?”

I hesitated, repelled by the locket, even while a part of me whispered that perhaps power of protection wasn’t a bad thing. I shook off that thought and rose. “I’ll get it.”

I retrieved the blood locket from my drawer. As soon as I touched it, I felt its warmth, as though it had been held within someone’s palm.

Unnatural thing.

As Tucker and I watched, spellbound, it stretched thin and flew toward the window, where it seemed to vanish.

I looked at the rotten grape, and a sick, hollow feeling twisted through my stomach. The blood locket was heavy in my palm. Without a word, I walked to my bedside table and put it in the drawer. When I returned to the table, Tucker was still staring at the grape.

“It … killed the grape.”

“Not exactly.” But it seemed a fitting way to describe it.

Tucker finally looked at me. “You’re not actually going to keep that thing?”

“And how would I go about getting rid of it? Aside from melting it down, there’s no way to do it.”

“Melt it down, then.”

“And then what will contain whatever’s inside it? You saw what just happened.”

Tucker shook his head. “I have no idea what I just saw.”

Part of me felt like I should be able to explain this. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t understand.

“I shouldn’t have opened it,” I said.

“I think I’ve just grown more respect for that one-eyed hag.”

I tried to smile, to support Tucker’s attempt to lighten the mood, but it felt more like a grimace. “Let’s keep this between you and me.”

He didn’t answer at first. “No one needs to know about this. There’s enough displeasure against your father out there—the last thing I need to do is to feed that by painting him as some sort of sorcerer.”