Her eyes widen. “What will you do?”
I lean closer to her and drop my voice to a whisper. “I will fight with everything in me before I stand by and allow them to harm you.”
“Do you really mean it?”
Tighter and tighter, I squeeze her hand as I speak in a voice forged with determination. “Yes. I lost Kassandra. I will not lose you too.”
ChapterTen
Moonlight struggles through the cracks in the tent flap as I lean my head against Everly’s shoulder. “Do you know what I hate the most?”
“What?”
“The fact that Red Beard probably has my marbles. And now I cannot use any bloodstone against him.”
“Red Beard?” Everly straightens to look at me and hikes an eyebrow, waiting for my explanation.
“That’s the name I gave to the man with the long red beard.” That monster! That vile man that callously ordered the death of all those villagers.
Everly scoffs and stretches her legs out in front of her. “I’d give him a different name.”
“Like what?”
She stabs her hand into the air and speaks through her teeth. “Bastard!”
“The Red Beard Bastard,” I say as I watch our shadows flickering on the side of the tent. We look so small. So feeble.
But I know the truth. Neither one of us is feeble. We are steel waiting to be smelted and refined. If given a chance—and bloodstone—we would kill our jailors.
Everly scowls and clutches her hands together. “Red Beard reminds me of Roland. He was just as ruthless. Just as brutal.”
I stab my thumb into my left palm, hating the cruelty, the sadness, the sorrow, the darkness siphoning the life out of this land.
“I have been thinking about the marbles,” Everly says as she shifts enough to meet my gaze. “And I think the one disappeared when I created the portal, because we were a summer in the past.”
Pain blisters through my palm as I stab my thumb deeper.
Everly grabs my right hand, holding it tight as she continues. “A summer ago, our tribe wouldn’t have had magic back yet, so I wouldn’t have been able to create a portal. I think Mildred probably anticipated that and placed magic in the bloodstone marbles.”
“You think the marbles are like her relics?”
Everly nods. “She preserved some magic in the relics before the gods cursed our tribe. And she was able to use that stored magic when we fought the Malachites, remember? That was before magic had returned for any of us.” Her mouth bends into a wide smile. “Well, except for you.”
Everly switches to hold my left hand and rubs the middle of my palm, as if mending what I had done to my skin. “I think she did the same thing with the marbles before we left Karra. She stored magic in them.”
My mind replays the battle with the Malachites, how Mildred threw the relic, shattering it, then she used the magic inside. “Once she used the relic, the magic was depleted. So, when we use a marble—”
“—poof!” Everly nods. “No more marble. No more magic.”
“So, does that mean we can only use a marble once?”
“Maybe.” Everly’s brow knits together as she seems to think for a moment. “We have to assume that anytime we’re in the past, we can only use a marble once. Though, I wonder something. If we’re in the present, can we cast Bloodstone magic like normal?”
“I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to.” I cross my ankles and lean my head against the wall of the tent. “As long as we have bloodstone.”
I run my index finger against my throbbing temple. All this thinking is making my head hurt, but it makes sense. Except for one thing…
“I used magic a little over a week ago.” I hold out my bandaged hands. “It made the black spread.”
