Krew gave her a shrug like it was a minor offense. “I’d rather work to recoup my own magic than worry if she had enough to deal with my father.”
Renna just stood there a moment, in full shock, and then she was there wrapping her arms around me. “Oh, honey. I get it now. I so get it. You go right on ahead and kill him, I’ll grab the shovel.”
“So, I’ve never been happier,” my voice cracked, “but also never been more scared, Renna.” I felt the dull buzz of my magic flaring to life. I was very quickly going to have to learn how to keep my emotions in check at all times. “How am I supposed to keep this from the king? How did I ever believe I could?”
“Well, we aren’t due for a ball for another ten days,” Owen offered. “That helps.”
“You are going to have to have some lessons in willing your magic away too,” Renna offered. “Think of it as reassuring your magic that you are in fact fine and do not need it yet.”
I kind of liked the thought of that, but I had no idea how to do it. Then again, before this morning I’d had no idea how to use magic or talk to Krew telepathically.
“What about her blood?” Renna asked. “Won’t the king somehow know she is Enchanted now?”
Krew shook his head. “We took vials of blood from her leading up to our ceremony. I have a stockpile of blood for now. If Keir and I can convince our father to end the Assemblages by summer, we may have just enough to distract him for long enough.”
“I am still so upset I was not at this ceremony,” Renna squinted at Krew and then at me before spinning to Owen, “and he was.”
Owen brushed a nonexistent speck of dust off his shoulder. “Priorities, Renna.”
“Until that first ball though,” Krew added, “we keep Jorah away from my father, agreed?”
“Agreed,” Owen nodded.
“Do we have a plan for that?” Renna asked. “You know the first week after the magic settles is hard.” She shook her head and mumbled to me, “Sorry, Jorah.”
“When have you ever known me to not have a plan?”
Owen snorted. “The night you saved her.”
Krew’s eyes met mine.My best plan yet.
I rolled my eyes. He was entirely too smug.
Krew’s attention switched back to Renna. “I have staged a disloyal arrest for tomorrow. For someone who isn’t truly disloyal at all. So if Father wishes to torture the man, there will be no important information given. But it should be a nice distraction for him. Add in the heavy sleeping tonic he is getting this week, and he should not notice Jorah’s training sessions in the forest at night.”
So I was training with magic instead of my body now. And I would be training with Krew instead of Keir and Krew. “Wait,” I gasped. “You are going to send an innocent man to get tortured as a distraction while I learn how to use magic?”
Krew shook his head. “No, love. I set up a rapist. It’s beyond time he’s off the streets of Rallis. He more than deserves whatever he gets.”
I rubbed my hand across my forehead. “There has been so much to take in about this day that I honestly have no idea what to even do with that.”
Owen laughed and crossed his arms. “So tomorrow would be a better day to tell you that Keir and Krew are also bribing the king’s mistress?”
I sat down on the couch.
“Owen,” Krew snapped. “Stay on task. Yes, we can discuss that tomorrow. Or the next day.”
For the next twenty minutes I sipped a tea and listened to Owen, Krew, and Renna talk about the specifics of me avoiding the king. Everything from which hallways we should avoid and who we could or could not speak to.
I wished more than anything it were possible to skip a week. I just wanted to know how to control and use my magic safely. Everyone made it sound like it was so simple, a totally easy feat.
I feared it’d be far more difficult than that. I felt as if this power raging within me would blow me to bits at any given moment.
By the time Renna and Owen left, I was feeling exhausted all over again. Was it the magic? How had Krew walked around with this much magic and stayed upright?
“Ready for bed, love?” Krew asked from where we lounged on the couch next to one another.
“Yes. Why am I so tired? Is it the magic?”
