“I’m done,” I tell Nicholas as I open my eyes. The combined vibration of the stones in the bowl tease the limits of my hearing with a metallic ringing.

  “Good. So am I,” he responds briskly, holding out both hands to me in an obvious demand. Silently, I pass him both the bowl and the bag which contains the spares. Tying the velvet bag, he tucks it back into his Inventory.

  The bowl of imbued stones receives a different treatment. Nicholas upends the bowl in one smooth motion, tipping its contents into a pile dead centre on the sheet of parchment he has unrolled and laid out.

  Holding his hands over the pile, Nicholas closes his eyes and starts to murmur quietly. It’s hard to make out the words, and even when I do, they are in that same language he used during the adoption ritual – one I can make no sense of. His volume increases little by little until at its peak, he’s almost shouting.

  The vibration of the stones increases as they reverberate off each other and the parchment itself until that low buzz starts to assault my hearing rather than tease it. Counter to expectations, instead of the stones spreading out with the vibration, they cluster even more tightly together, several piling on top of each other.

  Nicholas’s chanting slowly decreases in volume again, and the buzzing along with it, as if in sympathy – just as a note played in a room with a stringed instrument can cause the string of the instrument to reverberate with no one touching it.

  Finally, he stops speaking and draws his hands back to lay on his knees. He opens his eyes and grunts in satisfaction.

  “That makes things easier,” he comments.

  “What have you discovered?” I ask anxiously.

  “They are all together still,” he explains. Seeing my impatient curiosity, he expands on his explanation. “That particular spell reaches through the reverberations of your connection to your Bonded and feels how close the reverberations are of the others. If you had included a stone with one of your other Bonded, you would have found it would have shifted a good distance away from these ones. Perhaps even off the parchment entirely. The reverberation was also limited which indicates that they are unmoving. Hopefully that means they have already reached their final destination.”

  “But it doesn’t tell us where they are!” I object, dismayed. “I thought that’s what we were here to do.” Knowing they’re still all together and unmoving gets us no closer to finding them.

  “Patience, Markus,” Nicholas chides mildly. “We are not yet done.” I give him an unamused look – I know he’s trying to help, but let’s see him be patient when a whole group of his Bonded have been kidnapped – especially the three who are pregnant. Then again, I’m not sure Nicholas knows that bit – I haven’t specifically told him yet. I should probably do that at some point.

  “What do we need to do now?”

  “Now, place all of the stones back in the bowl.” Perhaps he sees my confusion even as I lean forward and start doing exactly that. “It is better if you do it – I do not have connections with your Bonded, and I have Bonds of my own which might accidentally interfere with the imbuement of the stones. That would in turn interfere with the ritual, and perhaps cause it to fail. Given that the strain of performing the ritual means I can only conduct it once every few days, I assume you do not want that.”

  “Definitely not,” I agree firmly, though I feel a flicker of gratitude for his explanation. I scoop the stones up from the surface of the parchment and return them to the bowl. As soon as they’re all there, Nicholas lifts it and places it in front of him. He starts adding various ingredients he’s been preparing while I was imbuing the stones.

  “What are those?” I ask, curious despite myself.

  “Bone dust of a long-dead wraith,” Nicholas explains as he tips a grey-coloured powder into the bowl. “Their soul connections to their body are so strong that they can continue animating it even after their deaths. It will enhance your own connections.” He next adds a few dried leaves. “Isthal – for piercing.” The next is a dark-blue liquid. “Ichor of a xinar beetle – for secrecy.” The next ingredient, I recognise. “Core dust to add extra power. I’ve gone with a Tier three this time – it’s likely overkill, but for a matter such as this, better too much than too little.” I completely agree. He tips in another liquid, this one a warm orange. And it’s glowing. “And a magical reagent to bind all of the ingredients together.”

  Nicholas bends his head over the bowl and starts murmuring over the mixture in that same language as before. After a few long minutes, he looks up at me and there’s a slightly challenging gleam in his eyes; my shoulders tense in response.

  “It is ready for the final ingredient,” he announces.

  “What’s that?” I ask warily. My question is immediately answered as he hands the odd-shaped knife to me with a solemn look.

  “You need to fill the rest of the bowl with your blood.”

  “All the way to the top?” I question.

  “Right to the top,” he confirms.

  I look at the bowl rather dubiously. It’s more than half full of the stones and the other ingredients, but that’s still a fair bit of blood I’ll need to donate. Then again, it’s not like I’m a normal human anymore, and I have Flesh-Shaping and Sensation Management to help me.

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  “Why my blood?” I can’t help but ask warily.

  Nicholas nods in what appears to be approval.

  "You are right to be wary. Blood, especially willingly given, is a powerful ritual component. In this case, yours provides the strength and direction to pierce any Skills, wards, enchantments, or lesser rituals hiding your Bonded. Performed here, in our family’s seat, the magic is further amplified by our legacy – and by my presence. All told, your blood is the least dispensable element of everything in this bowl, save the imbued stones.”

  “I understand,” I murmur grimly. What’s a bit of blood in comparison to my companions’ lives? “Do I need to say anything special?”

  “No. Just open a vein with the athame, fill the bowl, and then place it in the centre of the parchment. I will do the rest.”

  “Fine,” I agree, taking the bowl and the athame. It’s a double-sided blade, almost gleaming with sharpness, and with no cross-guard. The blade itself is almost serpentine in the way it curves from side to side. Though its point is clearly needle-sharp, it’s a very impractical blade for most purposes. But perhaps that’s what’s called for in rituals.

  Using Sensation Management to dull the pain down a touch – though leaving enough present that I will be able to feel it if I do something seriously wrong – I pump my fist a few times so one of the main veins in my forearm stands out clearly. Kissing the skin with the blade, I breathe out and then slide lengthways down my forearm, controlling my instinctual flinch so I don’t accidentally cut into my muscles or tendons instead of just the vein.

  The sharpness of the blade parts my skin as easily as a filet knife slices a fish. Even without Sensation Management, I have a feeling the initial cut would cause little more than a sharp sting. Somehow, the curve of the blade makes it easier to go deeper than I was intending, and I have to reduce the pressure I apply to not go too deep.

  The blood quickly wells to the surface and I tilt my hand downwards so it streams straight into the bowl.

  With the size of the cut, it doesn’t take long before the bowl is full of my blood. I quickly send magic into the wound, closing up the slice, its cleanness making that an easy task. I feel a touch light-headed – replenishing blood is harder with Flesh-Shaping than just knitting together the flesh.

  Perhaps Nicholas notices.

  “I would offer you a blood-replenisher, but that would lessen the sacrifice of your blood, which would in turn make the ritual weaker than it could be.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assure him, waving the idea away. “Wait,” I add, a thought occurring. “Is it a problem that I’ve healed myself already?”

  “Not at all – you used your own mana and Skill to do so. It is still considered part of the sacrifice. It is outside aid which interferes.”

  “Good to know,” I acknowledge. I guess that no one does this ritual without having some sort of healing Skill, then. That or they slice a much smaller cut than the one I made.

  I lift the bowl – interestingly, the blood that is already in the bowl doesn’t spill – it’s almost like the meniscus on top of the liquid has become far thicker and holds it all inside. I place it in the dead centre of the parchment, wincing when a few drops of blood roll down the outside of the bowl from my still-bloody fingers. Most of the liquid spreads into the engravings of the bowl itself, but one drop falls upon the parchment, marring its whiteness with red.

  “It's no problem,” Nicholas reassures me upon seeing my anxiety. “It will just combine with the rest of the liquid in the ritual.”

  I give a relieved nod, then lean back, absently reabsorbing the blood into my arm with Flesh-Shaping. I should have done that before – then I wouldn’t have accidentally marred the parchment.

  Once more, Nicholas places his hands above the bowl and begins chanting. He hasn’t told me to do anything, so I can only assume that I’m free to watch.

  The deep red liquid in the bowl begins to ripple and reverberate, waves beginning small and then growing. The waves fracture until the bowl of liquid almost looks like reverse raindrops – globs of blood and other ingredients rising briefly above the surface and then falling back in.

  Little by little, the drops rise higher and higher until, for a moment, as Nicholas’ voice reaches a crescendo, almost half the liquid has risen above the bowl and hovers there in midair. It has become dark burgundy, almost black, and fully opaque.

  I watch, enthralled by the magic happening before my eyes.

  The next moment, the liquid all crashes back into the bowl with an impact which sends all the liquid out of the bowl entirely. It surges over the edge, slithering almost like a living creature. Its departure leaves the black stones and interior of the bowl dry and clean, as if no other ingredients had been added.

  The liquid itself trickles down the wall of the bowl in a very unnatural mass, sliding through the engravings present there. Nicholas continues chanting, but his face is sweaty, his eyes are clenched shut, and his jaw is tight. It’s like he’s fighting against something.

  Closing my own eyes, I try to sense what battle he may be undergoing, but all I can feel are flickers. It almost feels like a Battle of Wills – a push and a pull that Nicholas is slowly but surely winning.

  Reassured, I open my eyes again and see that the bloody mass has sunk into the parchment and is now beginning to spiderweb lines out from around the bowl. The speed moves in fits and starts, at times spreading quickly, at other times creeping like a snail. Nicholas continues to shout, his voice tiring and becoming hoarse, but the determination behind it is unflagging.

  Finally, though I hadn’t believed it possible, he begins to chant even more strongly, his voice booming around the ritual room and reverberating off the walls. Listening closely, it’s almost like there’s an echo of unseen voices that follows each emphasis.

  Closing my eyes, I can feel the faintest hints of an energy reaching out to us from around – was this what Nicholas meant when he said that the ritual would be strengthened by doing it here, in the family’s manor? Could these really be echoes of Titanbends long-dead reaching out to help their scion?

  In that moment, it doesn't seem superstitious to consider it.

  And then with a sudden surge of energy that crackles like lightning over my skin and leaves the scent of ozone behind, I feel the ritual draw to a close.

  If nothing else, this experience has taught me just how much further I have to go with magic – I could only feel enough to tell me that there was a huge amount more I could have felt, were my observational skills sensitive enough.

  Looking at the parchment, I see that the dark red lines have covered the whole of it. Frowning, I recognise what looks like streets. Is this a map?

  “I recognise that place.” Nicholas’ voice is hoarse – understandably. I look up. He’s frowning. A moment later, enlightenment dawns – along with incredulity. “Sandend?”

  here!

  here!

  here!

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