If I’d had a breath, I would have held it.
He won’t discover me,I told myself. He had no reason to cast any sort of spell on this copse of trees. And yet he marched in my direction.
I expected him to stalk past me and head into the garden. Instead, he stopped directly in front of me and lifted his wand. “A hawthorn tree. You chose to hide inthatform? Didn’t you consider I’d know every hawthorn tree on the grounds? I’ve no choice in the matter. I think of you each time I see one.”
With a muttered statement and a flick of his wand, I stood before him, human again.
CHAPTER 26
Istared at Ronan, stunned. I wouldn’t fight him. Not yet. Not when he could call armed men with one shout. I had to stall while I retrieved my wand from my pocket. My arms fell to my sides. “Do you really think of me when you see hawthorns? If so, I’m surprised you didn’t cut them down long ago so they didn’t irritate your memory.”
His expression was hard and angry. No tones of mercy softened his voice. “I cannot believe it was you, all along.” He shook his head, his lips pressed together. “I should’ve known the truth when witnesses said they’d seen Mage Wolfson’s hound. You had reason to implicate him, didn’t you? You hate him.”
Ronan’s eyes were firmly on mine, glaring in indignation—and not watching what my hand was doing. I slid it into my pocket. “Many people hate Wolfson. I assume most of the apprentices who learned his lessons hate him.”
“Most of the apprentices didn’t ever see his hound. That privilege was reserved for very few.”
“How fortunate that I was among the privileged.” In one quick motion, I swung my wand toward Ronan and uttered a stunning spell.
As I spoke, he grabbed my arm and jerked my aim upward. The spell shot harmlessly into the sky.
I wrenched my arm, trying to free myself from his grasp. He was too strong, too determined, and not about to let me go. I kicked his leg, an action without much force due to his boots and the constraints of my dress.
When I kicked again, he pushed me to the ground and pointed his wand at me. He uttered the words of transformation—that of a mouse. It took me several seconds to recall the counterspell. By the time I began repeating it, I was falling, shrinking, unable to stop the change from happening. Before the alteration was even complete, he reached down and grabbed me, holding me tight. He loomed like a giant over me and could’ve easily crushed me with a squeeze of his hand.
He repeated the words of another transformation spell, this one directed at himself—a falcon. I bit his thumb. Drew blood. No release. He didn’t even stutter in his incantation.
His fingers grew hard, changing into claws that gripped me just as tightly as his hands had. With a flap of striped wings, he shot into the sky. The ground fell away at a dizzying rate.
My heartbeat thrummed impossibly fast. What was he going to do? He wouldn’t kill me. Not before he extracted the names of my accomplices.
Even if I could’ve thought of a way to change back into a human, I dare not do it now, soaring through the sky, or I’d plunge to my death.
We flew to the top of one of the castle’s towers, a dark, unlit place. He sailed over the crenelations and circled the area, slowing. Shapes cluttered the floor near the walls. The place must be used as a storage area.
Ronan landed on the stone floor, the foot that grasped me, held aloft. The next moment, he was human.
I bit him again. He still didn’t release me. “Stop it,” he hissed. He grasped my tail and let go of my body, leaving me to dangle upside down in the air. Two fingers were all that kept me captive.
He calmly swished his wand in an arc, and a wizards’ orb hanging from a post lit up, making the darkness retreat. He turned his wand on me and I fell to the floor in a heap, human again. I’d been holding my wand when he’d transformed me, and it returned in my hand until the impact of my fall jarred it loose.
I reached for it, fingers almost there.
A burst of wind from Ronan’s wand knocked it away from me. It clanked and rolled across the floor.
“A knitting needle,” he said, his wand still pointed at me. “I’m not sure whether to find that an insult to my profession or a brilliant stroke of subterfuge.”
I sat up slowly. Any sudden movement toward my wand would bring forth some sort of retribution.
He stepped closer to me. “No one thinks anything of a woman carrying around knitting needles, do they?”
“And I’ve also made some very sturdy socks during this trip.”
He didn’t laugh. “Who taught you magic? Who are you working with?”
I resisted the urge to feel my pocket and reassure myself that the other contents were still there: a matching knitting needle and the length of yarn. The egg-shaped signal sat in my other pocket. Sending it flying into Ronan might cause him to drop his wand, but I didn’t dare use it. If I did, Alaric would think the way clear to kill the king and would die trying before I could stop him.
“Who?” Ronan repeated, louder.