she withdraws something small from the cupboard. “I didn’t tell you to bring it to me.”
“Well, now I can’t even put it back,” I say, but our bickering is forgotten when she places a bracelet on the table before me. With a quick glance at Kendara, who nods to confirm that I can touch it, I trace my finger along the designs carved into the jewelry. The smooth texture glistens like white jade. “What is it made of?”
“Troll bone.”
My finger stills on the bracelet. Intrigued, I lean in closer to examine it. The bracelet can’t be thicker than the width of my little finger. “I would’ve thought troll bone would be bigger.”
Kendara grunts, a noise I’ve come to recognize as scorn for my imagined ignorance. She has a wide array of such sounds.
Lifting the bracelet, I turn it toward the sunlight that streams in through the open balcony and diffuses into the smoky air. The polished surface gives off a beautiful sheen, and the color transitions from a warm butter to the burned yellow of old parchment. The jeweler etched a curling design into the bone that lends it an elegant quality. A metal fastener fashioned to look like tiny lotus petals allows a section of the bone to be removed so that the bracelet can be worn. It’s lovely but somewhat grotesque, given its origin.
“For you,” she says.
I almost drop the bracelet. But I recover quickly, clutching the troll bone in my fist. “I … um. Thank you. It’s very … thoughtful.” I narrow my eyes. “And unusual. Why are you giving me this?”
Kendara is many things, but thoughtful is not one of them. It’s part of what I admire about her. She never pretends to be anything other than who she is.
She turns away, but not before I notice the slight purse of her mouth. It’s not a smile—Kendara does not smile—but sometimes the muscles around her mouth spasm and twitch, like she’s trying to imitate the motions. It’s just as well. An actual smile might break her face.
“Trolls are slow creatures but wickedly strong,” she says. So I’m to decipher the bracelet’s purpose on my own. “Anyone with the misfortune to be caught by one isn’t likely to survive long enough to speak of it.”
“But you speak as if from experience.” I pop open the segment of bone fastened to the metal lotus and fit the jewelry around my wrist before snapping the piece back in place. I barely feel its weight.
“I’ve had a great many experiences, none of which are any of your business.” Kendara flits restlessly around the workroom, returning vials of unknown substances to cupboards and books to shelves.
“Fortunately, you’re not likely to encounter any trolls in Evewyn. Nor anywhere else in Thiy. The last colony died out some time after the shamans claimed the eastern lands for their own.”
How old must the bone be if no living troll has existed in Thiy for nearly a thousand years? It must be extremely rare as well. “I suppose that means you’re not sending me out to bring you a fresh rib for a matching necklace.”
“Trolls were known to be highly resistant to magic,” she says, completely ignoring me. Another of her many talents.
Although I’ve no idea what use she has for books, I’ve read every volume she’s crammed into her numerous shelves. I recall a passage that explained how the remains of powerful creatures, such as trolls, retain certain magical properties that the creatures possessed when they were alive. Shamans often fashioned the bones of such creatures into objects like this bracelet. But not as jewelry.
“It’s a talisman,” I say, twisting the bracelet around my wrist. It’s still cool, despite that it should have warmed from my body heat.
Depending on the creature a talisman is made from, the bones not only protect against outside magic but dampen one’s own magic as well. Or amplify and change it. Those sorts of talismans are rare.
But a troll’s bone? “Protection against magic.” My smile broadens and my heart sings with a longing bordering on desperation. “Will I need such protection?”
Has the moment I’ve longed for these past four years finally arrived? Will she at last name me as her apprentice?
“Most of you do,” she mutters. I mentally curse at the way I flinch—not only for the implied insult that I should need protection beyond my own abilities but also for the reminder that I am not her only pupil. The knowledge—the fear—that I could so easily lose all