Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted novel Chapter 391

LISA

With Ava out to purify the large mass of corruption she calls a taint, and Lucas busy being Alpha, I’ve been stuck in Kellan’s cabin, surrounded by ten werewolves in tactical gear and impassive faces.

They don’t talk, no matter how much I try to be friendly to them. Maybe they’re the kind of wolves who don’t like humans. Or maybe they’re just really professional.

They aren’t holding me hostage or anything, though, so I learn to ignore them. Eventually they follow me to the Grand Sage’s cabin.

Thick gray smoke curls from his chimney, letting me know that it will at least be warm inside. Maybe no tea or food, though. Ever since Elverly’s been working in the kitchen to feed the pack, his cabin’s turned into a bit of a bachelor pad.

My boots crunch on the path to his home, shoveled free of feet of snow thanks to someone Kellan assigned to the task during the last round of snowfall.

I duck through the doorway into blessed warmth.

Only two of my guards follow me inside. The others spread out around the cabin’s perimeter like silent shadows in tactical gear. At least I won’t have ten pairs of eyes boring into my back while I’m in here.

Hopefully they know to keep their mouths shut, too. Almost no one knows the Grand Sage is actually a gnome. Everyone just thinks of him as the eccentric Dr. Blackwell.

The two who entered position themselves by the door, weapons at the ready. Their faces remain impassive, but I catch the slight wrinkle of their noses. The Grand Sage’s cabin smells like a mix of burning metal, ozone, and something vaguely medicinal.

It’s ever-changing, depending on what he’s working on.

Papers cover every surface, covered in the Sage’s cramped handwriting. Bits of metal and crystal lie scattered among the documents. The man himself hunches over his workbench, muttering as he sketches something that looks like a cross between an hourglass and a medieval torture device.

I sink into the chair across from him, but he doesn’t look up. His quill scratches against the parchment as he adds more details to whatever he’s designing. After watching him work for several minutes, I clear my throat.

He startles, ink splattering across his latest drawing. "Oh! Child, when did you arrive?"

"Just now." Lifting my arm, I nod toward the brace, its metal glinting in the lamplight. It’s always dim in here. "I had to use it."

His eyes light up behind his wire-rimmed glasses. "Really? How did it perform?"

An inkwell nearly falls over as he scrambles for a fresh sheet of paper. His quill hovers expectantly as he waits for my response. I’ve given him so many pens, but he really likes his quills lately. Says it’s a more authentic experience.

"Bonding?" I pounce on that word. It’s his second time using it now. "You never told me I was bonded with it before." Or he did, and it was lost in all the words he likes to use when he gets excited. It’s certainly a possibility.

"Ah, perhaps I should clarify." He sets down his quill to regard me with a thoughtful stare. "It’s not a bond like what you’ve seen between mates or pack bonds. Think of it as a natural reaction. The brace becomes sensitive to its wearer over time, affected by mental state and purpose."

"But how does that work if I can’t use magic?" Magitech is already something way over my head. The fact that some of my blood can power a magical item is already bonkers. Having something that can somehow read my mind is crazier still. It was already weird to me that visualizing what I wanted out of my brace would cause that shape to materialize; this is on a whole different level.

"While you cannot release the magic within your blood, what exists in your body can still be affected by you. In fact, there was actually a fascinating case in history—a Fae-blessed human woman who transformed her blood into a type of poison. She became a walking toxin. No one fully understood how she managed it, but she became a much sought-after assassin. I hear she was beautiful, too."

My stomach turns. "That’s disgusting." I stare at the brace with new wariness. "Wait, are you saying this thing has some kind of sentience? Because that’s creepy as hell." Artificial intelligence, but with magic.

The Grand Sage chuckles. "No, no. Not sentience. Think of it more as an extension of your arm. It responds to your intent, your emotions, just as your muscles respond to your brain’s signals."

"That’s... not as comforting as you probably think it is."

"Yes, I suppose it wouldn’t be."