Silver Secrets

Chapter 24: Mel

Aster's eyes glint. "I think he's coming. Wait for it..."

I fold my hands in my lap, an excited shudder shooting up my spine. Aster and I have been working on my powers for almost a week, and this is the biggest test of my strength yet.

If it works, I would have just done actual, real telepathy.

A second later, the front door slams open and Rowan stumbles into the kitchen, panting and shaking. He's not even fully changed, and has great paws instead of hands. Dark brown fur covers his arms up to his elbows, but it dissolves even as I watch. His breeches are torn and his wild eyes rove over the kitchen until they land on me, and I instantly feel sick with guilt when I see the terror in them.

"Mel, what the hell was that?" he demands, his body sagging against the door frame.

"Telepathy?" It comes out as a question rather than an answer. I bite my lip. "Sorry."

He sighs, and I can almost see the adrenaline draining away. "I thought you were hurt. I was just hunting and I heard your voice in my head, calling me, except it wasn't your voice..." He trails off, squeezing his eyes closed. "Please don't ever do that again."

"Sorry," I murmur. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Aster clucks her tongue. "It's not her fault you panicked. Melanthe's just made a huge leap forward."

"Yeah, congratulations," Rowan drawls, his eyes never leaving Aster.

"Hey, this could be useful to us at some point," I interject, well aware of the remains of the fur on Rowan's forearms and the sharp points of his teeth that glint when he talks.

Rowan's eyes flicker back to me, and something in his expression softens slightly. "Maybe. I just hope we're never in a situation where we need it."

I sigh, relieved. Rowan blatantly distrusts Aster, and I'm just waiting for the pot to boil over. He spends as much time away from the cottage as possible, hunting or mending fences or splitting logs or anything else Aster wants him to do. He's sullen when we lie together in the night, and I know he's counting down the days until we can leave. When I confronted him the other day, he just muttered something vague about trusting his instincts.

I don't care about Rowan's instincts, though. Aster has taught me so much in the space of only a week, and I'll be damned if I'm giving up the only chance I have of becoming a real psychic.

Plus, my headaches have disappeared.

"Well, at least we know that worked," Aster says, clapping her hands together. "I'm afraid there's not much more you can do except practice."

"Great," Rowan mutters.

Aster ignores him. "Next, we'll work on healing."

I feel a shift in Rowan's thought-buzz, which, I noticed yesterday, has become a lot more thought and a lot less buzz, so I've been trying to tune it out. I can't help hearing this, though, as his current thoughts, which feel a lot like back off, are so loud he may as well have screamed them.

Aster notices too. I get the impression that she doesn't actually try not to listen in, no matter what she says. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt her. Be glad we aren't working on actual mind control."

"Mind control?" I recoil in horror. It's bad enough that I can overhear what someone's thinking, but actually controlling them? I know I did it with that hare, but that was different. It wasn't human.

Aster blinks at me. "Well, yes. It's extremely difficult, though, takes years of practice to use it on a person. I mostly use it to get the sheep to go in a straight line."

I fidget uncomfortably. "I still don't like the sound of it."

She laughs, going over to the sink to wash her hands, before coming to sit down opposite me. "Wait until you hear about energy manipulation. That's how psychics used to keep each other in check. If someone was going a little power-crazy, they might wake up one morning to find their abilities blocked."

"You could do that?"

Her face darkens. "In theory. It's very painful to do, though. At least, that's what I've heard. Luckily healing is neither difficult nor painful, and anyway, this part is all just theory. Sit down, Rowan, it might be useful if you hear this as well."

He looks like he's about to argue, but then he sits down beside me without protest.

"The main thing you got to know about a psychic's healing," Aster begins, and I sense a long speech coming on, "is that it all relies on reparative energy. Everyone has this energy, but psychics are the only ones who can control it. We also have more of it than your average human—or any other creature, for that matter," she says, with a pointed glance at Rowan. "Maybe you've noticed this."

"Actually, I always did heal quite fast." I remember all the times I scalded my hands in hot water only for it to never even blister, all the times I recovered from a cold in a matter of hours. "Perdiscio just said I had a fast immune system."

Aster snorts. The day after we first got here, when I told her Perdiscio had been trying to help me, she made sure I knew exactly what she thought about human scientists."Of course he said that. Human physicians, they don't know nothing."

"Perdiscio's a good—"

"Did you ever visit a real healer, Melanthe?" Aster cuts in.

"No." There were healers in Moon Bay who claimed to use magic to cure everything from fever to madness, but they were too expensive to go to and anyway, Perdiscio always said they were frauds. Besides, I never needed them.

"They're psychics," Aster whispers conspiratorially. "Not real ones, mind, but we didn't always keep to ourselves so much. Healers are descended from psychics who married humans generations ago. Their powers are weakened, though. They're not good for anything more than fixing a few cuts and bruises."

"The Guard used them sometimes," Rowan says suddenly. "Once I got my jaw broken when I broke up a tavern brawl, so they sent me to a healer. Quicker than a physician."

"You never told me that," I say.

He shrugs. "Part of the job."

Aster raps on the table to get my attention again. "Like I was saying, we can control our healing energy. Say you knew you were going to get in a battle or something. You could stop all unnatural healing for a week or two beforehand, save up energy. Then, when an enemy runs you through, you can get right back up again and give him the fright of his life. There's limits, though."

"Like what?" I ask, because I know that's what Aster wants.

"You can't regrow limbs. Or your head, for that matter, so don't go around treasoning. Ha ha. Also, your powers are entirely useless against silver, just like everything unhuman in this world."

"Silver?" I exchange a glance with Rowan. We both know exactly what silver could do to him, but to me? "Like...silver poisoning?"

"Sort of." Aster grimaces. "But not really. It won't make you sick, but if silver gets into your blood then you'll die almost instantly."

I shudder, but not for the reason they think.

I've been carrying a silver knife around all this time. If I had ever tried to sharpen it or something, and pricked my finger...

Captain Holanan probably didn't know about that when he gave it to me. How could he? He's probably never met a real psychic.

Even so, after we leave Aster's house I'm going to throw that thing away the first chance I get. I don't even care where it ends up anymore. I just want it away from me.