[The answers to all the questions clattering around in his head come soon enough. What the tarot cards were supposed to do. How many cards were entrusted to their care, not one of them escaping that small parcel of responsibility.
Most of them had squared up to the task. But not all of them, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The spell had broken because a card had been damaged.
As Ambrose makes this grim pronouncement, Wilhelm looks away — half sure that if he meets the mage's eye, he'll be able to see inside his skull and find the singed edges of his tarot card there. His chest tightens. His knees wobble. His arms prickle as if his own edges are wearing away.
The moment they're dismissed, he pushes through the study door and spills out into the corridor. In the stream of people flowing solemnly toward the throne room, he slips away.
When he reappears in the throne room, several minutes late and shadowed by a guard, his face is pale. And it only gets paler. He'd burned a card, and someone was dead. He'd burned a card, and a whole city was on fire.]
I wasn't feeling well. I just had to sit down for a minute.
[By which he means he was having a panic attack and needed to find an empty nook in which to collect himself.]
The guard that found me seemed to take it personally.
no subject
Most of them had squared up to the task. But not all of them, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The spell had broken because a card had been damaged.
As Ambrose makes this grim pronouncement, Wilhelm looks away — half sure that if he meets the mage's eye, he'll be able to see inside his skull and find the singed edges of his tarot card there. His chest tightens. His knees wobble. His arms prickle as if his own edges are wearing away.
The moment they're dismissed, he pushes through the study door and spills out into the corridor. In the stream of people flowing solemnly toward the throne room, he slips away.
When he reappears in the throne room, several minutes late and shadowed by a guard, his face is pale. And it only gets paler. He'd burned a card, and someone was dead. He'd burned a card, and a whole city was on fire.]
I wasn't feeling well. I just had to sit down for a minute.
[By which he means he was having a panic attack and needed to find an empty nook in which to collect himself.]
The guard that found me seemed to take it personally.