Free ARC: The Wizard's Promise by Cassandra Rose Clarke Page B

do much.
    “Are you cold?” Isolfr rose farther out of the water. “I can show you how to create a heat charm.”
    I looked at him, considering. The wind blew straight through me. But I shook my head. “It’d be easier if you just gave me some answers.”
    “I’ve given you what I can.”
    I sighed. “Why is it dangerous for you to tell Frida and Kolur who you are?”
    He hesitated. “It’s quite complicated,” he finally said. “But Frida Kuhn has – a history. She’s known to be unstable.”
    I glanced over my shoulder, at the open hatch leading down below, where Frida slept. Kolur had said Frida was a troublemaker–
    “Don’t lie to me,” I said.
    “I’m not.” Isolfr shook his head, throwing off dewy droplets of ocean water. “I’m just saying she’s a powerful woman.”
    I laughed. “Sea and sky, are you scared of her?”
    Isolfr floated in the water and didn’t answer me.
    “What did she do?” I hesitated. “Am I in danger?”
    “Not from her.” Isolfr bobbed with the swell of a wave. “She wouldn’t hurt you. But she did some magic, back when she was training in Jandanvar, that harmed my brother.”
    “She trained in Jandanvar?” I was startled and the question came out too loudly, my voice echoing out across the night. Isolfr dived below the water.
    “Oh, for–” I rubbed my forehead. This was starting to get tiresome. “Come back up!” I shouted. “I’m sorry I startled you.”
    His eyes appeared. His nose. His mouth. He really did have a lovely face.
    “So she trained in Jandanvar and hurt your brother.” I sighed. “And you don’t want her to know you’re here.”
    He nodded. “She’s frightening.”
    “Fair enough.” I didn’t add that he seemed a bit skittish in general. “All right, one more question. Do you know where we’re going?”
    He nodded. The sea foam shone around him. “You’re going to a place in the north. But I can’t say more than that yet.”
    “Jandanvar?” I leaned over the railing, far enough that my coat was dampened with sea spray. “It’s Jandanvar, isn’t it?” Anger swelled inside my chest. “That place is halfway to the Mists! They let people from the Mists wander their streets. What’s wrong with Kolur?”
    Isolfr didn’t say anything.
    I sighed and stepped away from the railing. The wind played with my hair. A place in the north . Well, that was more than Frida and Kolur had told me, at least straight on.
    “So, why will you talk to me?” I said. “Am I not as frightening as Frida?”
    “No, of course not.” Isolfr gave a disarmingly handsome smile. “I am to help you, like I said, to work with you. What you said about Jandanvar isn’t entirely true, by the way.”
    “What?”
    “That it’s halfway to the Mists. It’s in this world.”
    “I know that,” I said. “But they still let the Mists through there. And it’s a place of dangerous magic; that’s what everyone says.” It had never occurred to me that witches trained in those cold, frozen lands, casting spells up to the swirl of Jandanvar’s lights.
    “People live there,” Isolfr said.
    “Not human people.”
    “Frida is human, and she lived there.”
    I scowled at him.
    “You are right to fear the Mists, though. Those who mean us no harm never leave Jandanvar.” He lifted his chest out of the water and looked me straight in the eye. I trembled from the cold. Still, I didn’t dare leave him to slink down below where I could crawl into my bed sheets until I found warmth. He was giving me answers.
    “You should watch for mist on the water,” he said. “A certain type. Very thick.”
    “Oh, I know,” I said. “What do you think I’m wearing this bracelet for?” I lifted my wrist up and shook the bracelet for him to see. It glowed in the moonlight.
    Isolfr frowned. “That’s weak magic.”
    “It’s better than nothing.” I folded my arms over the railing, and my breath puffed out as I spoke. “Besides, any child of the north has been