Free Edge of Pathos (The Conjurors Series Book 4) by Kristen Pham

Leo.
    “Welcome, Valerie,”
Leo said, looking up from the dusty volume he was reading. “Cyrus has come up
with a new way of working with light that I’ve never heard of before, even from
ancient masters of the craft.”
    “The other
lightweavers and I have a new technique for magically embedding light into the
weapons made by the People of the Woods,” Cyrus explained, standing a little
straighter from Leo’s words. “I want to test the theory with Pathos.”
    “Of course,” Valerie
said, removing her sword from its sheath and handing it to Cyrus.
    He laid it on one of
the black tables. Pathos glowed already, because Cyrus had imbued it with light
again after her encounter with the Fractus from Elsinore when she visited
Reaper’s camp.
    Cyrus turned a crank
on the wall, and the entire ceiling of the little lab opened up to the sky, and
sunlight poured in. Valerie’s jaw dropped, and Cyrus gave her a little grin
that was an echo of his usually mischievous smile.
    “How did you manage
a major architectural overhaul in here on top of everything else?” Valerie
asked.
    “That was my doing,”
Leo said. “A friend in the Architecture Guild owed me favor. It took him
several afternoons.”
    “That’s all?”
    “Magic, Val,
remember?” Cyrus said, and it was like they were best friends again.
    But when she smiled,
his own vanished, and he turned to her sword.
    Concentrating, light
collected around Cyrus, and he glowed brightly. His fingers worked the light,
and it knit together in ever-brighter strands. Then he touched Pathos, and the
strange light pattern became embedded in her sword. There was a bright flash,
and Cyrus stepped back, sweating.
    Pathos lifted off
the table, spinning, the blade flashing so brightly that Valerie had to squint.
    “Is that supposed to
happen?” she asked.
    “I didn’t do that,”
he said, out of breath.
    Pathos spun faster
and faster, and then abruptly stilled. Valerie started to reach for it when it
slammed into the table. The blade sliced through and embedded up to the hilt.
At Pathos’s touch, the entire table glowed.
    Leo and Cyrus nodded
in satisfaction.
    “Better than we
hoped,” Leo said.
    “What happened?”
Valerie asked.
    “Leo treated the
table with some of the magic from one of the Fractus’s black weapons. Our light
weapons didn’t go out when they were near it, but they did dim. Pathos didn’t
only resist the power of the magic, it completely reversed it.”
    “So it transformed
the dark magic into light?” Valerie asked.
    Cyrus nodded.
    “I never dreamed
that would be possible,” she said.
    “It should work
against the Fractus’s old weapons,” Cyrus said. “That’s no guarantee it will be
immune to whatever these new powers are.”
    “But it’s a start.”
    “It’s a major blow
to the Fractus, my boy,” Leo said gently.
    “But the amount of
power I drew…it will take months to create the number of weapons we need with
this light treatment,” Cyrus said.
    Valerie saw now that
Cyrus drooped, and his usual glow was almost gone. How much of himself and his
magic had he poured into her sword?
    “But with the help
of the other lightweavers, couldn’t you manage it sooner?” Valerie asked.
    “They won’t be able
to draw enough power. I think that my powers changed after you saved me, Val.
They were a little above average before, but now, they are untouchable,” Cyrus
said, but without pride.
    “Chern’s words are
true,” a deep voice rang through the room, vaguely familiar.
    Valerie yanked
Pathos from the table and held it at the ready.
    “Will you let her
kill us, Cyrus?” a woman’s voice spoke now.
    “Mom?” Cyrus asked.
    Cyrus’s parents
stepped from the shadows.
    “Chern said that you
were using magic to create weapons to kill his people, but we didn’t believe
him,” Mr. Burns said.
    “You don’t
understand,” Cyrus said, his voice flat.
    “Cyrus, sweetheart,
you are so much better than this,” his mother said, her