Millennial Mage novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Toll House
The toll keeper's smithy smelled of cold coal and old iron.
Bran found a jeweler's file in a drawer, wiped it on his sleeve and sat me on an upturned bucket.
Teo knelt in front of me with his hands flat on either side of the silver, to keep it off my skin.
"Hold still," Bran said, and his voice was not steady.
"I'm holding."
"You're shaking."
"That's different."
He set the file to the thin hinge at the back of my neck and began to work.
The sound went through my teeth.
It took an hour.
Isaura stood in the doorway with her arms folded, watching the road, and nobody talked.
Teo's thumbs moved on my collarbones in small slow circles.
Bran's hands were old and sure, and once I felt a drop of water land on my shoulder that was not from the roof.
I did not turn around.
The silver gave with a tiny sharp snap.
The collar dropped into Teo's palm, and everything rushed back at once.
The smithy came to me in one bright piece: sixty-one horseshoes on the wall, nine jars on the shelf, the three steps to the yard.
Behind them came the rest of the world, the wagons in the yard, the road, the stones of the toll house.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Millennial Mage are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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