"As long as they didn't touch it directly, they should be alright," Zelda reported. She sat across from him and lay her palms flat on the table so she would not rub her eyes. "But you should tell them that they ought to report here within the next six days so we can check in on them." If she pretended he was just a regular person, then this would be fine. Of course, if he was just a regular person, she would not have burned herself out trying to fix this for him.

"And that will probably allow me to figure out who smuggled it onto the boat," she added, "As they'll probably have a higher level of the Pictish magic in their system." Although really, she wasn't sure on this - the smuggling had never been her number one concern. Besides, Zelda was half-convinced that fear of death would lead their culprit to confess once they were brought in.

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