Eyes now tightly closed, Drake grimly allowed Nicole to lead him by one hand toward Raylan’s infirmary. After the third time he’d almost broken his nose from flutterstepping into a wall on accident, he’d finally figured out that he couldn’t accidentally activate his newest rarity if he couldn’t see. Which, obviously, presented other problems.
“Your hand is so sweaty, lord!” Nicole called from ahead. “While I am flattered by your infatuation, you do realize that I only have eyes for Val, right?”
Drake glared against his closed eyes. “You know what?”
“I know many things.”
“I liked you better when you were silent and mysterious.”
“That’s what everyone says. It’s why I let Val do all the important talking.”
“How much further?”
“Not much further now,” Nicole said. “Oh hey, Val!”
The sound of slippered feet approaching at a distinctly annoyed cadence was Drake’s only assurance Nicole wasn’t teasing him again. Finally, someone responsible had arrived.
“What was the commotion?” Valentia demanded. “Has the lord been attacked?”
“A door attacked him,” Nicole said. “And then a wall, and then a banister—”
“I can flutterstep,” Drake interrupted angrily. “Which, I mean... is that normal?”
Utter silence resulted from Valentia. He almost dared open his eyes. Finally, she spoke. “We’d best go see Lydia at once.”
“Good idea,” Nicole said. “Which way was the infirmary again?”
“This is no time for your flippant jokes. Something remarkable has happened.”
“I know. Can you believe I’m the first one who got to hold his hand?” Nicole tugged on it. “Val, you should hold his other hand. We’ll make all his dreams come true!”
Drake glared without opening his eyes as he once again set off with Nicole and, he assumed, Valentia. “Can you two just get me to Lydia, please?”
More steps passed in darkness, and fortunately, Valentia did not volunteer to hold his other hand. He was starting to worry just how much sweat he and Nicole had mixed when she finally released his now damp palm.
“Careful of the door here, lord,” Nicole said. “Wouldn’t want you to be ambushed.”
A firm hand he immediately recognized as Valentia’s pressed against his back. He knew because her skin felt like an ice pack. “The door is open, and I will guide you. Lydia is just inside. While she is still resting, I agree this matter cannot wait.”
Drake trusted Valentia to guide him, even though taking large steps without being able to see what waited ahead remained nerve-wracking. Still, her firm, cold hand on his back steered him well. When a door finally thumped shut behind him, he was relieved.
“Shouldn’t you be watching the door?” Valentia asked pointedly.
“And miss Lydia’s reaction when she learns she’s no longer the only person who can flutterstep? Not a chance.”
“Then I will watch the door,” Valentia said. “If I must.”
“Wait, both of you.” Drake opened his eyes. He hadn’t flutterstepped so long as he hadn’t moved, and he was relieved to find he was in yet another small room similar to the infirmary he’d been in earlier. “Nicole, go outside and make sure we’re not disturbed.”
Two beds waited ahead. Each contained a sleeping woman, though one was obviously awake... the redhead. Emily peered sleepily from her bed and looked confused.
Nicole visibly pouted. “This is about the banister, isn’t it?”
“It’s about my priorities,” Drake said with a scowl. “If someone else decides to attack me in however long it takes me to unravel whatever magical bullshit slammed a door in my face, I want them alive. You can do that, can’t you? Take someone alive?”
“I certainly cannot,” Valentia said smugly. “Not if you want them alive afterward.”
Nicole looked between them and sighed. “Fine. But Val, you owe me a massage later.”
“If I have time.”
“And I want a full body massage. Full body, Val.”
Before Drake could even think about how to respond to that, Nicole vanished before their eyes. The door opened and closed of its own accord, then neatly shut itself.
“Gods help me,” Valentia said quietly. “I do apologize for her.”
Drake shrugged that off and looked to Lydia, who still appeared to be asleep. Her face glistened with sweat, but Raylan had assured him all the poison was gone. Perhaps she simply had a fever? Fever might follow poison.
“Lord?” Emily asked sleepily from the next bed over. “Why are you glowing like that?”
“Never mind, Emily. I’m fine. You’re fine. Go back to sleep.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.” She rolled onto her other side, then dropped back into loud snoring.
Drake glanced at Lydia, then at Valentia. “Can you wake her?”
“I think it best if you do that. My touch can be alarming when one is deep in sleep, especially if she is running a fever.”
In other words, the touch of Valentia’s hand was like getting a cold bucket of water splashed in your face. He wondered if Nicole enjoyed that. Still... Valentia was also right.
Drake closed his eyes. “Guide me to the edge of the bed. I don’t want to risk my flutterstep going off in here. If I slam into one of you at warp speed, it would be bad.”
Valentia’s ice-cold hand once again pressed against his back, sending an involuntary shiver through his body. “Step forward slowly.”
With her help, he found the edge of Lydia’s bed without finding anything else. He opened his eyes to see that Lydia wore a silky sleeping robe that looked both warm and comfortable. Her chest rose and fell evenly, which suggested she wasn’t in any pain.
He looked her over for injuries and then, as he recalled all three bolts had hit her in the torso, settled on her shoulder. There shouldn’t be any lingering pain there. The pain in his own shoulder, where he’d taken a crossbow bolt, had vanished the moment he ratted out.
He wondered just how much of their blood had mixed after he grabbed her, bleeding, and dived into that pool. He wondered about a lot right now. But the only person who could give him answers was still asleep.
He gave Lydia’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. Her breathing didn’t change. He gave it a harder squeeze, which raised only a small, adorable snort, and finally gripped and shook her as gently as she could. It felt so cruel after all she’d sacrificed for him.
“Lydia? It’s me, Clint. I need you to wake up now. We need to talk.”
Lydia stirred not long after, and Drake released her shoulder. Eyes bleary from recent sleep or worse, she peered at him from her bed. She looked so weak his heart went out to her.
This brave woman had taken three crossbow bolts for him without hesitation, and now he’d forced her awake when she wanted nothing more than to sleep. Still, Lydia visibly forced her eyes open. “What’s happened?” she asked softly.
“Nothing bad,” he assured her. “I mean, nothing immediately fatal. I’m fine, Emily’s recovering, no one else died in the attack.”
“But you need my counsel. How can I help?”
“Well, Lydia, funny story. It seems like... and try to remain calm here... I can flutterstep.”
She immediately attempted to sit up in her bed, which only led to a soft moan and a disturbing amount of gasping. Valentia rushed around to Lydia’s other side, then eased her back down on her pillows. Lydia shivered at Valentia’s touch, yet soon relaxed.
“Gloves and Raylan can only do so much,” Valentia said firmly. “If you try to leave this bed before you are recovered, I will instruct Raylan to bind you to it. Then I will freeze the bindings myself.”
“Listen to her,” Drake said. “You’ve earned a rest day. Or maybe two dozen. Thank you for taking those bolts for me.”
“You are my lord,” Lydia said calmly. “There is no need to thank me.”
“Sure, but I’m going to do it anyway. Also, you don’t need to risk yourself like that again, okay? If they’d hit me with their crossbows, I’d have just ratted out.”
Lydia swallowed with visible difficulty. “Not if they were silver bolts, lord.”
Drake blinked. “Hold up, what?”
“A bolt laced with silver, through the heart, can kill even a shifter,” Valentia said grimly. “Do shifters in your world not share this vulnerability?”
Drake’s world didn’t have shapeshifters, but apparently, here, silver was as effective against werecreatures as it was in tales from back home. Worse, no one had brought it up since for these people, silver killing shifters was common knowledge.
“Well...” Drake had no idea if the assassins had used silver bolts or not, but they could have. “That just makes it all the more clear you saved my fucking life this afternoon. So seriously, Lydia. Thank you. That’s not something I’m ever going to forget.”
She simply nodded, but it was obvious she was having trouble staying awake.
“So, back to the other thing,” Drake said. “Has anyone else been able to flutterstep?”
“That’s not something anyone but I can do.”
“I figured as much. So this is weird, right?”
She peered at him from her pillow. “How does it feel?”
“It doesn’t feel like anything. I take one step and I’m somewhere else, like walking into a door. Oh, and I nearly went off the second floor.”
“I cracked my head open once,” Lydia said. “When I was little. I took a step off the front porch and ended up banging my head on the neighbor’s fence. My parents were alarmed.”
That made him wonder about Lydia’s parents. He certainly hoped Dickcheese hadn’t killed them and abducted her. He wouldn’t ask about any of that now, not with her like this.
Drake considered. “So it’s not just me who walks into walls. How do you control it?”
“With great effort, lord. It required years of training and focus before I could trust myself to walk around an environment such as this manor. I’d worry I’d slam into a column or step off the second floor. Also, using my rarity too often exhausts me.”
“How so?”
“Six fluttersteps in succession leave me breathing heavily, much like running a sprint. Eight to twelve leaves me gasping for breath and, generally, too weak to fight effectively. I can usually only manage one or two after that before I collapse, unless I rest between them.”
“So using your flutterstep rarity burns blood like any other magic?”
“I believe so, lord. I have no way to measure it, but I do know I feel dizzy and faint after I overuse my rarity. I also feel better after eating lots of food.”
“Snacks,” Valentia added helpfully. “We save her all the sugary snacks.”
Drake counted. “I’ve flutterstepped at least... six times now?” He’d done three before he left the room, one to get down, and two more before he decided to close his eyes and let Nicole lead. He hadn’t been doing it constantly, but he hadn’t felt exhausted at any point.
“Do you feel dizzy, lord? Tired? Winded?”
“Not at all. But I should, right?”
“How far are you stepping?”
“The first few times, I blipped across a room about the size of this one. The third time, I went from inside that room to the banister, and after that, I managed to step from the second floor to the ground floor. And the last two times, I swear I blipped down half a hallway.”
“That is... amazing, lord.” Lydia stared up at him with newly focused eyes. “When I consider how to use flutterstep, the distance is as important as the frequency. Movement along level surfaces feels like a short sprint, while movement up an entire floor feels like scrambling up a steep cliff. Stepping down a whole hall multiple times would exhaust me.”
“Then why aren’t I exhausted?” Drake asked. “I don’t even feel winded.”
“I cannot say, lord. But you also say you can’t control it?”
“That’s right. I can take a few steps without warping if I focus real hard, but sooner or later, I blip across a hallway and hit a wall.”
“It sounds like his rarity is more powerful than yours is, naturally,” Valentia said quietly. “Almost... burnished.”
“Burnished?” Drake latched onto that word. “What does that mean?”
“There are powerful potions in our realm that can enhance the strength of a person’s rarity,” Lydia said. “The ingredients are rare and the recipes highly guarded. We have a few here in the manor for emergencies, but we save those for desperate situations, like Nicole.”
Drake nodded as understanding dawned. “So that’s how Raylan saved Nicole that night! He chugged a burnishing potion, didn’t he? To supercharge his regenerative powers?”
Valentia nodded, lips tight. “Without it, I do not think she would have survived.”
Drake didn’t have to ask anyone what Nicole’s death would have done to Valentia and the others. As vexing as Nicole might be sometimes, Drake was still very grateful she was alive. He didn’t dislike her. In fact... it could be she got on his nerves so easily because he was supposed to be the only smartass in the room.
“There’s something else,” Drake said. “A while back, Zuri and I got to talking about my rarity, dire rat. How it’s the same as Dickcheese’s.”
“Lord Dickcheese could also turn into a dire rat?” Lydia asked in alarm.
“He never did that in front of you?”
“No, lord. I know you mentioned you thought he might have attempted to shift during your battle, but I always assumed his rarity was the ability to teleport between realms. So... how can you and Lord Dickcheese have some such similar rarities?”
“That’s the thing, Lydia. It might not just be similar. I think I might have stolen it after I stabbed him with his own dagger.”
Valentia eyed him curiously. “You defeated a dire rat with only a dagger?”
“I did. And thinking back... our blood mixed.”
“And how much blood mixed, lord?” Lydia asked. “This may be very important.”
“While I stabbed him, he cut me with his fingernails... rat nails... multiple times. His blood also splattered me, so some of it must have gotten into my wounds.”
“Your dire rat is incredibly powerful, even for a shifter rarity,” Lydia said. “If it is like his, I do not understand why he never used it to destroy his enemies.
“I have to get injured pretty badly before I can rat out. Also, since a naked guy killed him with a dagger, perhaps he was a really weak dire rat.”
“Unless he burnished himself,” Lydia said knowingly. “Which might explain why he became so obsessed with hoarding burnish potions. I always doubted he sought those out simply so Raylan could heal injured blood thralls. I never understood his reasoning until now.”
Drake felt a rush of excitement as he considered Lydia’s words. This was absolutely possible. Based on what she’d told him, his version of flutterstep was already more powerful than hers, naturally... and if he had absorbed his dire rat rarity from Lord Dickcheese when they fought, his rat was seemingly more powerful than the old lord’s rarity by a significant margin.
If this was true, he couldn’t just copy people’s powers when he mixed blood with them.
He could copy their powers and make them more powerful.
Eyes now tightly closed, Drake grimly allowed Nicole to lead him by one hand toward Raylan’s infirmary. After the third time he’d almost broken his nose from flutterstepping into a wall on accident, he’d finally figured out that he couldn’t accidentally activate his newest rarity if he couldn’t see. Which, obviously, presented other problems.
“Your hand is so sweaty, lord!” Nicole called from ahead. “While I am flattered by your infatuation, you do realize that I only have eyes for Val, right?”
Drake glared against his closed eyes. “You know what?”
“I know many things.”
“I liked you better when you were silent and mysterious.”
“That’s what everyone says. It’s why I let Val do all the important talking.”
“How much further?”
“Not much further now,” Nicole said. “Oh hey, Val!”
The sound of slippered feet approaching at a distinctly annoyed cadence was Drake’s only assurance Nicole wasn’t teasing him again. Finally, someone responsible had arrived.
“What was the commotion?” Valentia demanded. “Has the lord been attacked?”
“A door attacked him,” Nicole said. “And then a wall, and then a banister—”
“I can flutterstep,” Drake interrupted angrily. “Which, I mean... is that normal?”
Utter silence resulted from Valentia. He almost dared open his eyes. Finally, she spoke. “We’d best go see Lydia at once.”
“Good idea,” Nicole said. “Which way was the infirmary again?”
“This is no time for your flippant jokes. Something remarkable has happened.”
“I know. Can you believe I’m the first one who got to hold his hand?” Nicole tugged on it. “Val, you should hold his other hand. We’ll make all his dreams come true!”
Drake glared without opening his eyes as he once again set off with Nicole and, he assumed, Valentia. “Can you two just get me to Lydia, please?”
More steps passed in darkness, and fortunately, Valentia did not volunteer to hold his other hand. He was starting to worry just how much sweat he and Nicole had mixed when she finally released his now damp palm.
“Careful of the door here, lord,” Nicole said. “Wouldn’t want you to be ambushed.”
A firm hand he immediately recognized as Valentia’s pressed against his back. He knew because her skin felt like an ice pack. “The door is open, and I will guide you. Lydia is just inside. While she is still resting, I agree this matter cannot wait.”
Drake trusted Valentia to guide him, even though taking large steps without being able to see what waited ahead remained nerve-wracking. Still, her firm, cold hand on his back steered him well. When a door finally thumped shut behind him, he was relieved.
“Shouldn’t you be watching the door?” Valentia asked pointedly.
“And miss Lydia’s reaction when she learns she’s no longer the only person who can flutterstep? Not a chance.”
“Then I will watch the door,” Valentia said. “If I must.”
“Wait, both of you.” Drake opened his eyes. He hadn’t flutterstepped so long as he hadn’t moved, and he was relieved to find he was in yet another small room similar to the infirmary he’d been in earlier. “Nicole, go outside and make sure we’re not disturbed.”
Two beds waited ahead. Each contained a sleeping woman, though one was obviously awake... the redhead. Emily peered sleepily from her bed and looked confused.
Nicole visibly pouted. “This is about the banister, isn’t it?”
“It’s about my priorities,” Drake said with a scowl. “If someone else decides to attack me in however long it takes me to unravel whatever magical bullshit slammed a door in my face, I want them alive. You can do that, can’t you? Take someone alive?”
“I certainly cannot,” Valentia said smugly. “Not if you want them alive afterward.”
Nicole looked between them and sighed. “Fine. But Val, you owe me a massage later.”
“If I have time.”
“And I want a full body massage. Full body, Val.”
Before Drake could even think about how to respond to that, Nicole vanished before their eyes. The door opened and closed of its own accord, then neatly shut itself.
“Gods help me,” Valentia said quietly. “I do apologize for her.”
Drake shrugged that off and looked to Lydia, who still appeared to be asleep. Her face glistened with sweat, but Raylan had assured him all the poison was gone. Perhaps she simply had a fever? Fever might follow poison.
“Lord?” Emily asked sleepily from the next bed over. “Why are you glowing like that?”
“Never mind, Emily. I’m fine. You’re fine. Go back to sleep.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.” She rolled onto her other side, then dropped back into loud snoring.
Drake glanced at Lydia, then at Valentia. “Can you wake her?”
“I think it best if you do that. My touch can be alarming when one is deep in sleep, especially if she is running a fever.”
In other words, the touch of Valentia’s hand was like getting a cold bucket of water splashed in your face. He wondered if Nicole enjoyed that. Still... Valentia was also right.
Drake closed his eyes. “Guide me to the edge of the bed. I don’t want to risk my flutterstep going off in here. If I slam into one of you at warp speed, it would be bad.”
Valentia’s ice-cold hand once again pressed against his back, sending an involuntary shiver through his body. “Step forward slowly.”
With her help, he found the edge of Lydia’s bed without finding anything else. He opened his eyes to see that Lydia wore a silky sleeping robe that looked both warm and comfortable. Her chest rose and fell evenly, which suggested she wasn’t in any pain.
He looked her over for injuries and then, as he recalled all three bolts had hit her in the torso, settled on her shoulder. There shouldn’t be any lingering pain there. The pain in his own shoulder, where he’d taken a crossbow bolt, had vanished the moment he ratted out.
He wondered just how much of their blood had mixed after he grabbed her, bleeding, and dived into that pool. He wondered about a lot right now. But the only person who could give him answers was still asleep.
He gave Lydia’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. Her breathing didn’t change. He gave it a harder squeeze, which raised only a small, adorable snort, and finally gripped and shook her as gently as she could. It felt so cruel after all she’d sacrificed for him.
“Lydia? It’s me, Clint. I need you to wake up now. We need to talk.”
Lydia stirred not long after, and Drake released her shoulder. Eyes bleary from recent sleep or worse, she peered at him from her bed. She looked so weak his heart went out to her.
This brave woman had taken three crossbow bolts for him without hesitation, and now he’d forced her awake when she wanted nothing more than to sleep. Still, Lydia visibly forced her eyes open. “What’s happened?” she asked softly.
“Nothing bad,” he assured her. “I mean, nothing immediately fatal. I’m fine, Emily’s recovering, no one else died in the attack.”
“But you need my counsel. How can I help?”
“Well, Lydia, funny story. It seems like... and try to remain calm here... I can flutterstep.”
She immediately attempted to sit up in her bed, which only led to a soft moan and a disturbing amount of gasping. Valentia rushed around to Lydia’s other side, then eased her back down on her pillows. Lydia shivered at Valentia’s touch, yet soon relaxed.
“Gloves and Raylan can only do so much,” Valentia said firmly. “If you try to leave this bed before you are recovered, I will instruct Raylan to bind you to it. Then I will freeze the bindings myself.”
“Listen to her,” Drake said. “You’ve earned a rest day. Or maybe two dozen. Thank you for taking those bolts for me.”
“You are my lord,” Lydia said calmly. “There is no need to thank me.”
“Sure, but I’m going to do it anyway. Also, you don’t need to risk yourself like that again, okay? If they’d hit me with their crossbows, I’d have just ratted out.”
Lydia swallowed with visible difficulty. “Not if they were silver bolts, lord.”
Drake blinked. “Hold up, what?”
“A bolt laced with silver, through the heart, can kill even a shifter,” Valentia said grimly. “Do shifters in your world not share this vulnerability?”
Drake’s world didn’t have shapeshifters, but apparently, here, silver was as effective against werecreatures as it was in tales from back home. Worse, no one had brought it up since for these people, silver killing shifters was common knowledge.
“Well...” Drake had no idea if the assassins had used silver bolts or not, but they could have. “That just makes it all the more clear you saved my fucking life this afternoon. So seriously, Lydia. Thank you. That’s not something I’m ever going to forget.”
She simply nodded, but it was obvious she was having trouble staying awake.
“So, back to the other thing,” Drake said. “Has anyone else been able to flutterstep?”
“That’s not something anyone but I can do.”
“I figured as much. So this is weird, right?”
She peered at him from her pillow. “How does it feel?”
“It doesn’t feel like anything. I take one step and I’m somewhere else, like walking into a door. Oh, and I nearly went off the second floor.”
“I cracked my head open once,” Lydia said. “When I was little. I took a step off the front porch and ended up banging my head on the neighbor’s fence. My parents were alarmed.”
That made him wonder about Lydia’s parents. He certainly hoped Dickcheese hadn’t killed them and abducted her. He wouldn’t ask about any of that now, not with her like this.
Drake considered. “So it’s not just me who walks into walls. How do you control it?”
“With great effort, lord. It required years of training and focus before I could trust myself to walk around an environment such as this manor. I’d worry I’d slam into a column or step off the second floor. Also, using my rarity too often exhausts me.”
“How so?”
“Six fluttersteps in succession leave me breathing heavily, much like running a sprint. Eight to twelve leaves me gasping for breath and, generally, too weak to fight effectively. I can usually only manage one or two after that before I collapse, unless I rest between them.”
“So using your flutterstep rarity burns blood like any other magic?”
“I believe so, lord. I have no way to measure it, but I do know I feel dizzy and faint after I overuse my rarity. I also feel better after eating lots of food.”
“Snacks,” Valentia added helpfully. “We save her all the sugary snacks.”
Drake counted. “I’ve flutterstepped at least... six times now?” He’d done three before he left the room, one to get down, and two more before he decided to close his eyes and let Nicole lead. He hadn’t been doing it constantly, but he hadn’t felt exhausted at any point.
“Do you feel dizzy, lord? Tired? Winded?”
“Not at all. But I should, right?”
“How far are you stepping?”
“The first few times, I blipped across a room about the size of this one. The third time, I went from inside that room to the banister, and after that, I managed to step from the second floor to the ground floor. And the last two times, I swear I blipped down half a hallway.”
“That is... amazing, lord.” Lydia stared up at him with newly focused eyes. “When I consider how to use flutterstep, the distance is as important as the frequency. Movement along level surfaces feels like a short sprint, while movement up an entire floor feels like scrambling up a steep cliff. Stepping down a whole hall multiple times would exhaust me.”
“Then why aren’t I exhausted?” Drake asked. “I don’t even feel winded.”
“I cannot say, lord. But you also say you can’t control it?”
“That’s right. I can take a few steps without warping if I focus real hard, but sooner or later, I blip across a hallway and hit a wall.”
“It sounds like his rarity is more powerful than yours is, naturally,” Valentia said quietly. “Almost... burnished.”
“Burnished?” Drake latched onto that word. “What does that mean?”
“There are powerful potions in our realm that can enhance the strength of a person’s rarity,” Lydia said. “The ingredients are rare and the recipes highly guarded. We have a few here in the manor for emergencies, but we save those for desperate situations, like Nicole.”
Drake nodded as understanding dawned. “So that’s how Raylan saved Nicole that night! He chugged a burnishing potion, didn’t he? To supercharge his regenerative powers?”
Valentia nodded, lips tight. “Without it, I do not think she would have survived.”
Drake didn’t have to ask anyone what Nicole’s death would have done to Valentia and the others. As vexing as Nicole might be sometimes, Drake was still very grateful she was alive. He didn’t dislike her. In fact... it could be she got on his nerves so easily because he was supposed to be the only smartass in the room.
“There’s something else,” Drake said. “A while back, Zuri and I got to talking about my rarity, dire rat. How it’s the same as Dickcheese’s.”
“Lord Dickcheese could also turn into a dire rat?” Lydia asked in alarm.
“He never did that in front of you?”
“No, lord. I know you mentioned you thought he might have attempted to shift during your battle, but I always assumed his rarity was the ability to teleport between realms. So... how can you and Lord Dickcheese have some such similar rarities?”
“That’s the thing, Lydia. It might not just be similar. I think I might have stolen it after I stabbed him with his own dagger.”
Valentia eyed him curiously. “You defeated a dire rat with only a dagger?”
“I did. And thinking back... our blood mixed.”
“And how much blood mixed, lord?” Lydia asked. “This may be very important.”
“While I stabbed him, he cut me with his fingernails... rat nails... multiple times. His blood also splattered me, so some of it must have gotten into my wounds.”
“Your dire rat is incredibly powerful, even for a shifter rarity,” Lydia said. “If it is like his, I do not understand why he never used it to destroy his enemies.
“I have to get injured pretty badly before I can rat out. Also, since a naked guy killed him with a dagger, perhaps he was a really weak dire rat.”
“Unless he burnished himself,” Lydia said knowingly. “Which might explain why he became so obsessed with hoarding burnish potions. I always doubted he sought those out simply so Raylan could heal injured blood thralls. I never understood his reasoning until now.”
Drake felt a rush of excitement as he considered Lydia’s words. This was absolutely possible. Based on what she’d told him, his version of flutterstep was already more powerful than hers, naturally... and if he had absorbed his dire rat rarity from Lord Dickcheese when they fought, his rat was seemingly more powerful than the old lord’s rarity by a significant margin.
If this was true, he couldn’t just copy people’s powers when he mixed blood with them.
He could copy their powers and make them more powerful.
