by Bree Barton
Mia swallowed. “You knew I had magic?”
“You think I haven’t heard about the Angel of Ashes?” Nell smirked. “For all its lofty aspirations, White Lagoon is still a small town. Everyone knows everything.”
“Then you know I’m an utter disaster when it comes to calibration. Even when I heal my own superficial burns, it exhausts me so deeply I can barely stand.”
“Calibration?” Nelladine raised a brow. “It’s magic. Not ingineering. I bet you’re just not balancing the elements, which is a common enough mistake.” She flipped the long dark braids off her shoulders. “I can teach you, if you want. On one condition.”
Mia tensed, but Nell’s smile was impish.
“I get to do your pigment first.”
They ate a modest supper of roasted potatoes, flame-toasted bread, and non-bloody cabbage stew, topped off with ale from Ville’s cask. As Zai cleared the plates off the stone slab, Nelladine instructed Mia to sit on the bench.
“Hair first,” she said. “Pigment after.”
She pulled a wide-tooth comb out of her satchel, then stuck three hairpins between her lips.
“Will you help me with the jib, Ville?” Zai said. “The luff keeps coming loose.”
Ville stood and stretched. “I do love a loose luff.”
“Reroute the halyard back to the mast,” Nell said, pins still in her mouth.
Zai scratched his head. “Tried that already. Puts too much pressure on the furler.”
“Then untie the halyard from the shackle, pull it down hard, and have Ville push the jib up the furler slot.” Off Mia’s look of surprise, Nell added, “Oh, did I forget to mention? I’m a better sailor than either of them.”
“It’s true,” Zai confirmed. “Ask Nell how old she was when she sailed all the way from Pembuk. Just a girl and her boat.”
“How old?” Mia asked, genuinely curious.
A shadow passed over Nelladine’s face. Mia had seen that shadow once before, in the disrobing chamber.
“Not old enough,” Nell said.
“To hells with the furler,” Ville said, rubbing his hands together. “Show me the new fyre ice, Zai. We’ll leave the girls to their women whimsy.”
“Excuse me?” Nell said, affronted. “Women whimsy?”
“You misunderstood me! I said whim and whimsy.”
He gave a droll wink as he strolled out of the galley, Zai on his heels.
“That boy.” Nell clucked her tongue. “He studies fyre ice day and night, but that doesn’t seem to matter, he’s still a kid in a candy store every time he sees it.”
Mia waited to see if she’d bring up the boat from Pembuk. But Nell said nothing as she began working her comb through Mia’s curls, carefully pinning up one plait at a time.
“Your hair is almost as curly as mine, though mine has more texture, obviously. You’ve got all these little red silk ringlets, have you ever thought of braiding it? I think a headful of red braids would look stunning on you.”
Mia assessed her dented reflection. There was no mirror on the boat—Zai the consummate bachelor did not sit preening in front of a looking glass. Nell had fashioned one out of a shiny pewter plate. The reflections were slightly distorted, but frankly that felt more indicative of Mia’s mental state.
“My mother used to comb my hair,” she said. “She was the only one who ever had the patience for it.”
“Was it awful? My mother used to comb mine, it took hours. One of us was always screaming by the end, though it was a coin toss as to which.”
Mia’s smile was genuine. “For us it was the opposite. We never stopped laughing.”
If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was still a little girl with wild, unruly tresses. Sitting in front of the looking glass for hours on end, talking and giggling. Tell me something I don’t know about you, her mother would say.
“You don’t have to talk about why you’re looking for her,” Nell said. “Unless you want to.”
Mia thought of the many somethings she’d told her mother over the years, things that seemed gigantic at the time. She’d snuck scraps to a pig in a market stall. She’d peeked through a window in Ilwysion and seen so-and-so take off her glove. She’d had a dream about kissing Domeniq du Zol.
Then she thought of the much larger somethings her mother had never told her.
“She’s not who I thought she was,” Mia confessed. “She lied to me my whole life. But I still need her. I have to go back to Glas Ddir to help someone, and I can’t do it without her.”
Nell looked contemplative. “Did she actually lie? Or did she just keep secrets?”
“She liked to say secrets are just another way people lie to one another.”
Nelladine laughed. “I think I like your mother. I always say that secrets are what make us real. Which is really the same thing, isn’t it? People lying to one another is part of what makes us human, we wouldn’t be very interesting if we only told the truth. There.”
She pinned the last of Mia’s plaits, then squeezed onto the bench, scooting the candle closer.
“Pivot, please.”
Mia pivoted toward her. Nell cupped her chin in her palm.
“How do you make your skin so soft?” Mia asked.
“What do you think all the lotions are for? I don’t use them for moral reasons!” Nell angled Mia’s head to catch more of the candlelight. “Good, stay just like that. And don’t blink.”
“Didn’t you say you’d teach me magic?”
“Yes, yes, I’m getting to that.”
Mia watched her stride to the stone slab and heat two small silver tins over a flame. Nell unrolled a strip of black linen and laid out all manner of pots, vials, sponges, and long brushes with white bristles, as meticulous as a surgeon lining up her tools. After she’d arranged everything, she sauntered back to the slab, where she poked at the substance bubbling inside the first tin.
“Nice creamy consistency, good. Should be ready now.” Nell spooned rosy-beige cream into an egg-shaped bowl. Then she brought the bowl back to the table, dipped a sponge wedge into the clay pot, and began brushing the cream up Mia’s cheeks.
“Let me know if it’s too hot.”
“It isn’t.”
“See how I’m applying pigment in the hollows? We want a touch of shadow, then we tint it lighter to make your cheekbones pop. Always rub it smoothly into your skin so it looks natural; if you don’t do it evenly it’ll cake.”
Nell turned Mia’s face toward the dented mirror. “Look! Marvel at yourself! Doesn’t that look pretty? I’d kill for your bone structure.”
Mia had to admit: her cheekbones had never been so strikingly defined.
“What’s it called, the thing you just did?”
“Bleeding the pigment.”
“That sounds awful.”
“Why do people always think bleeding sounds awful?” She shook her head. “I think it’s strange to be so frightened when someone mentions blood. Blood is the most natural thing there is! In Pembuk, we have moon circles every month, where women come together and celebrate their moon cycles.”
Mia’s mouth dropped open. “You bleed . . . together?”
Nell laughed. “Not simultaneously. We don’t all bleed onto the same blanket, Raven! But we sit and eat and talk together, honoring the elements in the physical world, and the elements in our bodies. It’s a time of communion, of being proud to be a woman. Proud to be a witch.”
Mia couldn’t imagine it. Like everything else women did in Glas Ddir, bleeding was something to be ashamed of.
“Are all Pembuka women like you?” she asked. “Proud of who they are?”
The same shadow flitted over Nelladine’s face.
“The glass kingdom is a good place for women to live. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good place for all women.”
When Nell laid down her brush, Mia could feel her steering the conversation into safer waters.
“Here’s the thing, Raven.” She lifted Mia’s chin.
“Practicing magic is not so different from applying pigment. It’s a way of bleeding and blending, of seeing things as more than the sum of their parts. Magic means taking what already exists and highlighting some parts, shadowing others. It’s that in-between place, the balance between opposites, where true beauty resides.”
She stood, stretching her long arms overhead. Mia watched her reach into the ample space between her breasts and pull out a small flask, which she placed on the table.
“Speaking of secrets: your bosom is a treasure trove of them.”
Nelladine laughed her husky laugh. “Look that over while I mix the paste.”
Mia tipped the flask upside down and gently tapped the bottom. A tiny scroll of parchment popped out. Then another.
“Careful,” Nell called over her shoulder, scooping the contents of the second tin into a small scalloped pot. “They roll.”
Mia shook out more scrolls, at least a dozen, maybe more. The parchment was worn thin, well loved—or at least well read—the words inside smudged from years of finger oils. She unfurled one scroll.
There were no words. Only symbols.
Runes.
She was struck by one rune in particular: a circle bisected by three bold lines, each with three fletchings at the end. As the lines sliced through the circle, they carved it into six identical wedges, like a stoneberry pie.
Mia felt certain she had seen the symbol before.
Nell sat down with her pot of warm paste. She began sorting through the scrolls, muttering to herself. “I think I lost one of the Fires—doesn’t matter, the only one you really need is the Hex. Oh! Right. I don’t know where my head is half the time, I truly don’t.” She dipped her fingers into the pot. “May I touch your eyes?”
“Haven’t you already been doing that?”
“This time is different. A little less pigment, a little more magic. I need to hear you say it.”
“Yes, Nell. You can touch my eyes.”
“Good. Close them.”
She began slathering paste onto Mia’s eyelids, asking “Too hot?” But of course, it wasn’t.
“Gorgeous, perfect,” Nell said. “Now open.”
Mia sucked in her breath.
The scrolls were no longer covered with symbols. The runes had become words.
Chapter 25
Experiment
THE SCROLLS TEEMED WITH words, all scribbled in large, bold handwriting.
Mia touched her eyelids. “How did you . . . ?”
“Magic, obviously. Sometimes our eyes need a little help to see what’s right in front of them.”
Nelladine unrolled a larger version of the six-spoked symbol, setting two pots of paste on either end.
“Why don’t we start here? Read those to me, the six points on the Elemental Hex.”
Mia cleared her throat and began.
She stopped halfway through. “I don’t understand.”
“Already?” Nell teased. “And here I thought you were bookish.”
“I was taught there were four elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. And why are these linked to human anatomy?”
“All books are limited in what they can teach, the books in Glas Ddir most of all. There have always been six elements, and they are all connected, a system of balances that is constantly shifting. You know magic is about the imbalance of power, yes?”
“Of course.”
“But people misinterpret what that imbalance means. Magic has been around long before humans were abusing power.” She flourished a hand toward the black ocean. “Wind and Water. Two of the original tyrants. You think human beings created tyranny? The elements have long warred with one another. But there is a system. What that means for us—the people who practice magic—is that the elements are split into three pairs. Three counterbalances. Earth and Water, Wood and Wind, Fire and Stone.”
“And what is a counterbalance, exactly?”
“Magic is a response to an imbalance of power, that’s true—an external imbalance. What people don’t always talk about is how, if you want to be a good magician, you have to balance the elements inside yourself.”
Mia pointed to the other words around the Hex. “But I don’t have Wood inside myself. Or Stone. Or—”
“It’s not literal, more of a resonance. Sorry, give me a second, it’s been a while since I’ve tried to explain this.” Nell wrinkled her forehead. Then she brightened. “You said you’ve healed someone?”
Mia nodded. “Most recently, myself.”
“Gorgeous. And what do you think about when you heal yourself?”
“I . . . I’m never entirely sure what to think about. My old teacher taught me that a gifted Dujia should empty her mind.”
Nell snorted. “You can’t use magic without thinking! Magic is where your head and heart meet.”
Mia winced. Empty your mind, Zaga had said as Princess Karri bled out on the snow.
“Let me put it another way,” Nell said. “What images do you conjure when you heal someone?”
“When I’m healing a burn, I conjure up cold things. Snow and ice.”
“Perfect, yes, that’s exactly it! Your flesh is the element of Earth”—Nell tapped the easternmost point of the Hex, then drew her finger to the left, landing on the westernmost point—“and when it burns, when it blisters, you counteract it with images of frozen Water.”
“Shouldn’t Water and Fire be on opposing ends?”
“I didn’t make the Hex, Raven. I can only tell you the way I’ve come to interpret it. It’s not an exact science. Each element is in relationship with the other four elements on the Hex, too, not just its counterbalance.”
Mia scrutinized the Hex. “Who invented it?”
“No one. It just is. Of course magicians tweak the Hex in their own ways. Mine was passed down to me by my grandmother. When I was younger, I had trouble controlling my magic, but it got better when I learned to balance the elements.
Take what I did to Ville. The knife cut into his flesh, Earth. The wound jolted that element out of the body’s natural balance. “So I conjured up the counter element. I called up a memory of myself crouching beside a mountain stream in Pembuk, reaching down to cup sweet, cold water in my hand.”
“That’s such a beautiful image,” Mia murmured.
“I’ve found the more beautiful the image, the more pleasurable the magic. The trick is to have a rich inner life. Sensual memories are best, and they’re always more powerful if there’s a strong feeling. Love. Loss.”
Mia frowned. She wasn’t exactly earning high marks in the “sensual feelings” department.
An image sprang to mind: Nanu, Dom’s grandmother in Refúj. Mia had touched Nanu’s chest to clear her lungs.
“Once I healed a woman who was having trouble breathing,” she said. “I guess the element of Wind was out of balance? But I didn’t counteract it—I thought of the same element. I remembered the wind in Ilwysion where I grew up.”
“Is Ilwysion a forest, by any chance?”
Mia blinked. “How did you know?”
Nelladine tapped the Hex, triumphant. “Wood. You were thinking of Wood, you just didn’t know it. Wood balances Wind.”
“You’re right,” Mia said, astonished. “I remembered the sound of the trees whispering. I saw myself hiking with my mother to the top of a mountain, where I could see the forest so clearly.”
“And if her lungs were full of fluid,” Nell added, “her Water was out of balance, too. You intuitively knew to think of hiking through the forest. Of Earth. Of course, you don’t always invoke the counter element, sometimes you want to make more of the same element. Once my brother had hiccoughs for a full day. Relentless! He needed more Wind element, so I conjured a glass terror, a nasty kind of windstorm we have in Pembuk. The Wind whips the sand into a cyclone and the sun gets so scorching hot, it melts the sand into glass. You never want to be caught in a glass terror.”
“I had no idea any of this even existed! How have I been able to
do magic at all?”
“You don’t need to understand magic to practice it. But the Hex helps you practice it well. My hunch is you’re inherently good at healing, probably a gift you inherited from someone, maybe your mother. You’re just lucky it hasn’t gone disastrously wrong.”
Mia saw Princess Karri lying in the forest, her skin rapidly losing its color.
“Dear gods,” Nell said, reading her expression. “It has gone disastrously wrong.”
“It’s all right,” Mia said, even though it wasn’t. “It feels like half a lifetime ago.”
Nell regarded her for a moment, then tapped the center of the Hex.
“I haven’t gotten to the part you asked about. You conjure up the counter element when you heal someone, but you must bring yourself back into balance afterward so you’re not depleted. After I healed Ville, I thought of Earth. I imagined plunging my fingers into soft clay, shaping it on my wheel. I thought of a silly little doll my brother gave me made of dried mud. Such a small thing, but I carried it all the way from Pembuk, only to lose it in the Lilla Sea.”
Her voice softened. “I miss that doll. It reminds me of home.”
If Nell sounded sadder than usual, Mia barely noticed. Her mind was clicking and whirring. She loved that feeling more than anything, the feeling of the world snapping perfectly into place.
“So that’s how you recovered so quickly. You called the elements back into accord! That’s what I’ve been missing—the thing I’ve been doing wrong.” She gestured to the other scrolls. “What are these?”
“Just my little notes on magic: things that worked before, things that didn’t, and all the memories that are dear to me. You can reuse the memories, sometimes, though they tend to lose their luster after a while. I guess most things do.”
“And the paste you put over my eyes?”
“We call it Jouma’s Brew, after my grandmother. She cooked it up. When you slather the paste onto someone else’s eyes, they see what you see. Very helpful when your grandmother wants to show you how naughty you’ve been from her point of view.”
She nodded toward the silver tin. “The recipe is simple. Grind magical gemstones into powder, then heat them until they turn to paste. A little Stone, a little Fire.” Nell tapped the mysterious sixth branch of the Hex, the only one they hadn’t discussed. “It opens the eyes with the help of the aether.”