My eyes rolled back into the skull and he let go of me with a last deep push into the mattress. When I jerked up, my vision blurred grey with black dots and ovals. The biggest black shape before me was Veymor, and I struggled to understand his words. He sat behind me and stretched my arms out.
“Where is it?” he asked.
Before me glimmered a grey sea of black stars, some had moved, others stood still. After I regained orientation, I recognised one star bigger than the others and it whispered to me.
“Atahar kahalas, Verra tana ohara.”
I pointed down at the whisper.
“What did she say? Is it here?” He let go of me and walked beside the star. “What do you see? Do you recognise me?”
“No, black circles, you’re a large one,” I mumbled with a swollen tongue.
“How many times bigger?”
“Seven, maybe eight,” I said. His aura had vibrated and changed size, making me uncertain.
“Shit,” he grunted, placed his hand on my eyes and whispered a chant, guiding me into a deep sleep.
The weight of water on my stomach woke me with the horror of drowning. Veymor had put me into a hot bath and held my hand.
“Ho, ho,” he calmed me, “you’re fine.”
My vision came back. Most of it was still blurry with intense colours. “What the fuck?” I ripped my hand away from him. “That felt like dying!”
“Oh, no,” he laughed, “dying is much more pleasant. We’ve been in the Middleworld to make a deal.”
“Middleworld? I thought this is the middle. Also, a deal? You didn’t warn me about any of this.”
Veymor arched his eyebrows at me and pouched his lips. “Let’s remember one thing, you said ‘whatever it takes’, alright? Apparently, you didn’t like our act as much as I did. I didn’t see shit, and I assume you didn’t either. This is the Upperworld. Then, the Middleworld, the realm of your Gods and further down, my beloved Underworld.” He spoke of the Underworld with a cynical undertone, as if he hated the realm he had all for himself.
“You made a deal with another God, then?” I asked while my head overheated, and my understanding of the world corrupted. Up was down and down was up.
“Yes. I told you, I was hiding from Frya? Your girlfriend’s Goddess. I asked her to open your eyes a little.”
“It didn’t work,” I said. “I saw nothing but black dots on grey paper.”
He grunted, “What did she say?”
“Something in your language. She said my name and… tana or tara… ohara,” I repeated but struggled to remember more.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Tana ohara means to live with poisoned eyes.”
It made sense to me, as I was the one producing the poison.
“I might have angered her by medicating Claire.”
“At least we have a lead,” he sighed. “I’ve estimated where it could be.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“You want the grimoire? You dig. We have a deal, why should I bother?”
After drying myself up, I was not ready but able to leave.
“Make a portal in the woods,” he said and sank through the rune.
I slid through the door behind the tower and formed the portal with twigs and leaves. I had to do. Barely standing upright, I followed Veymor downhill.
We walked North, and the trees thickened every other step. This part of the forest was overgrown, untouched by the villagers. Veymor assisted me in climbing over gigantic roots, and the weight of time danced on my shoulders. Once he stopped, I scouted the area. The intense smell of the Underworld stood around us.
“Do you feel it?” he asked.
I nodded and grabbed the roots while chanting my poem until I had the exact location.
Buried under an older wolves den; my initial thought had proven to be right—to a certain extent. Behind various layers of paper and sand, we found the leather-bound grimoire and Veymor started tapping his foot.
I rushed through it, searching for something, anything, that would help Claire return to a sane state. Adoring my grandmother’s neat writing had to wait, as I was running out of time.
In the ritual section, I found a recipe for a paste that promised to detoxify the mind and body. It was my best guess. “Do you think this might work?” I tapped on the recipe with my finger.
“You got to do everything else, too,” he said and hovered his hand over the pages. “It might work but I wouldn’t risk it.”
“I have no other option. Take the grimoire and return to my room, I will meet you there and I promise you can have it soon. I promise.”
After pushing the treasure into his arms, I sprinted to the Di Centi mansion while repeating the procedure to myself.
Climbing up the stairs, I had to push myself through the crowd of servants.
Kress leaned on the doorframe with crossed arms. “Bad news,” he said when I approached him.
“What’s going on?”
He cracked the door open and let me through.
A man in a black leather coat crunched herbs and measured liquids on her table. He wore a crow-like mask. Evrett and Tonio were leaning over Claire’s unconscious body. She was still breathing and drooled on her pillow.
I stormed up to them. “What happened?”
“We can’t wake her. She hasn’t eaten since you disappeared,” Tonio said.
Doctor Di Centi frowned and patted Claire’s head. “My little girl. Perhaps it’s best to send her away.”
“Father, no,” Tonio scoffed, “we don’t know them.”
“That’s exactly how we lost your mother. I’m not making that mistake twice.”
The masked man poured his potion into a cup and handed it to Evrett.
“Wait!” I exclaimed. “Don’t.”
Tonio seized the cup from his hand.
“I can fix this, Doctor. I found a cure,” I said, though I was not sure if it would work at all.
“What cure?” he asked. “I won’t let you experiment on my daughter.”
“And I won’t let this cultist poison my sister,” Tonio insisted. “I will stay with Verra. We will handle this as a family.”
A miserable idea, as he would witness me practising witchcraft, but there was no other option left. Together we would set the ritual up faster.
Tonio shooed the cultist out of the room, and the Doctor kissed Claire’s cheeks before closing the door behind him.
“So, what do we do?” he asked while I collected the ingredients together.
“Call Loyra to prepare a hot bath and... you can grind these,” I said, passing the mortar over to him.
“Namikai and Byorn root in one potion. Are you insane? This could kill her.”
“Unless it’s not a potion.”
His face muscles tensed and he stared into my eyes, demanding an explanation.
“Just trust me,” I begged, “we don’t have much time.”
While he ground the paste and Loyra filled up the tub, I turned Claire onto her side and tried to remember the words of the ritual. I noted them on a piece of paper while circling the bath with pink salt and basil leaves.
Tonio picked her up and placed her into the hot water as soon as we were all done. Loyra clung to his arm, like a worried mother, unable to look at Claire without crying.
I stuck the paste into her nostrils and stirred the water chanting, “Hear me and accept my prayer. Take this soul into your care.” I kept repeating it and until Claire belched.
“What is this? Ancient magic?” Tonio asked.
“Kind of,” I said, pinched her nose and dunked her head underwater.
Tonio grabbed for my shoulder, but Loyra held him back. Claire’s arms twitched. She tried to push me away and regained some consciousness. I let her up for a breath, then dunked her again and commanded Tonio to hold her arms.
“Yield, demons. Banish the evil,” I chanted and her bathwater darkened.
Her pores spewed out black and purple d
rops that smelled like rotten eggs and lavender. The salt around the tub blackened as it sucked the poison out of her.
After dunking her several times, she threw up and caused Loyra to shriek. Claire ripped open her eyes and touched my face. “Verra? Verra?” she cried.
“Yes, it’s me, you’re safe,” I calmed her, “we’re here. Tonio, Loyra and me.”
She looked into my face but didn’t meet my eyes. “What have you done to me?”
“Forgive me,” I said, put more paste into her nose and dunked her until she vomited it all out.
Later, Tonio pulled her weak body out of the bath and placed her on the bed. Loyra helped her get rid of her wet gown while feeding her bread and tea. For the next few hours, she needed to rest.
Tonio and I leaned on the bed and struggled to process whatever had just happened and I feared that I couldn’t explain.
“Where did you learn this?” he asked. “Is this the black magic your grandfather used?”
“Black magic?”
“The thing he got expelled for.”
A rush of goosebumps ran over my skin. My grandfather was a rebel and exiled, but other Magicians seemed to admire him nonetheless. Their thirst for knowledge outweighed the moral laws. Black magic, he called it, and I suspected it to be another name for witchcraft. Gerogy had been studying witches and their grimoires for years, after all. “Yes,” I said, “that’s it.”
“Let’s keep it a secret between us two.”
Before we left her room, I smoked it again and opened all the windows.
They had prepared dinner in the meantime and we plunged ourselves into our usual chairs.
“Is she awake? How is my little girl?” Evrett asked.
I nodded.
“She’s stable but needs a little more rest,” Tonio explained.
“I’m glad,” the Doctor said, “she can depart sooner, then.”
“Father, stop this nonsense. She doesn’t even remember him. They were only kids, playing pretend.”
“Depart? To where?” I asked.
“I’m accepting Prince Fellis’ proposal. And also, excuse me, but they weren’t kids four years ago. I bet his offer still stands.” He ignored Tonio’s worries.
“We managed it, don’t you see? We did so well and saved her life. Besides, she’s wearing Colvin’s emerald ring.”
Evrett sighed. He knew Tonio was right, but it had not been enough. “If at least, you both were married. I would rest peacefully. Before I leave for the expedition, I want to see the future of our name. Magicians, not athletic singers,” he said.
Tonio’s eyes begged me for forgiveness. His eyelashes fell onto his lids.
“Tonio asked for my hand a few days ago,” I lied, stuttering. “We were only waiting for a better moment to announce it.”
“Is that true?” Evrett blurt out. “And you kept such grand news from me?”
“It was not the time for a celebration,” Tonio calmed him.
“Now, it certainly is. The Gods will bless your marriage for saving my daughter’s life. I shall reconsider Claire’s engagement, then.”
We dined together and spoke about Northern wedding traditions as well as their own from the Isles. The staff had already prepared everything we needed for the ceremony because of Laora. The Doctor urged us to wed as soon as Claire felt well and we agreed. He left us alone and rushed back to his studies with newfound energy.
Tonio dropped back in his chair. “I don’t know where to begin, this has been the weirdest day,” he said. “I’m sorry about this whole wedding situation. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought he would just go on the expedition and leave the rest to me. But he’s right, we need you. I need you. We can work this out.”
I remained silent. There was more to see and learn on this continent, I was not ready to settle down and care for a family I did not want. Not after finding Vanna’s grimoire.
“What you did back there, was amazing. I’ve seen nothing like it. You didn’t tell me you had such powers, though I sensed this black magic from the beginning.”
“And you didn’t tell me that Claire’s an Oracle. If I didn’t find out myself, I could’ve poisoned her,” I said. “Looks like we keep certain things secret for a reason.”
“It’s hard to understand, I know. But it’s not like we drugged her from birth. She has proven time and time again that she suffers under her powers. We’re trying to keep her alive.”
“How would such a gift be a threat?” I asked.
“Do you meet Oracles often? Why do you think that is? Their powers suck the life out of their bodies.”
“Is that what happened with your mother?”
“Yes,” he said, “she had many involuntary visions. After Claire’s birth, she became bed-bound and passed one year later. That’s what I’ve been told. I was too young to understand any of it. All I want is to protect her.”
I hugged him, patting his back. “Claire will be fine,” I said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
The last thing I would do for the Di Centi family was bringing Claire back to health. Afterwards, I would follow my plan of escaping. Where I would go didn’t matter anymore, since my grandfather was no longer an option. He would send me back the same day, disappointed in my youthful naivety. And I would rather build a new identity from scratch than spend the rest of my life as a figurine.
20. Decision
The new semester announced a dry and windy season that Claire couldn’t attend and I worried every night because of it. I disposed of every potion they called medicine and prescribed meals and lots of sleep instead.
Some days, she seemed sane and joined dinners. Others, she raced upstairs with her ears covered from our chat and laughter. She talked little since the ritual.
Her ill health pushed the marriage further away until Evrett, eager to go on the expedition, decided to wed Tonio and me after the festival and its enormous aftershow party. He didn’t put it on hold anymore because of Claire.
Over the week, I copied as much as I could from Vanna’s grimoire. It was full of rituals and correspondences like ‘Rosemary - purity. Chamomile - peace’ and her personal diary entries. I stumbled upon an incomplete chapter.
She wrote three pages about something she called the dead element. ‘Dangerous’ was splashed across the pages alongside my grandfather’s name. The way she explained the dead element was similar to my experience when I walked around in the woods or descended to the Underworld. The most prominent sign was the throbbing vibration.
Veymor had appeared twice since then, telling me to hand over the grimoire but I couldn’t let him have it and lied that I needed more time to copy it.
Meanwhile, I planned my escape by clearing the safe, returning the books, reading new ones as fast as I could and buying a map from a retired Captain I’d met at the harbour. I walked past him every day while searching for Deg’s ship.
He stopped me and asked if I was an adventurer or just a stranded Southerner, unable to find home. I told him I was both.
“Me lads and I, were in constant motion, just like ye,” he said and offered to give me a compass, a tool that would help me navigate if I came to chat with him the next time. He reminded me of my grandfather, or the illusion of him, more than my own grandfather did.
Dead element, power and most of all, dangerous. I could not figure out what he was trying to do with it but my gut ached when I thought it over. What if he learned to locate the Underworld and collected its potent particles?
Impossible.
If Magicians conjured light, what would Gerogy be able to form out of dead energy? The speculations scared me and I had to acknowledge that he was using me. I would not allow it to go on any further. There was no future where I would hand over the grimoire voluntarily.
On the day of the festival, I washed the chalk off the floor and packed my belongings into a bigger bag. My plan was to disappear after the party, while everyone else slept. I stuffed the grimoire between pieces of clothing,
ready to betray my God once again while reassuring myself that I was doing the right thing.
Afterwards, I joined the tents in front of the night tower and took part in the show Bloum had coordinated for the new students.
Elvora’s neck burned red when Tonio announced our engagement during the presentation of our own potion. The teaching staff praised us for brewing a liquid that would power Tonio’s heavy bike. That way it could drive on its own.
Soon after, engineers approached him but he rejected every offer and declared it as sold, exclusively, to the Amari forge.
“You won’t get away with this,” Elvora whispered into my neck, “no matter how strongly you bewitched him.”
I was no longer scared of revealing my witchiness. I was a Volkov, and soon wife to one of the most influential males of Roness—if I stayed that is. Getting rid of a merchant’s daughter would be a minor inconvenience for a woman in my position. She allowed herself to behave like a child because she knew of her political immunity. The day neared, she seemed to forget, when her position would not be enough to outweigh her tantrums.
This semester, Tonio and I sat in the first row again, watching the athletes compete, and I missed the cheerful flapping of Claire’s arms.
After another victorious race, Bryon offered me a ride to the manor while he was still a panther. Tonio and Kress took the bike.
“I won’t forgive myself,” Tonio said, “if something happens to you, because of that machinery.”
The three of them had worked many years building the skeleton of the bike, unsure of how to power it. Until the liquid fuel came to be, the radiation of magic was their main lead. The power of magical products, like light orbs, differed with every new creation. The generator would either explode or not start at all. Also, you had to have a high-grade Magician at hand to conjure fuel, which would be necessary every other hour. Altogether the concept flopped until Evrett revolutionised their thought with the comparison between machines and a human body, that is ‘often fueled by medicine’. We distilled explosive potions many times, before regulating it into a recipe.
The first machine fuel.
Bryon brought me into Claire’s room where she slept hugging a pillow. He shifted back to his human form and laid himself beside her, combing through her hair. “She’s really attached to you,” he said.
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