I had to go back to North. It wasn’t a choice; no matter how many times I stormed away, it did not change the situation in Cliffton. What was I running toward? Soldiers? A village that was no longer standing?
When I closed my eyes, I could see everything so clearly. The sun-bleached mud houses, the shadows the foothills cast over the valley, the mountains that scraped the very sky—those things were a part of me. I had spent so long dreaming about the day I would leave, but I had never imagined the world to be as it was. For so long I had thought of those mountains as nothing more than the barrier that kept me from my freedom…but the truth was, they had kept so much of the world’s wickedness out. Times had been hard before the rain, but we had managed. There had been no angry crowds, vile wizards, or drunken brutes. There had been family and love.
But there hadn’t been hope. There hadn’t been a dream to keep me there. There had been only the same of everything I had known, and a suffocating familiarity.
I needed to escape the storm.
Across the street, a small OPEN sign hung on the outside of a great wooden door, clattering noisily whenever the wind brushed by. Thank you, Astraea, I thought, wiping the rain from my eyes. I struggled to pull the door open against the wind and barely managed to slip inside before the storm slammed it shut behind me.
It took me a few moments to gather my wits enough to recognize the shop I had wandered into. I had been in this particular building earlier in the day, making a delivery of sand to Mr. Monticelli, the glassblower. He had been so completely involved in his work that he hadn’t even looked up as I dropped the sack of sand on the floor.
He was still working, hours later, though this time he did spare a glance in my direction.
“I see you have come back to me,” he said, in a strangely accented voice. “Terrible storm we are having, no? Come in, come in.”
I nodded, taking a few steps closer to his fire. The rain, dripping from my hair and clothes, collected in a puddle on the stone floor.
Mr. Monticelli’s careful hands curled around one end of a large staff, expertly shaping a glowing ball of molten glass against a stone table. I stood there and watched as the shape of a cat began to emerge.
“You do it so perfectly,” I said. “Sometimes it takes me three or four tries to get a blanket right on my loom.”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you my secret: steady hands, eyes always on the art, mind always on the art. No matter how many times I’ve done it. Steady hands, careful focus. Remember that.”
I nodded, and Mr. Monticelli held up the small figurine for my inspection. There was still a faint pink glow at its core, but the edges had been pointed and darkened by ancient tools. A slant of light struck the glass figurines in the shop and set the whole place aglow.
“It’s not so different from weaving,” Mr. Monticelli said. I nodded. Focusing was so difficult when I wove; my hands knew exactly what to do, but my thoughts and emotions were usually somewhere else.
“Do you know any of the master weavers?” I asked. He took the cat back and held it up to the fire to examine it.
“Mr. Monticelli?” I said when he didn’t respond. His thick black eyebrows drew together with his frown.
“Thinking, thinking,” he said. “I am thinking.”
There must not have been many master weavers in Fairwell if he couldn’t think of even one. Maybe they had moved on to another, quieter city? I knew from experience that it was difficult to concentrate with the noise and bustle of the streets.
“Ah!” Mr. Monticelli slapped his hand down on the table. “We will go ask Colar!”
“Colar?” I repeated.
The glassblower lifted his heavy apron over his head and used it to wipe the sweat from his face.
“He is my sister’s husband,” he explained. “Bit of…how do you say…bit of air in the head. No, head in the air?”
I shrugged.
“Bah,” he said, taking my arm. “Let me tell you, where I come from, a man who does not use his hands for his job is no man at all. Books! Bah! My sister must have air in her head, too, to marry such a man.”
I looked down.
“No? Not even a smile for me?” he asked, studying my face.
“Not today, I’m afraid.”
He patted my head fondly, the way my father sometimes did, and the knot in my stomach became unbearable. The only thing keeping me from tears was the confusion and anger I felt toward North. About the way he had treated me, about what was plaguing him, about why he had taken me in the first place.
For a moment I was afraid we would be heading back out into the rain, which was still coming down hard enough to flood the deserted streets. Instead, Mr. Monticelli led me through the maze of shelves and cases in his dark shop to yet another door. This one, however, he kicked open, taking obvious pleasure in the way his brother-in-law jumped at the noise.
Connecting shops, I thought as I stepped through the doorway and into a different world. Where Mr. Monticelli’s shop had been dark and smoky, I had to squint my eyes against the sudden onslaught of brightness in Mr. Colar’s shop. Gone was the smell of fire, replaced by the familiar, comforting odor of old parchment and leather-bound volumes and bookshelves lining every wall. A bookshop and a glass shop were not an obvious pair—but, then, neither were their two owners.
Mr. Colar had his back to us as we walked to his front counter; I heard the pages of his book rustle.
“I see my wife inherited all the manners in the family,” he said loudly. We were standing right behind him when he finally turned around.
The resemblance kicked the air from my lungs. The similarly bent nose and square jaw, the light, receding hair—the man was a living double of my father.
“A refugee!” he said. “Well, come in!” he added, ushering me closer and ignoring Mr. Monticelli. “Terrible weather, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said. “It makes me miss the desert.”
“I’ve been trying to get home for hours, but I can’t coax my horse from his stable.” He laughed. “You say you’re from the desert? Not much of that in this country.”
“Cliffton,” I answered. “The very far west.”
“Of course, of course,” he said. “Terrible drought you’ve been having—do not touch that, Renaldo!”
Mr. Monticelli dropped the book back onto the counter with a noise that was halfway between a groan and a growl. “I see business has been slow.”
“No slower than yours, I assure you,” Mr. Colar said, turning back to face me. “Now what can I help you with?”
“This pretty young lady has asked about the master weavers,” Mr. Monticelli said.
“Ah,” Mr. Colar said again. “I’m very sorry to say you won’t find any of them here in Fairwell.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I thought Fairwell housed the guild?”
“Years ago,” he said. “Most left when the hedges tried to take the city. Only one, a Mr. Vicksmorro, stayed and suffered terribly for it.”
“I remember now!” Mr. Monticelli cut in. “They poisoned him like a common pig! This was before my sister and I came, you see.”
“I’ll tell the story, thank you,” Mr. Colar said irritably. “Vicksmorro and many of the other guild leaders soon found themselves with raging fevers, horrible spasms in their bodies. Worst of all, their hands shook so badly that they couldn’t practice their craft. Awful magic that was—and it was only rumored to be poison.”
Disappointment washed over me like the cold rain—sudden and surprisingly painful. But just as quickly, a thought struck me as Mr. Colar described the weaver’s hands. How many times had I seen North’s hands tremble and his body shake with unexplained pain? It might be random similarity, but there was a possibility, if only a slight one, that I had accidentally stumbled upon the answer to his mystery.
“Do you think this rumored poison could affect a wizard?”
“My.” Mr. Colar laughed. “What a question! I suppose we
could look it up. I believe I remember how to spell the poison’s name.”
The water squelched out of my boots as I followed him through the labyrinth of shelves, running my fingertips lightly over the leather spines. There wasn’t a gap or cranny a book hadn’t been crammed into, red, brown, faded blue. They all looked like they were fighting to slip out from their constraints, to be open on a table or even the floor.
In all, Francis Colar had three hundred twenty-four books on magic, of which fifty had been written in the past thirty years, and only two were of any remote use to us.
“This one,” he began, tugging at a clunky volume, “is a reference guide, covering every possible subject in every possible detail.”
He opened the book, blowing out a small cloud of dust from its pages.
“Black ether…black ether…black—here it is.” Mr. Colar cleared his throat. “‘Black ether, a poison rumored to be developed by a hedge witch community outside of Provincia in the years of King Siegbright. Its contents remain a guarded secret, though its effects are easily recognized. Victims of this poison will display erratic, nervous behavior, severe cramping in abdominal muscles, uncontrollable shaking, and, most noticeably, crescent-shaped welts on the back and chest. Though the pain and welts can be treated with simple elixirs, there is no known antidote.’”
“Nothing about wizards?” I asked.
“Perhaps they have a cleverer way of counteracting it, but the effects would be the same,” Mr. Colar said. “Not even a wizard is immune to poison.”
“If the effects are the same, then any treatment…”
“Would also be the same,” he finished. “But you heard what I read. There is no antidote.”
I still wasn’t fully certain that this poison was causing North’s strange behavior. It was a strong possibility, though, given the disgust that had rolled off him when he told me about the hedges.
“Remember that it was only rumored to be this poison,” Mr. Colar said, snapping the book shut. “Although…if you’re interested in antidotes and elixirs, I do have a book that might be useful to you.”
“I would love to see it,” I said. My eyes followed the line of books in front of me. A Brief History of Casting, Casting Fire, Reign of Magic…
He dropped to his hands and knees, digging through the books he had already cast aside. The book that emerged from the pile was also black, but it was soft and worn down. My eyes fell on the gold-embossed title: Proper Instruction for Young Wizards.
“It’s what all the young ones use while apprenticing. Must have put out a new edition, though. I had a dozen old copies flood in a few years back. It’ll tell you anything you want to know about elixirs and how to make them.”
“This is perfect,” I said, my eyes drifting over the pages. Seeing I was sufficiently distracted, Mr. Colar returned to the front to sweep out his brother-in-law and the rainwater that had flooded in beneath his door. Mr. Monticelli called out to me as he crossed back into his own shop, but I barely acknowledged him.
I leaned back against the shelf, paging through until I found an elixir that listed honey and lavender as ingredients. Those were the two strongest smells I had been able to make out in North’s bottles.
Sleeping draft, it read. Mix one part honey, two parts lavender with essence of mandrake root. If ineffective and more restful sleep is required, grind and add a strong dose of rosemary and poppy. As is the case with many drafts, dependency may arise from misuse and ill care.
That had to be it—the night of the battle with Dorwan, he had told me to take it and go to sleep. So why had he decided not to take the elixir himself?
I could be useful, I thought. I could mix the elixir for him. I had charged the air between us with anger and hate—I had seen him as a villain and nearly missed the fact that he was suffering.
The rest of the book was slightly less useful to me. Most of the sections discussed the proper concentration for casting spells, others were history lessons about great wizards of the past, and I was surprised to find a few outdated maps lining the covers. I was just about to close the book when a passage caught my eye.
Magical inclinations (humans)—often a rare occurrence of a wizard’s blood being diluted by many marriages to non-wizards. Though they are unable to cast spells or break curses, they often make excellent assistants for their ability to mix powerful elixirs and, in some instances, repair a talisman.
All this time I had suspected that there might have been something else involved in North’s choice of me. I would have read more had a large crash and a booming voice not broken into my small sanctuary.
“By the heavenly bosom of Vesta! It’s a raging downpour out there!”
I leaned around the edge of the bookshelf, unsure of whether I wanted to be seen.
“It certainly is!” Mr. Colar said cheerfully. “Please come in. I already have one refugee!”
“Oh?” Owain said. “Any pretty girls with hair as red as roses?”
“About this tall?” Mr. Colar asked.
“Wearing a blue dress?” Owain replied. “Blue eyes?”
“Lots of freckles?”
“Just a bit on the nose and cheeks—smallish nose, a little upturned?”
“For goodness’ sake!” I stepped out from behind the bookshelf. “I’m right here! You could have just called for me.”
“Oh, lass!” Owain galumphed the entire distance between us, heaving me into a bone-crushing embrace. The mail across his chest was frozen against my cheek, but his hug was warm and inviting—even if he smelled like a wet horse.
“We’ve been searching all over for you!” he cried. “Going out of our minds with worry, running to the four corners of the world! I thought for sure our boy was going to break down in tears.”
“You mean he sobered up enough to care?” I mumbled. Owain’s large hand came up to stroke my hair.
“How could you doubt that?” he asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Poor sod’s probably torn up half the city by now.”
“And who is this?” Mr. Colar sounded hesitant.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” Owain said to him. “I think we’d best be going now. I hate to leave Vesta alone in this storm….”
I tried to give Mr. Colar the book I had in my hands, but he shook his head. “Please, I insist. It sounds as if you’ll need it.”
“I couldn’t—” I protested.
The old man merely smiled.
He really didn’t look much like my father at all, I decided.
Outside, the storm had faded into a gentle relief that I hadn’t felt since the day I left home. I held out my palm to catch a few scattered rain droplets. The streets may have been converted into rivers of white water, but watching them, I could see they were carrying the darkness and filth of the city down with them into the gutters.
“Looks like the rain’s letting up, lass,” noted Owain, squinting at the first tentative stars against the black sky. And I smiled, because it was.
Mrs. Pemberly greeted us at the door, fussing over my hair and dress.
“Found her!” Owain sang out.
“Oh, my darling!” Mrs. Pemberly ushered me closer to her fireplace. “Can I get you something? Hot cider? Tea? Are you hungry? I just pulled an apple pie from the oven….”
“I could use a little bit more water,” I said, trying for a joke. Owain chuckled. I glanced around the room, surprised to find the parlor empty.
“He’s upstairs,” Mrs. Pemberly said. “He got back a little before you, and I sent him to change into something dry.”
I didn’t think North would be wanting to see me anytime soon, but I began to climb the stairs anyway. I held the book against my side, glancing through the thin crack of Owain’s door. North sat on the bed with his back to me, his drenched cloaks still attached and his dark hair flattened against his head.
The door creaked as I pushed it open, but North didn’t turn around. I set the books down on the table and came to stand beside him. The w
izard’s eyes were studying the abandoned loom, taking in the smooth rows of dark and light blue as he shuffled a red apple between his hands. I sat down next to him and forced myself to be still.
He nodded his head toward his old gray blanket, a short distance away on the floor, but I turned my face away from it. North’s hands stopped moving, and he lifted the shiny apple toward me. I hesitated a moment before closing my hand over it. I took the apple, but only—only—because I was hungry.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that North was still watching me, but whenever I turned, he would quickly look up to the ceiling. Still, I felt as if for the first time, he was really seeing me. He could see what his words had wrought, that I could and would leave if he pressed me too hard. And I think I saw remorse in the darkness of his eyes, but mainly I saw unmatched misery. I saw what I had done to him.
In the end, we didn’t need to apologize. We understood.
CHAPTER FIVE
A day later, we were still at Mrs. Pemberly’s, arguing over our next move.
“It makes more sense if we follow this road up to Andover and cut across the plains to Scottsby,” I said, for what had to be the hundredth time. It was the route Henry usually took, and I certainly trusted his sense of direction more than North’s. Yet even with the map smoothed out before them, the two men refused to listen. I was beginning to think I was going to have to knock their heads in and drag them to Provincia myself.
“Wiltfordshire Road runs right from Fairwell to Scottsby, straight as an arrow,” Owain protested.
“But you’ll have to cut around the lakes, and that’ll take you—”
“Going to Andover first would be better,” North cut me off as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “You and I can handle Wiltfordshire, but it wouldn’t be safe for Syd.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Why, because I’m a girl? If that’s the case, we’d better stay off all the main roads. There are hundreds of men heading up to the capital, and they’re on every one of them.”
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