by Erin Hayes
“I’m not good at history. I’m barely competent at potions. But I know I’m right in this. Our magics are what separate us and connect us. If we follow your plan, it could be disastrous for us all—a world without magic? It would collapse both our societies. But I can’t think of anything else to do.”
The door to Kaedon’s quarters opened, and I saw Loren peering in. When he saw me, his face lit up.
“I’m glad you’re coming to visit him,” the young elf lord said. “When we were on the trail back when we found you in the past, he talked to you, too.”
“He did?” I asked, startled.
“Oh, yes. He said it was the best thing to do for someone ill. Even better than tinctures or magic.”
I looked at Kaedon’s drawn face, his sunken cheeks, and wished anew for him to wake up.
The tears I had shoved back so many times rose to the surface again. I blinked furiously to keep them from spilling over.
Loren looked at me seriously, his eyes solemn. “He feels the same way about you, you know,” he said.
At that, I dashed away my tears.
“We’re simply…” There was nothing simple about what Kaedon and I were—or what we might be if he lived.
That was the first time I’d admitted to anyone—even myself—that I had developed feelings for the elf lord who had rescued me and taken me into his home—even if he had done so for reasons of his own.
They were good reasons.
Reasons that could save both our races.
“I’m going to go back to the spellcasting practice room,” I told Loren. “If there’s any way to deal with this magically, I will find it.”
Loren took my vacated seat as I stood and moved toward the door. “Harper,” he called after me. “He had more reasons than just your magic for wanting you to live.”
I nodded, then left the room swiftly.
That child was too perceptive by half.
Back in the tower room, I dropped into the straight-back chair where I’d replaced the too-thin cushion and held my head in my hands.
I had no idea what to do next.
But as I sat there, the glimmer of something just almost out of reach seemed to beckon me—not quite an idea yet, but close.
Magic was, all too often, the act of taking what didn’t exist except in theory and bringing it into reality. It was making ideas tangible.
And what was my suspicion about the witches’ involvement in Kaedon’s illness but an idea, a theory that was currently holding intangible?
I stood this time with purpose and moved to the shelves that held the bulk of Kaedon’s magical supplies. There, I found the pink rock salt that worked so well to purify intentions. In a jar, I found the petals of a white chrysanthemum for truth, turned brown with age, but still perfectly usable. Now, I simply needed something to indicate the unseen becoming seen or the spirit becoming flesh… Something that would give form to the spell I was about to focus through the circle I would cast.
On the bottom shelf, sat a half-empty jar of crystallized honey. The liquid becoming solid would work for part of the spell. And at the very top of the shelves stood a small mirror on a stand. I dragged the chair over and clambered up to pull the mirror down. I took the ingredients over to the table where I stared at them for a long, silent minute.
“No,” I muttered to myself. “These can’t be in separate circles. They need to be together.”
I had been terrible at potions. But somehow, I knew that if I kept these items separate, they would simply not work together at all. It wasn’t enough to bring them into the circle. They had to create the circle.
After glancing around again, I grabbed a bowl, a mortar, and a pestle. With a small chisel, I chipped away at the pink rock salt until I had several hunks of it. I crushed the salt, grinding it into a fine powder, emptying it into the bowl. The honey I scooped out with a spoon. I stirred the honey and salt until it was one lumpy, sticky mess. I would need something to act as a carrier for it. The almost-empty container of blessed oil caught my eye. It was an odd addition to this concoction—but this formula wasn’t anything I’d ever heard of before, so the whole thing was unusual. I poured the remainder of the oil on top of the salted honey, and began stirring it until it was evenly dispersed. The flower petals I took out and crushed in my hands until they were a fine powder that I sprinkled atop the oil, and then mixed in, as well.
When the concoction was ready, I moved to the pentagram on the floor. For a true circle casting, I should have used the element symbols—items placed in the five points of the stars to connect the circle with all creation—earth, air, fire, water, spirit.
But I didn’t.
This was no ordinary casting, no ordinary spell. And I knew I would not need the usual elements to ground me in this world.
In fact, I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to stay in this world.
Slowly and carefully, I poured a thin trickle of the mixture I had created into the innermost ring around the pentagram. Usually, this ring was used as a last line of protection when a spellcaster created a particularly dangerous spell or called an evil spirit creature into being for a brief time to do the caster’s will. It was never meant to be the entirety of the circle.
Until now.
Now I wanted the magnifying powers of ritual, of the circle, of every ounce of concentration I could put into what I was about to do—with none of the protection.
I was beginning to think the protection elements of traditional spellcasting were too inhibitory for what I needed to do.
I stepped inside the circle, and closed it, braced not to whisper the traditional word of protection as I stepped into the center of the pentagram. Once there, I invoked the circle.
The dome that shot up to cover me was honey colored, with sparkles of pink light scattered through it like stars in the night sky.
I pulled my legs under me and sat in the center of the pentagram. Placing my hands palm up on my knees, I closed my eyes and inhaled the silence within the invoked circle. Concentrating on the magic I carried within me, I searched for the spark that had sent us barreling through ourselves the day Kaedon had collapsed.
When I found it, it was flickering like candlelight and I imagined twirling it into my hands.
This was a spell to tell me what I needed to do to save Kaedon. It was a spell of revelation. And it showed me more than I expected.
As I blew out the breath I had taken in, I opened my eyes to see the interior of the circular dome filled with the same electric hum and light I had ridden through myself and Kaedon. It ribboned around me, swirling into a fog, then separating into strands that ricocheted off the walls of the tiny space.
And in the center, threading through it from beginning to end, was a black heart of corruption.
As I pushed the last of it out, I reached my hands in front of me and began plucking at that thread as if weaving, first with one finger, then another, squeezing it between my forefinger and thumb and twirling it around my hand, teasing it out of my own magic.
When I had a ball of it well in my grasp, and could find no more in the rest of my magic, I held onto it and imagined breathing the rest of what was my own power back into me.
That wasn’t enough to entirely clear the blight, of course. I needed to know more before I would be able to rid myself of it.
But this spell, designed to show what had been hidden, was a beginning.
And so, I knitted a cloth of vision out of that black thread. When it was done, it hung in the air before me like a vision mirror, but darker, a black gash in reality, allowing me to see into the heart of what I least wanted to know.
I didn’t bother with magical words. Instead, I simply said, “Show me your source.”
A scene unfolded in front of me.
Mother Jonas, Sister Susanna, and the rest of the council sat in the circle in the council house. Even though it was warm outside, the doors and windows remained shut.
“If we send her up into the m
ountains, she’ll die,” Sister Susanna was saying.
Mother Jonas responded. “We’ll place her in a cavern we know of, just before the elf lord returns from his meeting with the rest of the Fae leaders.”
“That’s days away from his path.” Sister Susanna leaned forward, jabbing her finger at a map that hung in the air. “How can you be sure that she will meet up with him at all?”
“We will give her a compulsion,” another of the elders said. “Make sure she moves in the right direction.”
Sister Susanna shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
“Of course you don’t,” Mother Jonas sneered. “You’ve always been soft on the girl.
“It is not her fault that her parents were traitors.” Sister Susanna’s voice was tired, as if this were a long-running argument.
Mother Jonas shrugged. “Blood will tell.”
“Can we instill a compulsion that will ensure she shares her magic with the elf?” Sister Susanna asked.
“We can try,” yet another elder spoke up. “But unless there is some natural affinity, we won’t be able to overcome a disgust against him.”
“By all accounts, Lord Kaedon is the elf most sympathetic to the witches.” Mother Jonas’s tone was cold and calculating. “At best, he will take her into his household and she will open to him completely. That will kill him.”
“And at worst?” Sister Susanna glared across the circle.
“At worst, she dies and we lose this particular chance of gaining passage across the mountains into the elven heartland.”
“And is there anything in between his death and hers? Any other potential outcome?”
“None that I can see. When the spell finishes killing him, it should turn on her. Unless you think she can overcome it?” Mother Jonas directed the question at Sister Angelyn, the witch who had tried to teach me spells and potions over and over again.
“Unlikely,” Angelyn said. “Harper’s magic is not especially strong, and her control over it makes it even weaker—she’s not creative enough to overcome this plan.”
“And even if she were,” Sister Sawyer, the leader of the Battle Circle, who had evaluated us over the course of our last year in the crèche, said, “she won’t be able to overcome the spell itself. Her magic lacks the power.”
The image began to fade away, misting around the edges, but I didn’t try to call it back.
I knew everything I needed to know.
I left that black hole hanging in front of me as I considered what to do next.
The High Council wasn’t wrong—on its own, my power was not strong enough to overcome their spell.
But my power wasn’t all I carried. If I could find a way to use the magic my mother had breathed into me, combined with my own, I would be able to overcome the spell.
My mother’s power had been hibernating within me, waiting for the right moment to break free.
My parents were banished as Fae collaborators. I’d never had anyone to discuss it with, but there’d been times—like the moment when the magic had burst out to save Loren and me on the mountainside—when I could have sworn that gift was somehow sentient.
If I was right, then maybe it, like my parents, would be sympathetic to the Fae cause.
Or, like me, sympathetic to one Fae in particular.
Perhaps I could use my mother’s power to save the Fae lord I was growing to… to care for.
That was all I was willing to admit to.
Maybe it would be enough.
Chapter Eleven
Once again, I focused within me, deep down to that ball in the pit of my stomach where my mother’s magic had retreated. I imagined it as lead covered, smooth and impenetrable. But that couldn’t be entirely true, since it had erupted to save me on the mountainside. It had to be accessible.
It had come to me when I needed it most before. And although my danger might not be as obviously imminent, I would not survive Kaedon’s death. From what I gathered, Loren was his heir, but certainly not old enough to take over Kaedon’s duties. Kaedon’s realm would fall to another, more powerful Fae lord. Loren would die. And I would be treated like the witches I had seen in the vision mirror—tied to a stake and drained of my magic—and if there was anyone left, I’d be tortured in other ways, as well.
I let my inner vision focus on that scene—me, drained of magic, abused. And I alternated it with Kaedon, sick in his bed and dying.
The first crack in that magical ball was just a tiny hairline, but it reverberated throughout my entire being, as focused as I was on what was happening with it.
Tiny tendrils of bright blue light shots out of it, like vines growing rapidly, questing out through my body and taking root.
It wasn’t a lead ball.
It was a seed.
I had always assumed that my mother had handed over all her magic. That she had gone out into the world magically defenseless.
I had thought for years that she and my father must be dead—it was what Mother Jonas had told me, and I had believed it.
But I believed it in part because I had known my mother to be weakened.
What if she hadn’t been? What if this magical force was only a tiny piece of what she’d had to offer—a sliver of what she had kept for herself? If so, perhaps she was still alive somewhere.
Alive, and working with the Fae.
Just as I was now.
The possibility sent shockwaves riffling through me. I couldn’t examine it now in any depth—I had only as long as it took this power to take hold of me before I had to pull my attention away from the intriguing possibility that I might be able to find my parents.
That was for a later day.
For now, I watched in fascination as the magic—power I assumed had been almost integrated with my own—begin to truly become part of me.
When it swirled its way through all my limbs, I knew it was ready to use—not complete, by any means, as it would continue to grow and bloom and fill out. But I could use it right now. I stood and ran my palm along the smooth inner wall of the circle stone. Where I touched, the sparkling golden P seem to be wiped away, and when I glanced at my hand, I saw the magic spooling into it. I wasn’t certain how I would use it, but I trusted the instinct to take it with me. When I had pulled as much of the power away from the Circle as possible, I smudged open part of the ring with my foot and stepped through.
As I made my way through the castle, I noticed servants pausing in their everyday tasks to stare after me. Not until I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror did I realize why—I was trailing magic so intensely that it was visible to the naked eye. That honey-gold aura was shooting off sparks of pink and blue, trailing behind me like waves in the ocean. I made ripples in the air.
No one tried to stop me.
As usual, a single guard stood outside Kaedon’s door.
I hadn’t stopped to get Bertino—if the guards attempted to stop me, I would deal with them.
When this one looked as if he might intercede between me and the door, I began a sweeping gesture with my right hand. I was only halfway through it when he froze and slowly stepped sideways, eyes wide as he moved to allow me to pass. I wasn’t sure what it was he saw in me, but he didn’t intervene again.
Kaedon’s room was dark, musty with the scent of sickness and death.
I moved to the window casement and threw it wide open. I looped the heavy curtains away to allow the fresh air to sweep into the room. It was cold and bracing.
Similarly, I tied back the curtains on Kaedon’s bed. The afternoon sunlight fell across his too-pale face.
He hadn’t moved in days. Every position change had been ordered to aid in blood flow and relieve pressure. He was on his back, perfectly still, those dark eyes closed.
But this was no ordinary sickness. It was magical poison, and I was determined to remove it.
During every visit until now, I had set in the chair beside his bed. Now, I kicked the chair out of my way with more force than truly
needed. I climbed onto the bed, kneeling over Kaedon’s still form. I placed my hands on his shoulders and tried to feel what he needed.
I sensed it, throbbing deep inside him—the same blackness I had seen in our magic before. This one, however, had grown larger, more malignant.
Hiking my skirt above my knees, I straddled him, still pressing down on his shoulders.
For a long, silent moment, I stared at his face, picturing the moments I spent with him that had shown me who he truly was—his serious eyes as he discussed finding a way to stop the war, the intensity of his voice as he explained the history of our people, the kindness on his face as he handed me the glass of liquor after we’d seen the horrific scenes in the vision mirror.
I moved my hands to cup his face, and then leaned down to gently place a kiss on his lips.
The instant our lips touched, the power trailing behind me coalesced into a shower of fireworks and sparks that seemed to explode out and shower down on us, sinking into our skin. My magic and the magic that had been my mother’s twined around in a single row and poured from me into him in search of the poison magic that was killing him.
Although I felt it questing through him, I could not control it anymore. It was no longer simply my magic, but a spell let loose upon the world, sent to complete a task. I could trace it as it began coiling around the sickness within him, but I did not have the reins—I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to.
This new spell began choking the old one, absorbing the blighted magic into itself and purifying it. I sensed it progress through his body. Satisfied he would be cured, it began to pull away from him.
Before I could sit up, Kaedon’s arms wrapped around me like a vise, steel bands holding me to him, against him.
Startled, I opened my eyes, only to find him staring at me. Then his eyes closed, and his lips sought mine, moving with a soft sensuousness that made me want to melt against him.
His arms remained like iron around me, stopping me from leaving.