by Julie Abe
“I’m sorry.” My tears spilled over. “I’m sorry I got mad. I’m sorry. I should have never even thought of leaving you.”
Ember narrowed his eyes, reared up on his back legs, and planted his paws on my shoulders. I fell backward onto the ground and caught a glimpse of a brilliantly clear, blue sky. He leaned close.
“I’m really, really sorry, Ember,” I whispered.
And then he shoved his warm snout against me. He licked my face with his rough, pink tongue, thoroughly admonishing me. His tongue tickled and I squealed and laughed, but I couldn’t push him away. I gathered him closer, back in my arms.
Someone cleared their throat. I sat up, looking around wildly with grass sticking out of my hair, and then realized the old man had caught up to me and Ember. Vaud had his arms crossed with a deep wrinkle carved into his forehead.
I swallowed. “Do you mind if he stays with me?”
Ember barked.
Both of us looked up imploringly at the old man.
“Well, I’ve been close to running out of space for all my flamefoxes.” Vaud’s whiskers twitched. “And, you know, I think he’s already decided on his home.”
I hiccuped. “Truly?”
He grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth. “These little brats, they don’t take to people easily. Once they’ve decided you’re theirs, there’s little we can do to change their minds. Most times, they’re smarter than us humans.”
“I think I understand what you mean.” The corner of Ember’s mouth lifted and his sharp teeth flashed, almost in a laugh.
“I’d give you his leash back, but he sheared it in half to get to you.” He showed me his ragged half of the leash.
“Ember!” I scolded, and he wriggled closer, happily.
“How much do I owe you for him?” I asked. Flamefoxes were rare, but right then I’d dive for treasure at the bottom of the Constancia Sea as long as it meant that Ember could stay with me.
The man squinted. “The thing is, I shouldn’t have let little Ember here out of my sight in the first place. And he was a rescue anyway. He needs a good home.”
“Mister Vaud…”
He cleared his throat. “I guess what I’m saying is… take care of Ember, okay? And if you’re ever in the area, stop by and say hi. Deal?”
Still holding Ember to my chest, I scrambled to my feet and took his hand. “Deal.”
Ember put his paw on top of our hands. I could almost hear him say Deal, too.
Our laughter pealed like bells, making the sky bluer and the sun feel soft and warm on my skin.
CHAPTER 15
SEMI-MAGICAL
The next day, after spending the lunchtime rush wishing I could charm customers to stop by and trying to come up with the right spell to protect Auteri from the Culling, I slid the Fiery Phoenix on the counter. Ember had chewed it up well. He sniffed at the broom and curled up.
I sighed.
He opened one eye, staring at me as if to say, What did I do wrong?
“Yeah, go on, pretend to be innocent.” I glared back, but he’d already gone back to napping. My flamefox let out a suspiciously fake snore.
Mother—or almost any other wizard or witch—could’ve smoothened out the gnaw marks and mended the magical bristles with a flick of her wand. Since I didn’t have her strength, I would have to be clever and use some elbow grease to re-form the misshapen edges.
I rummaged through my jars and pulled out my scrap of sandpaper. As I sanded down the sides, I tried to think of ways to fix up the bristles so it would work as an actual broomstick.
In front of the shop, a little boy called out to his mother. “Mama, Mama, wait for me.” His cheeks dimpled as he ran over and threw his arms around her legs.
She ruffled his hair roughly and her voice was stern, but a gentle smile lit her face. “Stay with me, love.”
I missed my parents with an ache in my heart I’d never felt before. Whenever Mother was off on her trips, Father and I had always baked breads or worked in the garden, and by the time we’d polished off a batch of sourdough with a wheel of soft cheese, she’d already be back home.
When—or if—I got Mayor Taira’s sign-off on my application, the last step would be to fly. All witches and wizards returned to the Council Hall by broomstick.
I peeked at my hourglass. The two glass stars shimmered as sand flowed down to the bottom star, speck by speck. Time was moving quickly. I stopped watching the crowds and focused on my broom with a new fury.
But I didn’t know how to fix the magical bristles. My lips tugged down as I sorted through the broken twigs, trying to think of a solution.
Ember’s hot nose nudged my ankle. I turned, my voice sharper than I intended. “What?”
He sat on the dirt, wagging his tail. He had his frayed leash in his mouth.
“It’s not time for a walk, Ember.”
My flamefox jumped onto the crate next to me. He dropped the leash on my arm and whined.
Ember disappeared under the counter again. He reappeared seconds later, holding something round and golden in his mouth, and set it next to the leash. It was a ball of his fur, from when I had brushed him earlier. He nudged the leash and fur toward me.
Then he bumped his muzzle against my arm and nudged me toward the pile of bristles. Here, he seemed to be saying. Now you can repair them!
“I can’t make bristles out of that.”
“Well, I saw you heal a man with a deep cut, so I bet you can manage a few bristles,” a familiar, melodic voice rang out.
I jumped. Rin stood in front of the counter in her green uniform. My cheeks flamed. I had been talking to Ember as if he could answer back. “Oh! Rin!”
My guardian broke into a smile. “I didn’t mean to surprise you, Eva. I was going to stop by earlier, but you looked lost in your thoughts.”
“Oh, you should’ve said hi—I wasn’t busy,” I protested. “I—I haven’t been getting any customers anyway.”
Rin peered at me. “Is something wrong? I’m your guardian—I want to help.”
Uncertainty crept into my voice. “I don’t think… I don’t think I’m doing good for the town, Rin. I barely saved that ship the other day, and I used rocks and seaweed, out of all things. After, Soma and his crew came by and made fun of me.… Auteri really lucked out when I decided to stay here, huh? I never seem to do anything right.”
Rin settled on the crate across from me and turned her head to the side thoughtfully. “None of us are perfect all the time, Eva,” she said finally. “On one of my first boat rides, a passenger yelled at me, and then a different rider threw up on my uniform.”
“But… I don’t know if”—I couldn’t possibly tell Rin that Mayor Taira didn’t want me here; I couldn’t speak about her own mother like that—“if I’m doing any good, truly.”
Rin tapped the edge of the crate. “Still, you’re trying, right? Maybe I’m not the best worker on the boat. But people like us, we’ve got to keep on trying. I’m not going to let one miserable passenger stop me from being out on the sea. Maybe it’s not the way the others cast spells, but fates, you saved people, Eva. If that’s not trying, I don’t know what trying is.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I shifted, fiddling with my wand, thinking over her words, which had settled around me like a blanket.
Instead of prodding me further, Rin leaned over the counter to examine the broom, and through the layer of sweat and coal, I caught a whiff of her sun-dried laundry, warm and sweet.
“What happened to the broom? It looks, um, different from when I first met you.”
“Ember tore it up. He got mad waiting for me and went on a rampage in the cottage. I’ve learned to never leave this troublemaker alone since.”
My flamefox didn’t quite seem apologetic as Rin rubbed his head and his sharp teeth flashed in a smile. “Could you use your magic to fix it?”
I tried to think of a charm as her gaze seared into me. Nervously, I grabbed the broken bristles and pl
aced them on top of the fur and leash.
“Go on with what you were doing,” she encouraged. I blushed. I still wasn’t used to performing magic in front of a captive audience.
Taking a deep breath, I swirled my wand above the bristles. I sang softly, “Spinner, spinner, spin through the wind; flying together, flying to the end.”
The leash unraveled as the fur braided around the sticks, and magic tugged out of my body. Red light flashed blindingly and my eyes watered.
I blinked until I could see. I had made a handful of new bristles that were a warm gold color instead of dark sticks. And when I looked closer, strands of the red leash and reddish-gold fur twined around each bristle.
“See? Your magic is working fine now. Try a bit of my uniform next.” Rin pulled out the green handkerchief tucked into her shirt pocket and handed it to me.
“Really?” I said, and she nodded. “Thank you.”
The orphanage kids had gathered around my counter, their eyes peeking over the edges. Charlotte jogged over, wiping sweat off her forehead, clutching a stack of flyers to her chest. Her right hand was still swathed in a thick bandage that looked stifling in the warm summery air.
“Char, Char, did you see that?” One of the boys, with his hair sticking out in twenty different directions, tugged at her sleeve.
“Ouch! Be careful of my bandage. And see what?” Charlotte asked. She slumped onto the crate next to Rin and grumbled as she moved her messenger bag onto her lap. More papers peeked out of the worn cloth folds. “This errand is never going to end. I mean, pass these out to all the stores and every tourist I see? That’s everyone! And this job pays a copper compared to my normal three bronze coins.”
An old woman stuck her head out the orphanage door. She had short, stiff gray hair and a frown that looked plastered to her face. “Charlotte, I’ve been waiting for you—it’s your turn to prepare supper.”
Charlotte groaned. “I’m so sorry. I’ll be right inside.”
I froze. I could do something. From my other side, Rin met my eyes and grinned, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. My guardian whispered, “You ready to put that magic to use?”
“Absolutely.” But I wasn’t sure if Charlotte wanted my help.
Rin said louder, winking at me, “I do know of someone who might be able to lend you a hand. Someone magical. Someone who’s been wanting to help the whole town.”
I dipped into a bow. “I’m at your service.”
Charlotte stared down her snub nose at me, then glanced at the woman who was sticking her head out the door, huffing impatiently. Finally, her gaze went toward the buildings stretching all the way up to the town hall, crammed into the cliffs. It felt like she was measuring me up, to see if she could really trust me like she seemed to trust Rin and Davy.
“Fine.” Charlotte sighed. She dropped the stack of papers on my counter and pulled out a tightly wound scroll and a charcoal stick from one of her belt pouches. “Kyo asked me to pass out flyers for the Festival of Lights to all the shops.”
“Oh! I can—”
“And I need the owners to tell me what they’re selling at their festival stands.”
I breathed sharply with excitement. I’d heard the Festival of Lights was the most beautiful festival in all of the realm, but I truthfully didn’t know much about it. “What’s the festival like?”
“Lightfish are the best!” cried one of the boys.
“Lightfish?” I echoed. The orphanage kids gasped with horror.
Charlotte’s nostrils flared, as if explaining this was a chore. “Once a year, during the Festival of Lights, our sailors bait lightfish with our famous sweet corn, attracting them to the top of our waters. Usually, the lightfish are in the depths, searching for their mates and families before the currents spread them across the sea again. But with the bait, it seems as if the waters are sparkling with light.”
The orphanage kids pawed at the flyers. “We wanna go! We wanna see all the sparkly lightfish!”
Charlotte pried off their hands. “The flyers are for the shopkeepers. Or visitors to Auteri. You live here. Don’t make me send you all inside.”
The kids stuck their hands into their pockets, shifting their weight from side to side as they tried their best to listen.
“I’d be more than happy to do that for you!” Maybe I could create a charm to send out the flyers to each of the shops. I started thinking about spells.
Carry on, wind be strong didn’t cause my magic to tingle at my fingertips. Fly again, straight to them didn’t feel quite right, either.…
Charlotte wrinkled her forehead. “You know, you need a better sign.”
My parchment sign declared EVA, WITCH, which I thought was perfectly functional. But to Charlotte’s point, it was barely readable from more than a few feet away.
Rin inclined her head. “Char’s right. It’s hard to tell if you’re a scryer or a weather witch.”
I took a deep breath. “Or a semi-magical repair witch?”
Semi-magical. Those words stung, even when I said them. It matched me too well. Yet I’d never heard of a witch who did semi-magical work, because there were only witches and wizards or the magicless—nothing in between.
My guardian smiled gently. “Or that.”
Charlotte bit her lip. “I’m sort of handy with painting. I can draw up a sign if you can help with the flyers.”
“She’s more than ‘sort of handy’ with painting and art and all that. You’ve seen her paper animals, right?” Rin chimed in.
I sat up straight. Trading jobs was just as good as getting coins. “But don’t you have to go make dinner?”
Just then, the old woman stuck her head out the window. “Charlotte!”
Charlotte visibly sank. “I’ll be back, I—”
“I’ll take care of dinner for the little ones, Char.” Rin let out a wistful sigh, glancing at the flyers one last time. “Ah, I loved the festival when I was young. My mother and I”—I felt a jolt of shock as I remembered she meant Mayor Taira—“used to go to all the stands for the festival foods. Those were the best nights. Back before I started working on the boats.”
Rin shook her head, as if that thought had abruptly shaken her out of her nostalgia. She beckoned the kids. “Come on, crew! Listen to your captain—we’re getting dinner!”
She peeled the orphanage kids away from my stand and led them inside.
I collected a few leftover planks, and Charlotte asked for red, gold, and white paint. Incanting “The colors that taint, please transform to paint,” I used a sliver of red tomato from my sandwich and magicked it into red paint, plucked bits of honey-colored dried grass for the gold, and crumbled a bit of contomelon roll for white paint.
Charlotte dipped her finger into the red paint and sniffed it gingerly. “It has the scent of freshly picked tomatoes. I almost want to taste it.”
“Here, use this.” I held out a paintbrush I’d made from a bit of twig and grass and immediately frowned. “Isn’t your hand hurt? Do you need my help to paint?”
“It’s almost healed.” Charlotte grabbed the paintbrush with her unharmed hand. “I’m left-handed anyway. Keep working on a spell for the flyers, Eva.”
It was the first time we’d been alone since we’d met. She put the sign on the ground on the other side of the counter, so that all I could see was the tip of her blue hair ribbon, streaming lightly in the wind. She didn’t seem to want me to see her painting. For a bit, we didn’t say anything. Charlotte hummed a gentle, slightly melancholy melody as she painted.
“Why’d you choose to come to Auteri?” Charlotte asked me suddenly. I fumbled the flyers, and they slid all over the counter. I flushed.
“Oh, Auteri? Well, I actually didn’t mean to.…” I explained to her how my magic worked, how I had been drained of magic after healing Vaud’s cut, and before I knew it, Rin had shaken me awake, telling me that Auteri was the last stop.
“Then you could’ve gone elsewhere.”
I looked behind me, where I could see the gold dome of the town hall. “I guess. But… I’ve been thinking about it.… There are so few witches and wizards in the realm. If I moved on, would someone else have come here? Even if it was a series of accidents, I figured I might be able to help Auteri if I stayed.”
“Hmm, a series of accidents,” Charlotte said. “That’s kind of how I came to Auteri, too.”
I could only see her crown of braids—she was hidden by the counter. “What do you mean?”
Charlotte stood up, wincing as she stretched out her bandaged hand. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere. But you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s just that…” She glanced down the docks. “I mean, you can tell from how my hair’s paler than most everyone else that I’m not from Auteri. Maybe the Walking Cliffs. Or, even, another realm. Anyway, everyone in Auteri knows, so I’ve never had to tell my story before.”
“I’d love to hear it from you.”
She breathed in slowly and then finally spoke. “Mayor Taira was on one of her early-morning walks. When she walked through the docks and past the beach, she saw a blue bundle at the edge of the water and didn’t think much of it—until she heard a cry.
“That wet lump of cloth was me.
“Mayor Taira sent out inquiries through the realm. Everyone knew of someone taken away by the sea, but no one had heard of a person being returned by it. There were no witches or wizards in town, so she had no means to figure out where I had come from.
“Mayor Taira started the orphanage to take care of me and the other children of Auteri whose parents were lost to the sea. No one has come to claim me. Someday, I’m going to find out where I’m from.”
She stared at me, as if I’d challenge her.
I tore my gaze away, looking out to the frothing, restless sea. I searched for a response, anything to explain the way it felt like her words had stolen the breath from my lungs. “The kids at the orphanage love you,” I said, stumbling over my words.
“Well, I’m finished,” Charlotte declared, as if she hadn’t heard me, and set the sign onto the bench. “It just needs a moment to dry.” She smoothed back the strands of hair that had escaped her braid and retied her blue ribbon.