The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

by Emily Croy Barker

  She wanted to argue—why not now, she could keep any secret he asked—but the seriousness of his expression dissuaded her. She tried to ignore the sudden dread that rose inside her, the fear of what he was not telling her. Could it be worse than killing your wife? “All right,” she said. “I understand.”

  When they reached the castle, Nora saw that the bonfire had been doused, but there was a dark, upright, spiky shape in the courtyard, a little taller than a man. As they came closer, she recognized it as a fir tree.

  “What is that tree doing here?” she asked.

  “The tree is for you,” Aruendiel said. “So that you may get in some practice in light-conjuring. I had Toristel set it up.” When Nora did not respond, he added, with some impatience, “Did you not say that it is the custom in your world to garland a tree with lights at the time of the New Year?”

  For some reason, something that Nora had told him about her own winter holiday had stuck with him. Perhaps he had seen similar trees in Chicago. She found she was smiling. “Oh, yes,” she assured him. “It’s called a Christmas tree.”

  Aruendiel flung up one hand as though to show that he had no interest in whatever the tree was called. “Very well, then. Begin.”

  As a homework assignment, it was a challenging one. She had conjured light before, but she had never tried to make dozens of smaller lights at once. And the tiny, ghostly flames refused to stay in place, slipping off the tree’s needles to hover like winter fireflies. Aruendiel pointed out that she had left out the spell’s locative step, and she had to start again. Then, as she was getting the hang of it, daubing light along the branches, he added another twist, making her pull illumination from two different sources, the Toristels’ fire as well as the kitchen grate.

  When Nora was done, she stepped back to look critically at her handiwork. She had not managed to make all the lights the same size—some were like sparks, some were the size of apricots—but she decided she was pleased with the effect. The lights borrowed from the kitchen burned slow and reddish, like coals; the others flared and flickered. Probably Mrs. Toristel was poking her fire. Recognizably, it was a Christmas tree, although it was a wilder, less cozy, more restive creature than anything you could assemble by plugging in a string of electric lights and throwing them over a tree in your living room.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  Aruendiel frowned, staring at the tree, and she could tell that he was tallying up her errors: the false start, the various-size flames (“poor control”), the time it had taken her to finish, and the other mistakes of which she was not even aware.

  “It’s very pretty,” he said.

  On an impulse, Nora groped for Aruendiel’s hand and squeezed it. “Merry Christmas, Aruendiel,” she said in English. “Happy New Year,” in Ors.

  Faster than thought, his fingers slid around hers. He looked down quickly, meeting her gaze, and in his startlement she saw a soft flash of hope, of wanting.

  She saw with sudden emotion that she could follow the path her eyes had made and put her face near his, her lips on his lips. He was so close. It would not be difficult at all. In the glow of the tree, his gray eyes watched, gentle, restless oceans waiting to engulf her.

  Nora froze, looked away. She gave his hand another, more abrupt squeeze and dropped it, rocking back on her heels, away from him.

  “A prosperous New Year to you, Mistress Nora,” Aruendiel said crisply.

  They stood there for another few minutes, looking at the tree, talking—Nora could not for the life of her remember afterward what they talked about—until Aruendiel stamped his feet in the snow and turned to go inside. At the door of the manor house, he paused.

  “Ask the Toristels to come over, will you?” he said. “I will have a New Year’s toast with them.”

  He spent a good two hours that night drinking hot wine with the Toristels in the great hall. Aruendiel warmed the wine himself, not on the fire. Probably the Calanian protocol for generating heat, Nora thought. She did not ask him. She drank a goblet, but it did not shake the chill she felt.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 38

  The kiss that Nora had not given Aruendiel on New Year’s Day proved to be more durable than she would have imagined. It remained with her, invisible, inert, not gaining power but not losing it either. In those winter months she felt as though she were wearing it like a locket on a chain that would not break, and she was thankful that Aruendiel never noticed it.

  Or seemed not to. Lessons had resumed. She spent half of every day in Aruendiel’s company, but there was a reserve between them, an empty place that neither tried to traverse, although Nora found herself watching him across it. He no longer asked her to accompany him on walks into the woods, although he did not refuse if she asked to come. He did not talk about his past life again except in the most impersonal way—explaining how he had come to use a certain spell for the first time, for instance. The translation of Pride and Prejudice stopped, at his request.

  “We’re only halfway through, there’s much more to come,” Nora said, feeling the weight of the lost kiss. Elizabeth had just rejected Darcy. (Was it Nora’s imagination, or had Aruendiel’s face set into harsher, stoic lines as Elizabeth declared: “You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it”?)

  “More of the same trivialities of courtship, you mean,” Aruendiel said dismissively. “It is a wonder that anyone took the trouble to write down anything so negligible.” Nora’s grammar and orthography still needed polishing, he added, but she would make faster progress if she focused on the exercises in her grammar book.

  Faster, faster. Aruendiel had a new preoccupation with how quickly she was advancing. He had started her on water magic while they were still deep in fire magic. It was hard to switch back and forth between the two, since water required an entirely different mind-set, but Aruendiel was unsympathetic. A good magician should be able to draw on multiple sources of power at the same time. Water was not as responsive as fire, it was secretive and mutable and aloof, you had to wait for it to heed you.

  She had less time for household chores, for which she was secretly grateful, and yet she felt torn because it meant more work for Mrs. Toristel, for whom she felt a new sense of responsibility. It seemed unfair that Mrs. Toristel would never know how closely she and he were related. With a few words, Nora thought, she could reveal the truth. But Aruendiel would be furious. Or somehow wounded by her betrayal.

  The dead kiss pulled on its unseen chain, knocking against her heart. It was as persistent and troublesome as that damned ring of Raclin’s that she still could not remove from her finger, either. The kiss was worse. Coward, it said to her. What were you afraid of?

  Perversely, she had started to dream about him. Very ordinary dreams, mostly—once she dreamed they were driving in a car together in Washington, D.C., of all places—but sometimes (too often? not often enough?) the dreams were blatantly erotic. Then she was amazed at how warm and solid his long body felt as she wrapped her arms around him and he kissed her with a mouth that was fervent and sure. One night the kiss went on and on, Aruendiel’s hand cupping her breast—Nora arching herself against him, wanting to devour him, yet knowing that Mrs. Toristel could walk into the room any minute—Aruendiel pulling up her skirt—pressing deliberately into the aching secret heat between her legs—

  Nora woke up. She found she was panting slightly. Raclin was sitting on the edge of her bed, smirking. He looked very handsome in the moonlight.

  “Are you that desperate, that you’d screw him?” he asked. “I thought my wife was used to better than that.”

  “At least he’s not a monster,” Nora said.

  Raclin laughed again. Ilissa’s voice, from somewhere Nora couldn’t see, called: “Raclin? What are you doing?”

  “It was only a dream, Mother,” Raclin said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Ilissa giggled. “Oh, then leave poor Nora alone,�
� she said.

  Nora woke up for real that time, in the freezing dark of her bedroom. She lay for a long time without moving, listening with dread for Ilissa’s and Raclin’s voices to return, also wishing she could take a long, hot shower and scrub away a lingering sense of befoulment. She thought about calling out to Aruendiel, a few rooms away—Raclin had seemed so real—but another kind of anxiety stopped her.

  In the daylight, the dream itself looked much more like psychological dramatizing than Faitoren magic. Meeting Aruendiel unexpectedly that morning, she was flustered enough to drop a jug of water. She did a spell to collect the spilled water and flubbed it—twice. She was almost grateful for his caustic critique of her performance, because it meant she didn’t have to say anything.

  Otherwise, the winter days blended almost seamlessly together like snow falling on snow. Mrs. Toristel knitted dozens of socks. Mr. Toristel’s arthritis flared up, got better. When the snow was too deep for walking or riding, Aruendiel practiced his swordplay in the great hall against an opponent jerry-rigged into life from old rope, a broomstick, and a powerful animation spell. There was no grace in the way that he moved—the old broken places in his frame were more obvious than ever—but he wielded the sword against the puppet with grim precision. Nora developed an exasperating tic in her spellcraft, a light rain—sometimes sleet—that fell as she worked through particularly challenging spells. At first she was rather pleased with herself—she had not even gotten to weather magic!—but after the second wetting it was only a nuisance. Aruendiel lectured her once again on control and banished her to the great hall to practice spells, safely away from his library.

  Then, one afternoon in the second month of the year, Aruendiel received a letter from the magician Nansis Abora. Something white bumped against the glass of Aruendiel’s study window. When he brought it inside, Nora saw that it was parchment that had been folded into an angular birdlike shape, like an origami crane. It quivered in Aruendiel’s hand and then was quiet.

  After reading the letter, Aruendiel snorted. “Nansis thinks he’s reconstructed Mernil Blueskin’s observation spell. The right one, this time.”

  “What do you mean, this time?”

  “Oh, some years ago a magician named Klexin Ornasorn claimed to have rediscovered the Blueskin observation spell hidden in the binding of an old book on weather forecasting. Of course he wouldn’t let any other magician read the spell, let alone try it.” His mouth twitched. “Hirizjahkinis and I went to some trouble to obtain it. It was an obvious fake. Someone’s observation spell, but not Blueskin’s.”

  “What is Blueskin’s observation spell?”

  “An observation spell,” he said, “lets a magician see what’s happening elsewhere. Mernil Blueskin devised the first true observation spell back in the days of the Thaw. It was lost centuries ago, but it was supposed to be the best of its kind, with almost limitless range. As far as the other side of the world—even other worlds.”

  “Other worlds?” Nora repeated. “Really.”

  “At least, so the story goes,” Aruendiel said thoughtfully, nodding. “It would be intriguing if—” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Scanning the shelves, he took down a couple of books and disappeared up the stairs to his workroom, still holding Nansis’s letter.

  Nora was in the great hall, attempting a basic transformation—changing the color of a bowl from red to blue, and trying to ignore the delicate drizzle that swirled intermittently around her head—when Aruendiel reappeared, some hours later.

  There was new energy in his uneven step. “It’s a good spell,” he said. “Better than I expected. I’ve been looking around, at various things all over the world. Semr. Skililand—the western continent. The range is excellent. It could be Blueskin’s spell.”

  Nora set the bowl, which had achieved a rich eggplant tint, carefully aside. “Did you try looking outside this world?” she asked.

  “Not yet. Come,” he said, with a lift of his chin. “I require your assistance.”

  She followed him into the tower, up the stairs. At the top, his workroom was dark. Aruendiel lit a candle, and Nora saw a circle drawn on the floor in charcoal, about eight feet in diameter.

  “Take this,” Aruendiel said, handing her the candle. He lit another for himself. “Now, we are almost ready. We are going to have a look at your world.”

  “All right,” said Nora, taking a deep breath. “Any particular part of my world?”

  “Anywhere you like,” he said carelessly. “But choose something. The spell works better, I find, the more specific your intentions.”

  Nora had a momentary impulse to show Aruendiel her apartment and some of her regular campus haunts, then dismissed the idea as faintly embarrassing. There were all the places she’d always wanted to visit: Angkor Wat, the Lake District, Tokyo. Aruendiel would probably be impressed by Tokyo. But that wasn’t what she really wanted to see.

  “Have you chosen a place?” Aruendiel asked impatiently.

  “Yes. What do I do now?”

  “Think of it as you would any destination, as you set out on a journey—with some purpose, some intention. Keep tight hold of your candle. And then step into the circle.”

  That was all? She felt distinctly skeptical as she stepped across the charcoal line. But she felt the internal shudder that signaled strong magic—and the light from her candle hit vague clutter on the ground that she had not noticed before. A stone floor—no, cement. Something caught the light and threw it back to her: chrome, spokes, glittery pink and purple streamers. A little girl’s bike. Next to it, a lawn mower. Over there, a blurry glistening bulk that she knew, even without being able to see it clearly, was a silver Toyota Camry.

  The light of a second candle appeared, over her shoulder. Aruendiel looked around curiously. “What is this place?” he asked.

  “It’s my parents’ garage,” Nora said. They were standing where Kathy’s car, the minivan, was usually parked. She must be out somewhere.

  He repeated the English word inquiringly.

  “Garage? It’s an outer room, like a barn,” she said. “Where vehicles are kept.” She gestured at the Camry, not sure whether he would know what it was.

  “So the house of your parents is nearby?”

  “In here,” she said, moving automatically toward the kitchen door. “Actually, it’s my father and stepmother’s house. He bought my mother out, when they got divorced.”

  Nora reached for the door handle. It felt dull and distant, but the knob turned. She opened the door and went up the three steps to the kitchen.

  She fumbled for the light switch and then realized that the lights were already on. A sluggish pale streak spilled down from the light fixture over the sink.

  “Why is it so dark?” she asked Aruendiel, just behind her.

  “Use your candle,” he instructed.

  She began to understand how the spell worked. Inside the two circles of flickering candlelight, hers and Aruendiel’s, objects had color, definition, solidity. She could see clearly her booted feet on the creamy vinyl tiles. The white plastic coffee maker, shockingly clean and bright after the smoke-blackened wood and stone of Mrs. Toristel’s kitchen. The squat green numbers on the microwave clock: 11:13 PM.

  Beyond the reach of her candle, the world was grayish, elastic, unformed. The edges of the room heaved slowly. Nora strained to see them more clearly, then looked back at her candle when she started to feel seasick.

  “It’s nighttime,” she said to Aruendiel. “Late. I think everyone might have gone to bed by now.” There were still dirty supper dishes in the sink. She went cautiously forward. The slippery dimness resolved itself into the far end of the kitchen, then the den.

  She was wrong; her father was still up. Barely. He slumped on the couch, soaking in the glow of the television screen.

  “Dad!” Nora said softly, not wanting to startle him. “It’s me, Nora.”

  He did not respond, so she called again, louder. His eyes did not move, eve
n when she went over to stand directly in front of him, blocking the television.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded.

  “He can’t see you,” Aruendiel said, coming into the den.

  “What do you mean, he can’t see me?” She held her candle closer to her father’s face.

  “It’s an observation spell, Nora. We are not really here. We can see him, but he cannot see us.”

  Her father moved suddenly. He reached for something on the floor—a can of Bud—and took a long swallow. A small collection of empties nested beside the couch.

  “This is your father?” Aruendiel inquired.

  “Yes,” Nora said. Even if Aruendiel had never seen a beer can before, he probably could figure out what it was from the avidity with which her father was tilting out the last of its contents. “He doesn’t usually drink this much.”

  Aruendiel seemed more interested in the television, holding his candle up to see it more clearly. “I remember this from Chigago,” he said, with an air of satisfaction. “Moving pictures, it is called.”

  “Television,” Nora corrected him absently. “It’s similar.” She looked worriedly at her father, the shadows under his eyes, the puffiness along his jaw. He had gained weight. Then, because he and Aruendiel were both gazing fixedly at the TV screen, she did so, too. The Weather Channel. It was snowing in Minneapolis.

  From the other side of the house came the faint sound of the front door opening. “Who’s there?” her father called out, raising his head, suddenly alert.

  “Leigh.” Her sister’s voice sounded tinny.

  Her father did not relax. “What were you doing out? I thought you were upstairs. Come in here.”

  After a minute, Leigh appeared, a shadow that gained substance as she advanced into the light from Nora’s candle. Since Nora had seen her last, her sister had grown an inch or two. She was wearing her jeans tighter now, her sweaters clingier. “I was at Marissa’s,” she said. “Doing homework.”