by Katie Cross
I thought of the Factios and their fighting tactics, wondering if Angelina controlled them through Almorran magic.
“Let’s say Angelina does have the Book of Spells. Why would she have waited so long to use it?”
“Mildred,” Isadora said. “Mabel has long feared Mildred, so I’m guessing Angelina felt the same way. I may be wrong, of course. Only time will tell the whats and whys. Angelina’s main request is for you to set her daughter free?”
“Yes. It’s her only request. She basically repeats the same thing every time.”
“Sounds like she’s trying to be careful not to reveal too much about herself through the connection. Have you ever spoken back to her in the dreams?”
“Spoken back?” I asked in surprise. “No.”
“Any magic that invades the mind is not one-directional. For her to have any sort of control over your mind, she had to form a connection. If she’s talking to you, you can talk to her. Push back. Try to get information from her.”
I blinked. “Push back,” I whispered. “I never thought of that.”
“Try it next time. It may help lead us to her.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, my forehead furrowing. “If Almorran magic is so unknown, I mean.”
“I’m very old, Bianca. I’ve seen and studied much in my life. Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Besides, I see into witches’ minds all the time.” She smiled softly. “While it’s not the same as the Almorran way, it works along similar lines. Paths and emotions are somewhat betraying in themselves, you know.”
I didn’t know, but I pretended like I had. “Can I ask you one more question?”
“Of course.”
I hesitated. “Should I tell Papa about the dreams? I’ve thought about it, but he’s so busy, and I don’t even know … it doesn’t even make sense, does it?”
Isadora paused in thought. “The choice is yours,” she concluded, which really didn’t help me at all. “But no matter what happens, your father will not release Mabel. His knowing about the dreams may not change anything. Perhaps make him worry for you more.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, relieved. Perhaps my logic wasn’t poor after all. “Thanks.”
Isadora’s eyes narrowed. “Pay attention, Bianca. Dark days are coming again, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
“Nothing?” I asked desperately. “Almorran magic can’t be unstoppable, can it? How did Esmelda defeat it?”
“Those are days long past. Magic was different then than it is now.”
“But it still means that Almorran magic isn’t unstoppable. There must be a way.”
She looked at me with a queer expression. “Perhaps there’s something,” she whispered, turning to peer into Letum Wood for a long span of time. “Let me look into it. There just may be something.”
Night came with a bitter chill later that week. Leda and I sat together at the table, huddled over a textbook on the Declan language, while Camille hummed and read a romance novel, her ankle bobbing up and down. It promised to be a cozy, calm night with my friends, the kind that I cherished and never wanted to lose.
“Move the divan back, Camille,” Leda growled, readjusting her heavy cloak over her shoulders. Her nose had turned bright red at the tip. “You’re hogging all the heat again. It’s cold in here!”
“Sorry,” Camille said, using a spell to move the couch back without tearing her eyes from the book. It would only take her half an hour to slowly scoot it back. Priscilla sat on a chair in a warmer spot of the Witchery, but by no means hogged any part of the fire.
“Just repeat the words in Declan after me,” I told Leda with a breezy voice, hoping to distract her from her wrath. “It’s the easiest of all the languages to pronounce. Just wait until you get to the Almorran language. It’s ridiculous.”
Leda mumbled an idle threat under her breath, but my intervention worked because she turned away from Camille with a humph.
“Fine,” she muttered. While it did seem backward for me to tutor Leda, I wasn’t about to relinquish the tiny morsel of power it had given me. The days I could claim any intellectual advantage over Leda were galloping to a rapid close. Once she finished the Esbat mark, I wouldn’t have any real know-how over her except for applied magical power, which she cared little about compared to knowledge.
“I don’t like learning languages,” she said, surveying the words on the page. I stared at her in surprise. The concept of Leda not enjoying learning in any form floored me; it seemed more likely that the sun wouldn’t rise in the morning.
“What?”
“It’s just not as interesting as history,” she said, quickly adding, “I’m good at it, and I’ll do it, I just don’t enjoy it as much.”
“But you’ll memorize political books?” I asked, motioning toward several thick volumes stacked on the floor near her bed. None of them even applied to her current lessons.
“I’m not memorizing,” she mumbled through clenched teeth. “I’m reading them to stay informed. I need to know all of those policies before I can become a good Assistant.”
I glanced at the circlus on her wrist. The marks for Advanced Political History and Public Speaking left one empty space for the Esbat. Although I’d expected Leda to clam up in front of an audience, she’d actually conducted herself very well. Miss Scarlett had asked Leda to speak in front of the entire kitchen staff, and then in front of two contingents of Guardians, and to teach a class to the servants on political history. The final test happened at a rally in Chatham City. No one booed—I sent a silencing spell in the direction of anyone who tried—so Leda never grew flustered, although her neck had blazed bright red.
I had just started conjugating the verb to run when the Witchery door burst open and Michelle flew in.
“Guess what?” she cried, breathless and red-faced. “Guess what just happened?”
Camille sat up. “Is everything all right?”
Michelle dropped her bag to the floor. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly several times, and she lifted her left arm to reveal a braided blue and silver cord sparkling with subtle jewels.
“What!” Camille screamed, leaping off the old couch. “What is that? Is that a cord of engagement?”
Michelle blushed so deeply I thought her face would catch fire. Leda and I stared at her, mutually dumbstruck, mouths open. Priscilla was the first to smile.
“I’m engaged!” Michelle whispered. “I’m engaged!”
Camille started screaming and jumping up and down, curls bouncing. Michelle caught on to her fervor and hopped with her. Leda and I exchanged disbelieving glances until Leda finally stood up.
“Wow, Michelle!” she said, eyes wide. “I … congratulations!”
Camille hugged Michelle again, still awkwardly bouncing in Michelle’s thick arms.
“Congratulations, Michelle,” Priscilla said quietly, her hands folded in front of her. Michelle nodded but didn’t meet her eyes.
“Where is the hand fasting ceremony?” Camille asked, eyes bright. “When is the date? How did he ask? Are you going to do it here? Can I help you pick out your dress? Is Fina going to cater? Will you do it in the gardens?”
“Sit down, Camille!” Leda called. “Give Michelle a second to breathe. Jikes.”
Michelle glanced shyly at me, and my breath stilled when I realized I hadn’t moved. Her cord of engagement was simple but beautiful. It wasn’t that her engagement at age twenty came as much of a surprise—plenty of young female witches married before nineteen, even. But it meant all of us were growing up and moving on, and I felt paralyzed.
There wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
Leda shot me a sharp look, which roused me from my stupor. I stood and offered a stunned half-smile.
“Congratulations, Michelle. That’s wonderful.”
My words sounded as enthusiastic as a wooden board, but she didn’t seem to notice. Leda’s glare deepened, so I ignored her. Camille
had been set loose again and bounded over to the table.
“You can have Henrietta do the dress! Oh, a wedding dress! With lace and tulle and fabric and ribbon. You’re going to be beautiful, Michelle!”
Michelle fidgeted with the ends of her sleeves. “Will you help me plan a few things, Camille? I have no idea what to do.”
“I’d love to!” Camille cried, beaming. “It just so happens I have a few bridal scrolls around here somewhere.”
Leda and I returned to our seats, staring at the fire in shock, while Michelle, Camille, and Priscilla congregated around the table.
“Wow,” Leda whispered. “Good for her.”
I turned my eyes back to the book so it looked like one of us had resumed our previous activities, but I wasn’t sure my fixed gaze would convince anyone.
“Why do we have to grow up?” I asked in a rush of bitter complaint. “Why can’t things just stay the same? Wasn’t this night perfect? Isn’t it wonderful to be together and not worry about splitting up? You work with Rupert, Camille dates Brecken, Michelle works in the kitchens, Priscilla is suddenly friendly, and we all meet here at the Witchery every night. Why does such a good thing have to end?”
“Things are always changing, Bianca. And Priscilla is not friendly.”
“Not always changing,” I countered. “They’ve been wonderful for the past six or seven months, haven’t they?”
“No!” she cried with a laugh. “We’ve been preparing for war for six months. I’ve studied so hard my brains are oozing out of my head. You started a difficult job and have to learn etiquette. The last six months have been anything but perfect.”
I turned away with a scowl. “They were perfect for me. And yes, Priscilla is nice now,” I said, just to be contrary.
“Coming to the castle was a change and good things came of it,” Leda said.
“But that was different.”
“How?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest and adopting that look that said, I’m-going-to-win. I chided myself too late. Debating Leda over something like this was just asking to lose.
“Because … because things were bad then. And now they’re good. We shouldn’t change a good thing.”
“Things were bad for you, maybe,” Leda said. “They were okay for us at school. You think I looked forward to moving into a busy castle?”
“Yes! You took advantage of it right away and got a job, didn’t you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Bad example. All I’m trying to say is that life changes all the time, Bianca. We can’t stop it, so why fight it?”
My eyes drifted to Camille, Priscilla, and Michelle seated at the table, pouring over a scroll of dress designs. Michelle glowed from the grin on her lips to the light in her eyes.
“Besides,” Leda continued, reading my mind. “Look at how happy Michelle is. Would you deny her happiness just because you want to keep things the same?”
“No,” I muttered, but it sounded petulant. I wanted to be happy for Michelle, but I couldn’t really feel it. Michelle’s departure would be just the beginning. Camille would go next, and then Leda, and I’d be left behind in a cold castle with a father so determined to save the world I’d hardly ever see him.
I thought I had finally found comfort and happiness.
“Let’s finish the Declan lesson,” Leda said, but I couldn’t focus on the correct pronunciation of verbs, and my eyes kept straying to the scene laid out at the table.
Would you deny her happiness just because you want to keep things the same?
No, of course I wouldn’t. But I didn’t have to like all the changes. Leda pulled me back to reality with a question about the language, and I immersed myself in something apart from my depressing thoughts.
The Southern Covens
I want what is mine, Bianca.
Although I knew I dreamt, I found myself sitting in Marten’s office on a particularly glum winter day. Half-frozen slush descended outside, a product of the end of the third month of winter and the slow approach of spring, but I remembered the office had been stuffy, lulling me to sleep with its quiet and warmth.
I shall take it if you don’t give it to me.
Darkness plumed out of the fireplace in a black mist, infiltrating every nook and cranny of the room as if it sought something. The usual rush of fear assaulted me, but instead of trying to escape or wake up, I forced myself to calm down. This was the first dream I’d had since Isadora suggested I communicate with Angelina a week earlier.
We all want what we want, I responded, standing. That doesn’t mean you should have it. My own voice sounded distant, somewhat muffled, for I didn’t vocalize the words but thought them instead. Speaking back to her felt surprisingly easy, and I wondered why I hadn’t tried it before.
The strange mist surrounded my feet now. Swirls of it appeared as fluid as water, moving in silky grandeur over the floor, while the rest bubbled like foam around the fireplace. It ebbed and flowed, rocking me back and forth.
But I will have it, Angelina replied. For I always get what I want.
Always? I challenged, heart thumping. If I could just learn a little more about Angelina, a little more about her past, perhaps we could find her and the Book of Spells.
Always.
A barrage of confusion overtook me. Screams. Grunts. Yells. The foul smell of burned flesh. No fire, but that same oppressive weight pressed on my shoulders. I saw blood and smoke and death and blank eyes peering out of drifts of deep snow. The eyes became bodies, and the bodies became fields of dying Guardians. In the distance loomed a giant wall shrouded in a white storm.
You have been warned.
I jerked awake at my desk in Marten’s office, just as I had imagined in the dream, and remained frozen to the spot. My eyes darted to the fireplace, expecting to see the pitiless darkness, but nothing came.
“Bianca?”
Marten peered at me from behind his desk, his forehead ruffled. I sat up, blinking rapidly to clear my thoughts.
“Sorry,” I murmured, rubbing a hand over my face. “Sorry. Just a bad dream.”
He stared at me for a long pause. “It’s time for us to go,” he said, glancing at the clock. “We have a meeting in the Southern Covens. Diego sent me a letter saying there’s a section of the Eastern Coven border near the Southern Network wall that witches have been using to conduct black market trades. They stand on either side of the boundary and toss goods back and forth. We need to go check on it.”
I stood when he did, grateful to escape the close office. The door shut behind me, and I followed Marten out, leaving the darkness of the dreams in my wake. A whisper trailed in the air.
Let my daughter go.
The Southern Covens in the winter weren’t much to brag about.
A wall of stone five stories high stood on the border between the Southern Network and the Central Network. The Southern Network built it in the tempestuous war years that led up to the formation of the Mansfeld Pact. It effectively blocked them off from every other Network. Not far beyond it stood the ice castle, not quite visible in the distance, where the paranoid High Priests could keep an eye on the Eastern and Central Networks from the highest turrets.
Today the Southern Covens bustled with their annual market, celebrating the onset of spring. Despite a lack of crops to sell, many witches that had been cooped up for hours in their cabins kept themselves busy creating crafts that would prove useful during the more productive summer months. Woven baskets, goat milk soap, rugs, a few simple tapestries, and smoked meat hardened into long, thin strips hung from the stalls. The market hosted at least two hundred booths and stretched along the Southern Wall as far as the eye could see.
“The whole Southern Covens come out for this,” Marten said when a witch with boots covered in cow manure transported in a few paces away. “They only hold it once at the end of winter, right before spring, if the weather is good.”
I peered up at the bright, cloudless sky. The air felt so bitterly col
d that the sunshine seemed to pinch my cheeks instead of warm me. I pulled my fur-lined cloak closer around my shoulders.
“It’s cold,” I said with a shiver, wondering, not for the first time, how Marten tolerated such chill with no hair. He didn’t seem bothered, glancing about with assessing, sharp eyes.
“Keep your eyes open,” he murmured. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged it off. “Let’s start walking toward the Eastern Network. We need to talk with a few Border Guards about the problem.”
As we filtered through the happy crowd, Marten’s brow creased. I’d just wandered close to a stall offering rose petal perfume when the skin on the back of my neck prickled. Marten was right. Something felt off.
A startled cry rose over the crowded marketplace. I whipped around, pulling Viveet from her sheath. My gut clenched. Sprawled on top of the wall, spread out in an unnerving display of force, stood a long train of Southern Guardians leading all the way to the turn of the wall into the Eastern Network. In the middle, Mikhail looked down on us, his golden armor glinting with rubies and sapphires. Next to him stood a witch I’d never seen before but recognized even from so far away. He wore the loose linen pants and arrogant bare chest of the West Guards. His hair hung down his back in a long braid. Only a West Guard leader would prance half-naked in such a bitter cold, trying to prove his strength.
It had to be Dane, the High Priest of the Western Network and a powerful Watcher. His presence could not be a good thing, even if no West Guards stood behind him.
“On the wall!” someone screeched, pointing. “Look on the wall!”
Dane and Mikhail stood angled toward each other, clearly in discussion. They stared down on the Southern Covens with imperturbable faces and hardened eyes. I searched frantically for Marten but lost him in the melee of the crowd. Angelina’s voice whispered through my mind with such intensity that I stumbled.
You have been warned.
As quickly as it came, it left. I shot back to my feet. “Marten!” I cried. “Sorry. Let me pass. Excuse me. Marten!”