The roiling something erupted from her so forcefully that she was thrown onto her back. It burst out with a sound like a howling gale. The mariners were screaming, and she didn’t know what her magic had done—
One scream distinguished itself from the rest. It was a roar of anger and agony, and Sepha knew she’d hurt someone.
Sepha scrambled onto her feet. The mariners were huddled around someone lying on the ground, but they scattered when she approached.
Because she was the most dangerous person on this boat, too.
When she saw what she’d done, her breath froze in her throat.
Henric was on the ground. There were large scores across his abdomen, as if some great, taloned beast had slashed him deep. There was blood pouring from his belly, and he was emitting a wordless, agonized moan.
Sepha dropped to her knees. “Henric! Henric, I didn’t—”
“Get away from me!” Henric shouted, and swung his arm toward Sepha. At the last moment, she saw the moonlight glint off the knife he hadn’t thrown. She lunged backward, but the tip of the blade caught her shirt. There was a ripping sound. She scrambled away from him, and he swiped again, bellowing, “Get back! Magician!”
Sepha turned and ran. Dimly, she saw Fio, Captain Ellsworth, Ms. Elos—but there was only one person who could help, one person who could undo what she’d just done to Henric.
She followed the pull of her tether.
“Ruhen!” she screamed, when she caught her breath. “Ruhen! Help!”
The words had barely left her lips when the tether cinched tight. Ruhen burst through an open doorway, looking frantic. “I hurt Henric!” Sepha gasped. “It was an accident, but I hurt him. He’s bleeding, and I hurt him, and—”
“Where is he?”
“That way!”
Ruhen turned and sprinted to where the mariners had reformed their circle around Henric. Sepha followed, falling behind as she felt a sharp stitch in her side.
“Out of the way!” Ruhen shouted.
Behind the wall of mariners, Henric moaned, “Stay away from me, magician!”
And the mariners weren’t moving and Henric had a belly wound and he was going to die and she’d killed both of the Magistrate’s heirs and—
“Everybody move!” Captain Ellsworth bellowed. The mariners obeyed, scrambling to clear a path for Ruhen.
Ruhen made to walk toward Henric, but Sepha surged forward and grabbed his wrist. He looked back at her, and she said, “He still has a knife.”
Ruhen’s eyes flicked down her body and up again, and something in his expression went hard. He strode over to Henric and knelt. Henric went very still, and Sepha wondered if that was by Henric’s choice or Ruhen’s.
There was a quiet moment. Then Ruhen muttered something unintelligible but powerful, words that rumbled through the air and knitted Henric’s gaping wounds back together. Where the long scores had been, now there were silvery scars.
Ruhen leaned closer to Henric and whispered something in his ear. Henric’s eyes widened, and then his face contorted in fury. He shot a look so full of loathing at Sepha that she took a step backward.
Ruhen stood up, and Ellsworth was immediately at his side. “There’s no defense against this,” Ellsworth said, glaring at Ruhen as if he was to blame. “I can’t have an out-of-control alchemancer on my ship. Take care of it. Tonight.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Ruhen said, casting a swift look in Sepha’s direction.
Sepha was a liability. If these mariners died, it would not be the undead magician, but she, who’d done it.
Sepha didn’t wait for Ruhen. Without looking at anyone or saying a word, she turned around and walked away. After a few steps, Fio appeared beside her, trotting to keep up. Ruhen fell into step on her other side, huge and silent and so very familiar.
They walked until they couldn’t hear the mariners anymore. Ruhen steered her into a gap between two huge shipping containers. He led her to the end of the narrow corridor between the containers, where the corridor widened into a small free space beside the rail. No one would see them here. Sepha felt a flicker of gratefulness. He’d known she’d want to be out of sight.
She eased onto a wooden crate that butted against one of the shipping containers, and Fio clambered up to sit behind her. Ruhen sat beside her, close, but not so close as to touch her. Her headache lessened.
For a few moments, Ruhen let the air fill with the sound of the Dear Lady’s engine, the wind, and the water churning behind the boat. Then, quietly, “What happened, Seph?”
Sepha swallowed. “We were practicing. He was throwing knives at me. I had to transform them while they were in the air.”
Ruhen clenched his fists. “He was throwing knives at you?”
“Yes, for his research.” Sepha grimaced at the stitch in her side and went on. “I was getting pretty good at it, so some of the mariners were helping. They threw before I was ready. Then my magic did something.” Her hands were tight fists, fingernails slicing into her skin. “I don’t even know what I did, and I almost killed him.”
Ruhen pushed off from the crate and paced back and forth in the small space. The tether stretched and shortened, stretched and shortened. Ruhen rubbed his mouth and muttered, “Godsdamned moron,” before sitting beside Sepha again. Closer this time. Arms crossed. “Henric should’ve known better than to throw knives at an alchemancer. Damn him.”
Sepha had never seen Ruhen so angry. The only time he’d been anywhere close was the night of the cleptapods’ attack, when he’d saved her life. The night she’d found out what he was.
Ruhen’s a magician, and Destry is dead.
“What did you say to Henric?” Sepha asked.
“I told him what I’d do to him if he ever tried to hurt you again.”
Sepha blinked. How had Ruhen known that Henric had pulled the knife on her? She looked down at her shirt and was surprised to see a long rip where Henric’s knife had snagged it. The blood surprised her even more.
“Oh,” she said, lifting her shirt to see the wound she’d thought was a stitch in her side. The cut was shallow but long. It trailed from just below her rib cage down to her navel. Blood dribbled out of the cut, dyeing her white shirt bright red.
Ruhen swore. He slid off the crate, knelt in front of her, and rested his hands on her waist. They were warm and gentle against her bare skin. She took a quick, shallow breath as rightness and relief shuddered through her.
With a muttered word, Ruhen sent his magic out to heal her. Her skin seared as the cut disappeared, leaving behind only a few drops of blood and the long, red gash in her shirt.
Fio scooted out from behind Sepha and craned his neck to look. When he saw the blood, he let out a low whistle. He fixed his eyes on hers and said, “Did Henric do that?”
Ruhen’s head jerked up in surprise, and he looked from Fio to Sepha, his eyes wide. She shrugged. “Yes.”
Fio scowled. “Damn him,” he muttered. He dropped off the crate and stalked purposefully away.
Sepha recognized the set of his jaw and the determination in his stride, and said, sharply, “Leave Henric alone, Fio.”
Fio let out a long, mumbled growl that ended with, “Fine.” He leaned against one of the shipping containers, folded his arms, and made a sour face at Sepha.
Ruhen stared at Fio. “He can talk!” His voice came out in a squeak.
One corner of Sepha’s mouth turned up. “Apparently.”
“But homunculi can’t talk!”
“I know!” she said, really smiling now. “He started with just one word at a time, and he’s been talking more and more, although no one else but you has seemed to notice. I don’t know what to make of it!”
“You don’t think he might be possessed, do you? Like the other one?”
Sepha shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. He’s been changing for a while,
all on his own.” At Ruhen’s skeptical expression, Sepha turned to Fio and asked, “Fio, you haven’t been possessed by a wayward spirit, have you?”
Indignant, Fio answered, “I have my own spirit.”
Sepha grinned. “Well, there you are,” she said to Ruhen. “He has his own spirit.”
“That’s what I just said,” Fio grumbled.
Ruhen cocked his head to the side, studying Fio. “Do all homunculi have spirits?”
Fio stiffened. A faint frown passed over his face as he looked from Ruhen to Sepha and back again. “Yes,” he said at last. “Sometimes.”
As if afraid he’d said too much, Fio clamped his mouth shut and squeezed his arms tighter around himself.
Ruhen stared at Fio for a few seconds, then shook his head and breathed a laugh.
“What?” Sepha asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m on a boat with a talking homunculus, an alchemancer, and the future Magistrate,” he said, and Sepha smiled. It was a rather ridiculous situation. She half-expected to hear Fio’s croak of a laugh, but when she turned to look at him, he was gone.
Silence fell, swift and sudden.
“About what happened with Henric …” Ruhen started. Sepha tensed. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
“How is it your fault?” He was still holding her by the waist, and Sepha suddenly realized how very alone they were. Her contract thrummed encouragingly, waking up for the first time since Destry’s death.
Her hands itched to rest on Ruhen’s arms, his broad shoulders, but she sure as After wasn’t going to do that. She crossed her arms instead.
“I could tell you hated having me around,” he said, “so I left you alone today. I shouldn’t’ve done it, Sepha, not when your magic’s waking up and you don’t know the first thing about controlling it. Whatever’s happening between us is one thing.” His thunderhead eyes flicked up to meet hers. “But if any accidents happen, you could hurt someone. Badly.”
Sepha swallowed. “So I really am dangerous.”
“Yes,” Ruhen said. He looked steadily at her, his expression concerned but not at all afraid. “You’re very dangerous, and you can’t help it. Not until you learn how not to be.”
Sepha was an alchemancer, and Destry was dead.
“So what do I do?” she asked. Ruhen’s thumbs twitched against her skin, and she flinched. He seemed to remember himself and stood up, jerking his hands away and shoving them in his pockets.
“Sorry,” he muttered. He backed up all the way to the railing, a dark silhouette against the stars’ silver swirl, and said to the ground at Sepha’s feet, “No more life-threatening situations, to start. Now that your magic’s awake, it’s going to protect you if it thinks you’re in danger. You can’t afford for that to happen until you know how to control it.”
Sepha thought for a moment. “But my magic didn’t hurt anyone at the Institute when the Military Alchemists attacked me. Actually, I didn’t feel my magic do anything at all. Their weapons just sort of … stopped.”
Ruhen chewed his lip. “That was the willow, then. The necklace, I mean. And not your magic.”
Sepha’s hand flew to the necklace she’d never taken off. “The necklace?”
“I bought it off a magician in Balarat,” Ruhen said, looking down at his feet. “It was a protective charm. The charm probably got used up at the Institute, though.”
Sepha traced the outline of the willow. “Why did you buy me a protective charm?”
“Because by then I knew you were an alchemancer, and I knew they’d be after you if you had any accidents. Magic is spotty when it first wakes up. It wouldn’t’ve been able to protect you.”
Sepha shook her head. “So how many times does that make it?”
“Times?”
“That you’ve saved my life.”
“I stopped counting. Didn’t have time to keep track while also saving your life every other day.” He let out a short, mirthless laugh that seemed not to belong in their quiet little place. “I’ll have to stick with you until you know how to control your magic. But you’re an alchemancer, and I’m only a magician. You might overpower me by accident.”
“Are alchemancers that powerful?” Sepha asked, surprised.
“You can do more powerful and varied alchemy than alchemists,” Ruhen pointed out. “It’s the same for magic. Your magic has more depth, more capacity. It can do more and do it for longer.”
“You’re talking like my magic is alive.”
“It is,” he said. “Magic is inside you, but it isn’t you. It’s sort of …” He thought for a moment. “I see it as a sort of beast that lives inside me. It feeds off its power source, and when it’s powerful, it’ll do whatever I ask it to. When I’m far from its power source, it feeds off me instead. We both need that power source if we want to survive.”
“What’s your magic’s power source?” Sepha asked.
Ruhen made a strangled sort of noise, then an embarrassed laugh, and scrubbed at his face with both hands. Hiding.
“What’s wrong?”
With an effort, Ruhen recovered himself enough to talk. “Erm,” he said, not meeting her eyes, “that isn’t something … I mean, you don’t—magicians don’t talk about that. It’s very, ah, private. On the level of … physical intimacy. Rather a bit beyond it.”
Sepha’s cheeks went hot. “Why?”
Ruhen shuffled and looked at his feet. “It’s not difficult to figure out what a person’s source is, if you watch them. But to talk about it—it’s like handing someone a knife that only works on you and your family and asking them to please not use it. It’s a trust beyond anything else.”
The implication—and the truth of the matter—was that they didn’t trust each other enough for this. The thought was like a rock in Sepha’s gut.
“Oh,” she said blankly. “I’m sorry. For asking.”
“It’s all right. You didn’t know.” He paused, then surged on, “You should try to identify your power source as soon as possible, though. It won’t be difficult. You probably already know what it is, on some level. Magicians get their power from all sorts of things: wind, water, metal, light. Those are called aeromancers, hydromancers, duromancers, and lumimancers, respectively. People even get their power from sound or earth or color. Could be anything. But you won’t gain any control over it until you know its power source.”
“How,” Sepha said, still too embarrassed to look at him, “how will I know? With so many options, how do I know which is mine?”
Ruhen was quiet for a moment. When Sepha glanced up, he was studying her. And she had the strangest feeling, the strangest certainty, that he knew exactly what she was.
“Think of the times you’ve felt at peace,” he said at last. “And the times you’ve felt the most alive, the most powerful. That should be a good place to start.”
Sepha nodded. The silence went awkward.
“You won’t kill anyone if I leave you alone to figure it out, will you?” Ruhen asked.
Sepha was half a second from snapping at him; but when she saw his expression, she realized he was only joking. Or trying to.
With an almost sad quirk of his lips, Ruhen explained, “This is something you should do alone. Normally, you do it when you’re very young, and you have a parent to help you. But I …” he swallowed. “I can’t be that for you. You deserve privacy with this.”
Sepha wiped inexplicable wetness from her eyes before answering. “Of course. Thanks. I’ll be fine. No murders.”
Their gazes locked, and the memory of their kiss filled the space between them. Gods, it had been days and eternities since then. Sepha wasn’t sure if it would ever happen again.
Ruhen pressed two fingers against his mouth, as if he was remembering, too; then he let his hand fall to his side. “Be careful, Sepha,” he said, and left. The tether unspooled as he went.
There was wind, and there was starlight, and there was Sepha, a
nd there was no one else.
Sepha’s mind stalled. Her beast, her magic, could get its power from literally anything. Out of an entire universe of possibilities, she had to find the one thing that would feed her beast and keep her alive. And she had to do it alone. Without a parent.
Without Mother.
Sepha’s mind snapped to the magnetic memory of her. Ipha, Mother, of black hair and hazel eyes and the world’s best smile, when she could manage it. Ipha, Mother, strange and sad, and after all these years a mystery.
Tentatively, a thumb on a bruise, Sepha approached her last living memory of her mother.
She and Mother used to play on the roof of their tall, narrow house. They had a garden up there. Roses, heavy and pink, their heads drooping from the weight of so much beauty. Thorny and hard to pluck. Good for hiding beneath, if Mother was feeling well enough for a game.
Mother had strange turns, sometimes. Silent and sad. But when they went to the roof, they could feel the wind tug at them, and Mother would feel better. Smiling her rare smile, Mother would call them the lost queens of the rooftop. Then she would tell Sepha what it was like to fly. To be high in the sky with nothing but air holding her up. Mother was always standing on the rim, teasing Sepha, saying, What if, just for a second, I forget that I’m not supposed to fly?
And Sepha wanted so badly to see her do it.
She was six, the day it happened.
Mother was just coming out of a strange turn that had lasted longer than normal. She was faded, like there was hardly anything left. But she told Sepha she could fly, and Sepha—damn her—had asked Mother to show her.
On the main deck of the Dear Lady, the wind went still.
It had gone still that day too, just before.
Mother jumped. Sepha waited. Mother didn’t fly. She crunched, four stories below. Father had always insisted that Sepha pushed her. Three Mills was divided on the subject; some thought it had been a game gone awry, but the ones who’d known Mother had only pursed their lips and shaken their heads.
Which Sepha had, until now, taken as a judgment. A silent disapproval at the thought of a six-year-old killing her mother.
The Lady Alchemist Page 24