by Terah Edun
“What I’ve been trying to do for what it seems like half an hour is test that theory,” Mae said.
“What theory?” her sister asked in a fed-up tone.
“Anything to shut her up,” Richard said. He had apparently decided they’d been in close quarters for far too long.
Mae didn’t care what they thought of her in that moment. The fact that they were shifting positions—if only because she had worn them down—still improved her night.
Brightening, Mae waved her hand dramatically. “I’m so glad you asked.”
Before her sister could get to her feet, Mae continued as she gestured at Richard’s hand.
“If you’ll just put your hand flat below his,” Mae said with a tight smile, “and let Richard slowly remove his, we can see if he is, in fact, the only one who can activate it.”
Ember didn’t fuss, just walked forward and slid her hand underneath Richard’s. “Like this?” she asked, wiggling her fingers. Seconds into her interruption, his glowing palm started to dim and the incantation dissipated. Just like it had with Mae’s.
“Like that,” Mae said with a disappointed sigh.
She had to admit that she hadn’t wanted Ember to be capable of something she couldn’t, but it would have been nice to have someone other than Richard to rely on. But they were stuck with each other now—no matter what.
Ember took her hand back slowly, as if she was waiting for Mae to object. When none was forthcoming, she turned and looked at Mae straight on. “Now what’s next in your harebrained scheme?”
“It’s not harebrained if it’s paying off,” Mae insisted.
“We’ll see.” Ember sniffed.
Mae rolled her eyes. “Now we gather the ingredients and hope it won’t be so hard to get a female mage to work with us.”
This time it wasn’t Ember who objected, but Richard.
“Say you get your ingredients,” he said tensely. “You’ll need three powerful casters to get this to work.”
“Well, we have you for starters,” Mae said. “Though it would be really nice if we didn’t need the others and I could be of use more directly.”
Ember shrugged. “Life doesn’t work like that.”
Mae gave her an irritated glance. “What makes me so wrong that it takes a man to make this magic work, anyway?”
Ember didn’t bother saying anything. She just yanked down her collar and pointed at the ink.
“This is why, Mae,” Ember said. “It’s who you are. It’s who you’ve always been. A Darnes girl born to take the tattooed collar and never ask questions. It’s our heritage. It’s our legacy.”
“I never asked for this,” Mae said. “I just wish…”
“We all know what you wish Mae,” Ember said. “But sometimes life isn’t fair.”
“Being sick for no reason isn’t fair,” Mae spat out. “Being forbidden and cut off from magic because of a fluke of your birth is a crime.”
Richard stirred. “You have no reason to believe that if you had been born anywhere else…you wouldn’t be what you are today.”
Mae gave an angry sigh. “I can’t prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, no. But in this instance, I think it’s clear that we are as unlike the foreign women as can be.”
If her words were as bitterly sharp as biting into a lemon, that was because she wasn’t angry so much as bone tired. What was the point of putting so much effort in when someone else could come along and take the credit for your hard work?
As Richard was doing now. Granted…he seemed extremely reluctant to keep his hand anywhere near the tome, but reluctant or not, he recognized his place in their history. Mae just had to come to terms with her own. As she stared and focused her entire being on the object beneath Richard’s hand and everything it had just revealed to them, Mae decided that history was for those who could make their own.
“What is it Grandmother says? If you find an expectant sheep, thank the gods for the lamb— don’t argue with the gods at how it came too early for you or the wrong color?” Mae said to herself with pained smile.
Well, if the sheep-herding side of her family could handle lambing day-after-day hours before dawn, then the least she could do was support the one person who it seemed could make her dream a reality.
It made her feel just a tad better when nothing else did. Besides, she could use some of that practical wisdom to get her through all of this.
It was turning out to be one hayride of a week.
18
Trying to calm herself and move on to a more…enlightened mindset, Mae muttered, “Got to be grateful for the lamb. Don’t question the color. Don’t question the gender. Just be grateful.”
That mantra soothed her just as long as it took for Richard to speak up and break her concentration.
“Are you going to let the rest of us in on your thoughts or just continue to talk to yourself?”
It wasn’t all that unreasonable a question to ask. She probably sounded like a crazy person, and realizing that her hang-ups were no one’s but her own, Mae decided to include him in her line of thinking.
Reluctantly so, but she did. He was now integral to the success of the casting.
“Notice that you were able to activate it and not us?” Mae said with bitterness she didn’t try to hide.
“Well, considering after all that hubbub, I can’t move, it would be rather hard to miss,” Richard said sharply—a sign that even his patience was wearing thin.
Mae nodded. “Yes.” She paused and tried to think of a diplomatic way of putting this.
Deciding to just say it, Mae asked, “Did you listen to any of my rant at all?”
“Not a word,” Richard said.
“Right.” Mae sighed and tried to explain without spiraling into anger again. “Here’s the base point—the incantation is different from any we’ve seen before. Any of those taught to you. Any of those watched by me in the ceremonies of the elders.”
“How so?” asked Richard with a wary look.
Mae gave him a tight smile. “The incantation itself calls for two male mages and one female.”
Richard blinked and moved his hand to the far corner of the page. Still close enough to keep his glow bright, but far enough away that he could read the incantation himself.
“So it does,” he said. “It must be a mistake.”
He didn’t argue with her. He just presented his views as fact. As the only person in the room with magic, he had that right. As a dull-brained dotard whom Mae had seen scratch his ass before digging into his latest meal, she couldn’t trust his line of reasoning at all.
“A decades-old illuminated text was inscribed by mistake?” Mae scoffed.
“Yes,” Richard said. Not arguing. Not even presenting a logical defense. Just immovable.
She shook her head. “Even if I believed that, which I don’t, I’ve been right so far, and I know the incantation is the one we need. So how do you explain this?”
Richard was slow on the draw, but he did answer her. “The foreigners have female mages, do they not? Maybe someone from outside our kingdom is meant to help activate this to get it working.”
The answer didn’t exactly please Mae, but she had to admit…it was a possibility.
“Well, if Richard says so, it must be true,” Ember said from where she had sat back down on the floor, apparently exhausted from their earlier argument.
Mae almost laughed. When Ember wanted to, she could be quite funny, and the sarcasm dripping from every word was obvious. Richard, of course, didn’t get it.
Instead, he said while scratching his head with his free hand, “While we’re at it, maybe we can find out if the rest of their group has some male mages, eh? It’d be nice to get my hand back.”
“For the love of all the gods, do you even like having magic?” Mae asked.
Richard replied, “Enough to be caught up in this random scheme of yours for hours on end? No.”
At least he’s honest, Mae thought wryly.
Mae didn’t have a response to that. It was true, after all. His birthright and her envy.
“Now that we know this infernal grimoire is useless without an activation agent, meaning Richard, and we’ve come to terms with that,” Ember said, “there’s something much more important to discuss.”
“Like what?” Richard asked—a little too eager to move on, in Mae’s mind.
“Such as why the councils never noticed this grimoire before,” Ember said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Mae, wary of anything that brought together the Council of Elders and the tome in the same sentence. They would do nothing but take it away from her and stop her plans before they had even begun!
“I mean,” Ember said, irritated, “if this was here the whole time, why didn’t Grandmother say something?”
“She probably just figured someone else had already searched for the answer in her archives—she does have an entire holding to care for, you know, and isn’t the first one to inherit that room of dusty texts.”
“That doesn’t excuse her from a breach of such magnitude,” Ember said. “This wasting sickness has been tearing through the youngest for years.”
“It’s not her fault!” Mae insisted.
“Then why did you steal the cure-all book from her, hmm?” Ember said.
“I told you,” Mae said. “There was just something that drew me to it. That doesn’t mean that she didn’t put her utmost effort in searching out a cure herself.”
Ember gave a thin-lipped smile. “I still think—”
“Enough,” said Richard in a dark tone.
“I won’t be silenced,” Ember said, indignant.
“No one’s silencing you,” Mae said with a roll of her eyes.
“I am,” Richard said. “Because that woman raised me and doesn’t deserve your slander. Now do you really want to keep going on like this?” The look he gave Ember was clear and firm—proceed with caution.
Mae said, “She raised all of us. Your father, mine, everyone under this roof who is under the age of fifty.”
“I know,” Ember said stiffly, seeing quite clearly that she was being double-teamed.
“I’m not saying she’s the perfect person in our lives,” Mae added. “Just that she deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
She cast a look at Richard; from his stony expression, he only agreed with half of her statement. Mae was more flexible on the matter. She didn’t blame her father’s mother for not finding a cure to the wasting sickness that had routed their holding and many others like it for generations. Similarly, the library was a collection of texts and artifacts going back to Mae’s great-great-grandmother. It would seem a natural conclusion that every possible source for a solution in-house had already been evaluated and discarded as impractical before the current generation.
Mae said as much, but Ember still didn’t seem convinced, although she did stop arguing.
“Fine, let’s move on—there’s one more matter to discuss,” Ember said.
“Oh no,” Richard said. “I’m done.”
“What do you mean, done?” Mae asked, wondering how she’d gotten herself locked in a room for what seemed like days with these ridiculous relatives of hers.
Richard explained, “I’m done with thirty rounds of questions. You let me know when we’re ready to leave.”
And he clearly meant it, because he sat on the floor, put a towel over his head, and proceeded to ignore them. Which left Mae to do everything else, which, per usual, was how it was done.
Still, she looked at Ember and said, “So what now—you think Grandfather actually created the scourge that afflicts us?”
“Don’t be silly—if anyone, it would have been an ancestor much further into the past,” Ember said.
A vein popped in Mae’s head. “I was kidding.”
“Well, this is certainly not a time for jokes,” Ember said.
“Just tell us,” Mae said.
“Fine, then,” Ember said with clear disgust. “Just because we now have the incantation and are fairly sure we know how to use it, doesn’t mean we should.”
“What in the world is that supposed to mean?” Mae said, for once thrown for a loop.
“How do we know that this incantation will precisely cure this affliction?” Ember asked.
“It’s called the Recuperation Cure-all for all those aggrieved by the Wasting sickness,” Mae said. “What else could it be for?”
“We need to test it, is all I’m saying,” Ember said.
“How?” Mae asked—she was fed up with arguing, and if giving in to Ember’s ridiculous test would get them out of her sister’s bedroom, Mae was all for it.
Ember paused. “We need to get into the sickroom.”
“Not a problem,” Richard said.
Mae and Ember looked at him with some shock. The towel covering his face was now gone, and he had actually sat up.
“You’ve been following along?” Mae asked.
“I started paying attention when the word ‘leave’ caught my ears.”
Mae wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking. She could never tell with that one.
“So how?” Ember said impatiently.
Richard rolled his shoulders. “I’m on assignment to the sickroom this day. If we can get all the ingredients together—”
“You may have been following along, but you weren’t listening,” Ember said.
Irritation crossed Richard’s face, and for once, Mae was glad it wasn’t her arguing for a simple incantation that they all should know was right. She eased back against the wall and prepared to watch them battle it out.
They’d been in this room all night and most of the former evening, after all. What was one or two hours more? That was the opposite stance to what she’d taken before, but a girl was allowed to be contrary. It was in her nature.
“And what didn’t I just hear?” Richard said.
Oh, someone is getting testy, Mae thought. This time, however, she would have no part in it, which made it all the sweeter.
Not backing down, Ember said, “The part where we can’t cast an unknown incantation, no matter what you think.”
“Who is we?” Richard retorted. “You have no power.”
“Uh oh,” Mae said softly enough not to disturb them. This was just getting good, but she wondered if she would need to intervene, physically. Ember wasn’t one to start fist fights, but Mae wouldn’t put it past her sister, who had been testy all week, as demonstrated by the punch she’d thrown at Mae just yesterday.
“And you are hardly more than a schoolboy able to draw water from a well,” Ember said without missing a beat.
Hmm, Mae thought. Maybe I’ll just continue to sit this one out.
“This schoolboy is the only one you have that can read this darned book,” Richard said.
“For now,” Ember said—her two words loaded with meaning.
Mae decided that now would be the best time to make her thoughts known again.
“Okay, calm down,” she said. “We don’t need to push each other away. Just find out a way to test the casting before implementing it.”
There was silence as Ember and Richard stared at each other with hard looks.
“Right?” Mae said to her sister.
“Right,” Ember agreed.
“So, what then?” Richard asked. “We get a bunch of rabbits and infect them first?”
“Hmm,” Mae said. “That might not be a bad idea, assuming the sickness can be passed on to non-humans, but I don’t think anyone’s studied it.”
“What? No, that’s not acceptable or pragmatic,” Ember said. “First, I don’t torture animals, and second, even if the sickness was transferrable and the rabbits cured, that wouldn’t prove the same thing with humans.”
“Then what?” Mae asked,
fed up with this circular logic.
“If not a direct implementation,” Ember said, licking her lips, “at the very least, we need the advice and opinion of someone who knows a bit more magic than the three of us, which is fairly little when you think about it.”
Mae didn’t hesitate; she grasped the rope thrown to her verbally like it was a lifeline. Anything to leave. It was Richard’s favorite word, and it had rapidly become hers as well.
“Well, if we do it your way, we’ll at least need it to be someone who won’t betray us, assuming they say the plan will work.”
The three of them looked around, clearly at a loss.
Finally, Richard cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps I know someone?”
Mae’s ears perked up.
Ember asked, “Like who?”
“Someone who isn’t exactly in the holding’s good graces at the moment,” Richard said.
What is he being so slippery about? Mae wondered. It wasn’t like they weren’t breaking a hundred rules already—what was one more, as long as that person was trustworthy?
But as Richard began to twitch, Mae wondered if the person he wanted to include would be more trouble that they were worth, which would say a lot, considering Mae was now in cahoots with a sister she wouldn’t trust to steal a glass of water, and a cousin she had barely spoken more than a handful of words to prior to all this.
But they didn’t have any options, and Mae knew that well.
“Whoever it is, it’s not like they’ve been restricted by the council,” Mae said. “So out with it!”
When he stilled, Mae had the feeling that she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Richard gave her a tension-filled look and Mae knew then that this person wasn’t going to get them in trouble—they were trouble.
19
Mae narrowed her eyes, as she had a reasonable idea of who Richard was hinting at. She just hoped that the trouble they represented was the good kind. The three of them needed someone who would take risks, obviously, but preferably someone who knew how to avoid trouble at the same time.
Biting her lip in thought, Mae asked, “Sandoval?”
“Who?” Richard said, clearly confused.