Chapter Twelve
Twelve
At the end of the next week, I nervously presented my revised spell to the other cryptography students.
I couldn’t imagine they’d want to spend an entire afternoon working on my spell, an honor only Yael had received since I’d been here.
Their expressions ranged from bored to murderous as I passed out copies.
“We can read it over and get to work,” I said.
“Unless anyone has questions about the spell itself?”
“Why’s it written fancy?” Stefan rubbed his abs, the jeweled bangles on his wrists clanging together—in Aolong, they wore spelled bracelets instead of amulets.
He touched his muscles often, as though to make sure they were still there.
“You trying to be a poet? Transferring to the literature department?”
“No,” I said, flustered, hands going to my braids to loosen them instinctively, before reminding myself that would make my hair look terrible. I locked my hands behind my back. “I wanted to try something new.”
“It’s…poetic. Elemental,” Yael said, studying the text. “Shedim work with the elements, don’t they? That’s why they live in cliffs carved by wind and rivers.”
Gidon stared at Yael. “Isn’t that just a rumor?”
The three of them looked at me. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Gidon looked surprised. “You don’t know where your betrothed lives?”
This would have been embarrassing had Daziel really been my betrothed.
I was embarrassed a little, anyway. I knew so many small, intimate details about Daziel—how he looked when he first woke up; that his favorite scent was the low-lying shrub garrigue; he was bizarrely averse to kidney beans; he twisted his signet ring when nervous; sometimes he hummed to Paz when he thought they were alone.
But the larger facts of his life—many of those I didn’t know.
“It’s an interesting tactic,” Yael said, still studying the spell. “Different.”
Professor Altschuler tapped his podium. “I’ll meet you in the scroll room at seven. I expect the materials to be prepared by then.” He swept out.
“At seven,” Gidon groaned. Three hours from now, if we didn’t pause to eat.
“You better not be wasting our time, Bat Yardena,” Stefan said.
“Leave her alone,” Yael said dismissively. “You’re just jealous Professor Altschuler hasn’t tried any of your spells.”
“Course I am. She’s a first-year. How can she know anything?”
I bristled. At home, people considered me competent, the person to look up to. I hated being the newest and untrusted. I lifted my chin in Stefan’s direction. “Do you not like the spell? Because I think it’s worth trying.”
He heaved a sigh and turned toward the door. “Yeah, it’s a pretty good idea,” he said, so easily I wondered if maybe he didn’t think I was an idiot after all.
We pulled plywood from the storage closet. Then we divided the spell into quarters and set to work penciling the charaktêres in charcoal before chiseling them.
Plywood wasn’t hard to carve, especially with our sharp metal stylos, but it still took over two hours to space the charaktêres correctly and carve them.
By the end, our hands ached. While everyone else did wrist exercises, Gidon unscrewed a jar of neshem oil, the liquid the color of moonlight on water.
The four of us dipped in our brushes and painted the spell.
We finished preparing three minutes before seven, our dinner the almonds and carrots Gidon always had on him. Despite our growling stomachs, we straightened as Professor Altschuler swept in.
“Evening,” he said. Stefan started choking on an almond; we all ignored him. “Is everything prepared?”
“Yes, sir,” Yael said, and I felt a little salty. It was my spell. I wanted the credit.
Still, I felt nervous when Professor Altschuler turned to me. “Miss Bat Yardena. If you’ll do the honors?”
I nodded and took a deep breath. More voices were always better—each strengthened the spell—but one person always led. They set the pace, and everyone looked to them. If it were a song, they would be the one carrying the melody.
I’d led a million simple spells with my sisters, but I’d never led one at school. Just pretend it’s me, Adina, Michal, and Selah, I told myself. I pictured them: Adina, always quick-tongued and irritated with me; Michal, dreamy and earnest; Selah, serious and solid. I began.
“ ‘Remember when you were a young thing,’ ” I read. The other four—Professor Altschuler included—joined in. “ ‘When you had hooves and horns and you ran through the grasses.’ ”
First iterations of new spells rarely worked.
Most spells were rewritten a hundred times until the most effective word order had been found to channel magic.
First attempts at a complicated spell got tangled, the magic knotted.
It would stop moving, and the spellwriters would take another crack at ironing the words out.
Sometimes, if a spell was only a tad rough, you could use more neshem.
The sheer force of power would scrape the magic through, like extra water forcing a mill to turn.
But most people didn’t have endless neshem to spend.
Even with extra trills added to strengthen the magic—multiple voices, refrains, melodies, dancing—words were the most important part of a spell.
Basically, I knew better than to expect a first attempt to work.
I still hoped. Who doesn’t want to be a prodigy, even if they’ve showed no prodigious talents before? This spell was so different from any we’d tried. Maybe it would work.
“ ‘Remember when your skin was taut and pulled tight over your bones…’ ”
With this amount of neshem, you could feel it in the air when it activated against the charaktêres.
Something shifted as we spoke, the magic waking up.
It followed the words I read out loud, weaving through each charaktêre the neshem had seeped into.
I exchanged wild, startled looks with Yael and Gidon and Stefan to see if they felt it too. They looked back with shock.
It was working.
“ ‘Come once more to that form, to your body as it was, with your skin supple and smooth…’ ”
The magic tangled. Disappointment jolted through me, followed by a stubborn refusal to admit defeat.
I kept reading, trying to force the magic through.
But the more I pushed, the more it knotted, refusing to flow.
Desperate, I moved toward the neshem jar, thinking if I slathered more on the charaktêres it might add enough power to push through.
Professor Altschuler caught my eye and shook his head.
The spell was broken.
Blinking back disappointment, I faded to a stop. No one looked at me. Professor Altschuler grunted low in his throat and swept out of the room.
“Sorry, everyone.” I stared at my feet. I’d failed. I’d been so conceitedly hopeful, but all I’d done was waste their time.
“What are you sorry for?” Yael said shortly. “I’ve been working on this for years, and this was more effective than anything I’ve done so far.”
I looked up, shocked she wasn’t mad. A bud of hope uncurled in my chest.
“It worked until here.” She pointed to the section where the magic had slowed to a murky trickle. “When you described it being parchment. It liked when you were describing being a calf—that was strong. The transition’s where it stuck.”
“Maybe you weren’t specific enough.” Stefan leaned beside Yael, shoulder to shoulder, his black hair striking against her blond, their blue School of Humanities blazers identical.
It struck me how often they’d workshopped spells together—almost three years now.
I was so used to thinking of Yael as serious and Stefan as off-the-cuff.
I’d never considered how well they must know each other.
“Maybe we need to describe the calf being killed, the hide tanned and turned to parchment. Bridge from calf to parchment scraps. We’re not trying to get a multidimensional sculpture of the calf, we still want it to be parchment. ”
I nodded slowly. I’d been willing to give up too quickly because I was nervous and embarrassed, because Professor Altschuler had walked out on us—but I wasn’t a savant to land it on the first try.
I was steady, determined, and driven, and I would keep trying, and maybe that was worth the same amount as being brilliant. “I’ll work on it.”
“We’ll all work on it,” Yael said. “Four minds are better than one.”
My eyes must have widened, because she lifted her brows challengingly. None of us had ever collaborated—we all wanted to stand out.
But…four minds were better than one. We’d have better odds of success. Besides, they all knew the spell now. They’d have their own jumping-off points to try.
My thought startled me, how territorial it was. It made me realize maybe I’d been as standoffish as I’d imagined they were.
I didn’t want to be standoffish and competitive and isolated and alone. “Okay,” I said. “Together.”
~ ~ ~
Daziel spent over an hour getting ready for my aunt’s first luncheon.
“Is this why you went to her party without me?” I teased.
I’d been ready for thirty minutes, and he’d spent the same time coaxing his hair into perfect curls.
I sat cross-legged on the couch, Paz asleep on my knee, and alternated between Old Cinnaian language exercises and watching Daziel.
Rain fell outside, but it was cozy within; I had a blanket draped over my legs, and two candles burned in the exquisite pair of carved bronze lanterns Daziel had brought home.
“I’ve never been invited to a human luncheon before,” he said. “I want to look right. And no, of course not, I went without you because I wanted to shock you with my sudden appearance.”
“Glad we’ve got that cleared up,” I said dryly. “You look good. You don’t need to keep tinkering.”
“I don’t want to look good,” he sniffed. “I want to look astounding.”
I smothered a smile. “You look astounding.”