Chapter 22 #3
Foley disregarded the comment, refusing to give it weight.
“Your power didn’t just show up overnight.
It’s been with you since birth. You must have been using it haphazardly for many years without any attempt to control it.
You’ve been utilizing your affinity with quicksilver even more of late.
That’s how you find yourself in this position. ”
“All right, Foley. Leave her be. She had no clue what she was dealing with back in Zilvaren. You judging her for it won’t help us now, will it?”
Foley cracked his knuckles as he skirted around the table toward the tallest stack of books he had compiled.
Casually, Lorreth picked up Avisiéth and moved the sword, placing it down close to the vampire again.
Foley saw what he did; he shot the warrior a look full of recrimination, then took up a book and flicked through it for a moment, his dark eyes scanning the pages until he found what he was looking for.
He handed the book to me, open toward the front, the aged pages marked with small, hand-drawn symbols. “Can you read this?” he demanded.
My eyes skipped over the page, taking in the spidery black handwriting that filled it from top to bottom.
. . . unorthodox Tria Prima, the basis of which is always the same: Salt. Quicksilver. Brimstone. The uses for all three are varied and wide. Combined, they . . .
I looked up from the page. “I can.”
“Good. Turn the page. Read the exercise at the top of the page there, on the left.”
I did as he bid, reading out loud. “A Faeling may be fearful at first. Opening themselves to the energetic flow of the quicksilver can be an overwhelming sensation. The Faeling should learn to embody the quicksilver’s energy, aligning themselves with it in body and mind, before they try to transmute the substance from a metal to a solid.
Every day, the Faeling should be encouraged to alter the quicksilver repeatedly between its natural states until this skill comes easily and they have built a rapport with the quicksilver itself.
Once the Faeling has mastered this skill, they will be ready to set their affinity for the quicksilver’s magic and seal their first Alchemical rune. ”
I sought out Lorreth, relief building inside me. “You heard that, right? I’m ready to seal the quicksilver’s rune at least.”
Foley jumped in before Lorreth could. “You’re far from ready, Saeris.”
“But I can already transmute the quicksilver from one state to another. According to this, I am ready to seal the rune.”
“Is that so? Is it as simple as turning a handle and stepping through the door? Or do you kick the door down and fall ass over tit through it as a result?”
Slowly but surely, I was beginning to hate this vampire. “I don’t see that it matters how I get the job done, so long as it gets done.”
“If you have to force your magic to obey your will, then you haven’t mastered it.
You’ve learned how to violate it. You can either develop a partnership with your magic, with give-and-take and understanding, or you can cow it into submission.
Which do you think would prove to be the more beneficial relationship?
No, tell me, since you seem to be such an expert on the matter, what happens when something or someone is oppressed for long enough that it finally rises up and says enough? Hm?”
The gods and martyrs damn him all the way to the bottom circle of hell.
He had a point. “I want to treat the quicksilver fairly. I want to partner with it in the right way, believe me. I’m just very worried that I don’t have time to master children’s exercises, or .
. . or these simple, nonsense pictures!”
“Simple, nonsense . . .?” His expression indicated that my comment had left a foul taste in his mouth. “Show me this simple, nonsense picture you’re referring to.”
I looked down at the book and huffed. “There. How about this one. A circle. How is a circle supposed to be important?”
Foley looked down at the plain black band of ink that formed a circle on the page I held out to him, then gave me a bone-dry look.
He spoke slowly as if he were dealing with someone too simple to understand basic constructs.
“That is not just a circle. That is the foundation of all powerful sigils and runes. The strongest magic is circular, like a wheel. It is the symbol of forever, the beginning and the end of everything. It carries magic on a loop, amplifying it, giving it strength. That is the most important magical symbol there is.”
Ahh.
Shit.
My cheeks flushed hotly.
“Additionally, those exercises aren’t for children.
They’re for Faelings. Faelings are far smarter than human young.
But that’s academic. The skills this book teaches are designed for an individual starting out on a journey to become a proficient Alchemist, no matter their age.
They form the foundation upon which all other skills and abilities rely.
Would you build a house on top of shifting sand, Saeris Fane?
Willingly? Knowing that it will come crashing down around your ears? ”
If he had used any other analogy, literally any other, I wouldn’t have had any qualms about ignoring him. But he had used that one, and it tore at a buried hurt deep inside me that still woke me, sweating, from my dreams sometimes.
Did he know somehow? About my father? No, he couldn’t have.
I closed the book and pinned it under my arm. “All right. I’ll take it to the forge. I’ll practice for an hour if you think that’ll make a difference—”
“I think practicing for two hours would make an even bigger difference,” Foley said. “That way, you won’t pose such a threat to the whole court, will you?”
I turned away from Foley, fixing a mutinous glare at the male who I’d assumed would have my back. “You’re terrible, you know that?”
Lorreth gave me an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, Saeris. But he’s right.”
Whether Foley was right or wrong had no bearing on the situation.
I set my jaw and made for the stairs that led back down into Ammontraíeth, fuming under my breath.
I had almost reached the stairs when the bright kiss of pain stung the back of my neck.
Hissing, I rubbed the point just below my hairline, which still hurt, and my fingers came away stained red.
Something had bitten me.
No, something had cut me.
The source of the injury became apparent as the sound of rustling paper filled my ears.
A stargazer flapped its paper wings a couple of feet away, hovering in place.
My first instinct was to check its beak to see if there were any strands of long black hair hanging from its mouth, but there were none.
Foley had gotten into my head, the bastard.
I hated that I’d let it happen—but the paper bird had attacked me, hadn’t it?
It was small, its body the length of my thumb.
Its wings flapped so hard that they were a blur as the tiny thing drifted toward me and stilled again.
It had no eyes. No features at all, really.
It was a creature made of plain white paper, animated by magic, but I got the feeling it was trying to get my attention.
I took another step backward toward the stairs, and the little stargazer followed again, rising so it hovered at eye level.
“What? You want something?” I asked it.
Over on the other side of the library, Lorreth and Foley were locked in a tense conversation.
Neither noticed that I was still loitering at the top of the stairs.
The bird zipped forward and plucked at the front of my shirt with its tiny beak.
It wasn’t very strong. It barely had the strength to lift the fabric.
“You cut me,” I told it. “That wasn’t very polite.”
The bird rose above my head, executing a tight roll in the air before it descended back to eye level. Was that supposed to be an apology? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t have time to hang around and find out, either.
“Next time,” I told it. “I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.” If I didn’t get to the forge soon, half the night would have passed and I still wouldn’t have made any of the relics I’d promised Fisher. I backed away, stepping out of the library, down the first step—
The stargazer flew right at me. Its wing grazed my cheek, and a second later, a sting of pain lashed across my cheek. “Ow! What the fuck?” The bird’s momentum carried it forward, through the library’s door—where it fell out of the air, dead.
It landed on the fourth step of the stairs, stark white against the black stone.
I picked it up, turning it over in my hands, marveling at the transformation that had taken place.
As soon as it had left the boundaries of the library, it had been severed from its magic.
I cradled it in my hands, suddenly feeling terrible.
It had wanted something from me. Wanted that something bad enough that it had left its sanctuary to get it, and it had lost its little spark in the process.
Quickly, I stepped back into the library, holding out my hand, holding in my breath, waiting for the creature’s little paper wings to stir back to life in my palm.
But the stargazer didn’t move.
The little bird was gone.
With a pang of sadness, I slipped it into my pocket and left.