Chapter 3
Ileave the patient briefly, returning with a crying Akilah who is both happy and sad to see me return. “Your father is—”
“I’ll have to face that later.” I reveal the makeshift stretcher and the groaning man atop it. “It’s him we need to worry about.”
“Arcane Sovereign! Cael, you brought someone of his status here?”
“He’s hurt. He says he can’t go to an official vitalian.”
“Can’t? What trouble have you brought here, Cael?”
“Help me get him in.”
Akilah gulps, standing still as her eyes dart between me and the unconscious Silvius.
“I have no choice, Akilah. He’ll die.”
She trembles as she grabs his legs and together we haul him inside. Akilah lights the candles and I pull herbs off the shelves onto my table, my hands shaking as I reach into a hidden cavity in the wall and draw out Great-grandfather’s notebook.
She snatches at my wrist. “Your hands—”
I look down. The struggle to get here has left them raw and blistered. There’s blood. “It’s nothing.” I pull away. “Rosemary tea will help. Thanks Akilah.”
She rushes out to the herb garden, and I start lighting the stove.
“Why didn’t you heal yourself earlier?” Silvius’s voice is faint from the bed behind me.
I look at him. “It’s called eisenchos—treat by need. Now quiet. I have to concentrate.”
“No one has ever shushed me before.”
“Ha. You’ve been shushed, you just haven’t heard it.”
His chuckle morphs into a groan.
I fry the swiftleaf root, add water and bring it to a simmer. The torn mustiva leaves I stir through the tincture until they turn black.
“You’d risk everything for a stranger?”
I keep stirring, not looking at him. “I can help. Therefore, I should.”
He huffs a bitter laugh. “How will I ever thank you?”
“Pay it forward. Don’t harm the innocent.”
I strain the liquid. Almost ready, but the last steps are vague. Complex spells like this are never fully detailed in Grandfather’s notes. After all, they’re written for someone adept at the finer processing.
A gurgling groan has me whipping around. Silvius has lost consciousness again. Sweat is dripping down his temples. My previous spell has waned; poison is tearing its way to his heart.
Minutes. I have minutes.
I lift the bowl to my lips—
My door bangs open and Akilah shrieks my name under the fierce grip of my father. “Caelus Amuletos. Put that down.”
His gaze is murderous and terrified, and I obey instinctively. He releases Akilah with a shove that has her falling to the floor. She looks at me, silent apologies on her lips.
Father growls and jerks a finger toward the bed. “Get him away from here immediately.”
“He’ll die.”
“Better out there than in here.”
“There’s a chance!”
He scours my table, the books I took from my hidey hole. “We could all die for this.”
“Not if we save him.”
“Trust this man, do you?”
I grimace. Could I? A gut feeling. “He won’t cause us trouble. Please, Father. Help me.”
“It’s too dangerous—”
I fall to my knees on the hard floor. “What will our forefathers think if you send him away to die? Could you meet them in the heavens with an easy conscience?”
Silence. An ominous step. Father grabs the neck of my shirt and hauls me to my feet. “Your great-grandfather was linea. With full spiritual blood, he could save this man.”
Grandfather was par-linea. Even half-blooded, he would have tried too. “You could.”
“You insolent—”
“These books were passed on to you for a reason—”
He shoves me to the ground and stares at the table, at my brew. Spoon pinched in his fingers, he peels off a congealed layer. “You’d have killed yourself if I hadn’t stopped you. You can only ingest the liquid after the skin has drawn out the toxins, and this spell must be layered correctly.”
I scrabble closer, stomach screwed into a hopeful ball.
His jaw twitches as he stares at the dark fluid in the beaker. For a second, I think he might walk away. Then he casts me a maddening look, and swallows it.
I’ve never seen such a complex spell cast. My eyes are fixed on my father as he works; I want to commit each step to memory. This is what I’ve always wanted—to see this magic firsthand, to understand it, to be given the opportunity to learn it.
Unlike my blue freezing spell, this one is bright crimson and gold, a roaring flame cradled in his left hand.
His right channels the magic as he builds the spell, layer after layer, moulded in fine needle-like lines.
There’s a sheen to the outermost layer .
. . That must be a shield, to protect the vitalian.
He delivers it through a dozen acupoints on the feet, chest and scalp.
Sweat beads on his forehead; the cradling hand starts to shake.
He flicks his palms free of the spell and staggers back.
I catch and steady him, handing him a brew of ginger to replenish his energies.
He knocks it back and his haggard breaths slowly steady.
“He’s gone the moment he wakes.” He slams the cup onto my stack of books. “Get rid of all these and kneel in the courtyard.”
“Please, don’t! Don’t take—”
“You’re a magical outcast,” he says firmly.
He waits for me to acknowledge this, but . . . I ball my hands and keep my chin up.
“Rebellious, aren’t you?” He grabs the books, the cup atop them falling and smashing. “Ten strokes and watch me burn them.”
Akilah drops to the floor between us, collecting broken shards, tears streaking her cheeks. I want to fall with her. Instead, I’m unmoving, except for a tremble.
My voice is raw. “Father—”
“You threaten to ruin us all.” His angry eyes punch mine. “Twenty strokes. And you’ll throw them on the fire yourself.”
Knees protesting and splinters stinging my palms, stripes of heat burn across my back. I yelp at each one.
My mother cries for Father to stop, and he sends her away, promising this is for the good of us all.
When she’s gone, he speaks to me. “You threw away our chance with the Temenos family; they’ve demanded we return Megaera’s dowry.
All of it, by the end of this month. How will we ever— It’s unfathomable. ”
I bow my head and accept the next burning stripe and then wait for the following one—
It doesn’t come. There’s a sudden ruckus at the gates; aklos are running towards Father and me with pale faces. “Luminists. They’re searching for something. And someone.”
I stiffen. The tithiscar. And the spell I used.
Father staggers back, clutching his chest, fear not just a flash in his gaze this time but a visible, tangible shudder.
The luminist’s handbell chimes, each ring heavier than the last. A shiver races up my spine. Father’s warning comes into sharp focus. If they find I have that tithiscar . . . if they discover Silvius, after complex spellcasting . . . that’s the guillotine. For the whole family.
I feel around my robes for the little coffer they’re after, but . . . I left it, and Silvius, in my chamber.
Father quickly regains his cool and gathers the books; no time for burning now. He shoves them into my arms. “Go!” he hisses, “Hide them—”
I rush the books back to the vitaliary, into the wall, and slide a shelf in front.
As I finish closing the curtains around the bed—and Silvius recovering there, his pulse much stronger now—I hear movement at the door and my heart leaps, but it’s not a luminist. It’s my mother.
I don’t know how much she knows, how much Father has told her. Probably not everything—he’d want to spare her poor nerves. I clutch the curtain shut tight behind me as she approaches.
Her hair, bound before, is loose now and cascades around her worried face. “I saw you come in here . . . those luminists are looking around.”
She pulls me into an embrace and I wince at the pain rippling from my back. She quickly gentles her fingers and combs through my hair instead. “Cael. This will only lead to pain.” She spies my splintered hands. “What if you try helping without magic? There are other ways—”
She moves us towards the curtained bed and I quickly steer her to the table and chairs instead. “Crude medicines are inferior to vitalian spells.”
“Different,” she murmurs, finding some borage on my table to help against my pain. “You could go south, to Iskaldir; learn from my systra. You’d be safe there.”
Safe, but useless. “I won’t let them hurt you,” I say. “Don’t worry.”
“But I care about you, too.”
Ignoring the sharp throbbing in my back and ribs, I wrap my arms around her. “I’ll lead them to the farmlands and lay low there. Read nighttime stories to Lucetta for me, alright?”
She starts crying, and I feel a sharp pang of guilt. But right now, luminists are prowling our courtyards. I must leave here, and take the tithiscar with me.
“How will you get out?” Mother sniffs.
“I can help with that.” The deep voice is followed by the quick shift of the curtain and Silvius rising from the bed. He tosses the violet oak coffer lazily, catching it with practised ease.
My mother gasps, her gaze darting to the tithiscar; her hand shoots to her chest as she stumbles backward, her voice squeaky with disbelief. “You—you have a—Arcane Sovereign help us—”
She sways and crumples.
I barely catch her before she hits the floor. Silvius quickly helps me settle her on the bed; her eyes ping open but at Silvius’s deep “My apologies,” she promptly faints again.
I call up a calming spell, but I don’t have time to give it to her. A shadow passes the back window, accompanied by a chime from the luminist’s bell. Silvius’s grip on my wrist is surprisingly steady for someone just woken from the brink of death. “Time to go,” he says, voice low.
I barely have time to draw a breath as he thrusts us through the door and a swirl of air wraps around us. “What—”
“Cael!” I turn to Akilah running towards me, fear in her eye as she sees Silvius holding me around the waist.
“I have to,” I gasp.
She throws herself around my legs. “Not without me.”
Air whips around us; with a lurch, Silvius sweeps us upwards, into the starry night.
The wind whistles in my ears. Bells chime from far below. And I’m back—four winters ago, under the canal bridge—to the night he caught me.