The Spellshop

Chapter Ten

The cottage didn’t look very much like a shop.

Kiela chewed on her lower lip as she contemplated it. It was clean: the wood floor had been scrubbed first by Caz, then by Kiela. It was scuffed and scratched but beautiful as only old wood can be. She’d trimmed back the vines over the windows, plus cleaned the glass, so that the sunlight could shine in freely. He’d dusted the rafters with his leaves, and she’d washed the sink, the counter, the shelves, and the table. All the jars were sparkling, ready for jam. But no matter how clean and pretty the cottage was, it didn’t look like a shop.

She thought of her favorite bookshop in Alyssium, the cozy one with inviting rows of shelves. Had it burned? No, she wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, she focused on what she’d loved about it: the way it welcomed you in. That’s what she wanted her shop to do. Customers had to feel comfortable to browse, even if all she sold was a single flavor of jam.

“I think we need to separate the shop from the rest of the cottage.” She paced a line halfway down the front room. “The front door opens onto the shop . . . So we need a wall here, to split it from the kitchen. The wall can be covered in shelves. Or it could be a bookshelf that doubles as a wall, except it wouldn’t be for books. A jam shelf.”

Caz climbed onto the table. “I have many surprising skills—for example, I play the harp—but construction is not one of them.” He waved his leaves. “I’m too floppy to wield a hammer.”

“I don’t think we have a hammer. Or wood, though there is a forest right on the other side of the garden. But I have no idea how to make boards out of a tree. I imagine it’s quite a bit of work . . . You can play the harp?”

He demonstrated plucking imaginary strings. “A small one.”

“Where in the world did you learn to play the harp? And when?”

“I had a life before I met you.”

“You literally did not,” Kiela said.

“There were a few weeks before I met you, thank you very much.”

“During which you learned to play the harp?” she asked, incredulous. As far as she knew, he’d spent the days wandering the library, which, while an amazing wonder of the world, was not known for its musical instruments. Any attempt at music was likely to be hushed by a patron who wanted to focus on a text.

“The janitor from the east wing taught me in his spare time,” Caz said. “You shouldn’t underestimate my musical ability just because I’m a plant.”

“It has nothing to do with—Okay, we’re straying,” Kiela said. “Jam shop. We need wood, a hammer, nails, and a book about how to build shelves.” She didn’t think she’d packed any books like that. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure where in the library there would have been books like that. Perhaps second floor, west wing, near Art History? “And we also need shelves for the books, ideally hidden shelves, but I suppose that’s not an immediate need. They can stay in the crates for now.” She wondered if any of the spellbooks had spells for construction. The spun-sugar-like palace in Alyssium, as well as its arching bridges, had been built by magic . . . Slowly, she turned to face the bedroom, with all its untapped knowledge.

Following her gaze, Caz said, “Do you really want the cottage to grow like the raspberry bushes? You don’t think that would lead to a whole lot of questions we can’t answer? Bad enough to have extra berries. Someone like Larran would definitely notice if we sprouted a few towers and turrets.”

Of course he was right. Hammer and nails and a bit of effort, that’s what they needed. Luckily, she knew someone who had plenty of tools—she’d witnessed him fixing a chimney, after all. “Larran has a hammer.”

“You’re proposing visiting him again?”

She thought back to the merhorse ride. She hadn’t realized until Bryn’s reaction that it had been a special privilege. Surely if he liked her enough to let her ride, he’d let her borrow a few tools. “I’ll trade him some tomatoes for use of them,” she decided. The merhorse Sian would like that.

“Yesterday town, and today Larran. Before long, you’ll be throwing parties.”

Kiela shuddered dramatically. She’d only ever been to one party that she’d enjoyed: after she’d won her job at the Great Library of Alyssium, all the junior librarians had been invited into the North Reading Room and told that, to celebrate, they could spend three hours reading whatever they wanted and then they could take a slice of cake with them when they left whenever they wanted and without a word to anyone. That had been bliss. “No parties. Want to come with me? You haven’t gotten to see much of the island, and he already knows about you.” Besides, if Caz came, she wouldn’t have to do all the talking. As she’d just witnessed at Bryn’s bakery, she wasn’t very good at asking for help.

He considered it. “What do merhorses eat?”

“Exclusively tomatoes,” Kiela said. “Never anything green.”

“You don’t actually know that.”

“Larran won’t feed you to his merhorses. You know, the original name for a merhorse was ‘hippocampus,’ but that fell out of favor because it’s the same word as a part of the brain. Also, it sounds too much like hippopotamus, which isn’t a similar animal at all.” She had never seen a hippopotamus, though she’d read about them. “Did you know that hippopotami secrete a red oil that keeps their skin dry and protects them from the sun?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant.”

“No, but it’s interesting.”

He considered the matter a moment longer. “All right. I’ll come.”

She picked a half-dozen tomatoes, wondered if that would be enough, and then, after fetching an old-but-sturdy basket, gathered a half-dozen more. If wood and nails were more expensive than a dozen tomatoes, then she could offer him jam when it was ready. I wish I could offer a spell to help his merhorses. She remembered the sadness in his voice when he talked about the lack of foals . . . But she couldn’t promise that before she knew if it was possible. It was bound to be a much more complex spell than accelerated plant growth.

Jam shelves first. Magic later.

Before she could reconsider embarking on yet another social encounter, she strode out the door. Caz kept pace beside her. He seemed to enjoy the stroll through the woods—she knew this because he kept muttering words like “marvelous” and “delightful” and “bucolic.” When they emerged into the light, she lifted her face to feel the full morning sun. The breeze off the sea tasted as fresh as an iced tea, and the waves broke in tiny crests, as if they were playing with one another. In the distance, she saw the merhorses leaping through the waves. As they went down the cliff stairs, she hoped Larran was home and not out with his herd.

As Caz hopped from rock to rock close to the cliff, Kiela walked down the beach toward the little yellow house. Shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, she watched the merhorses play in the waves off the shore. She hoped she could find a spell that could help them thrive again. The emperor had been beyond selfish to recall his sorcerers from the outer islands. Tobin and the revolutionaries were right—the world had become unbalanced, and it wasn’t fair. Against all of that, her idea of a jam shop that offered a few little homespun remedies seemed very small. Why bother when the world’s problems were so large?

Because it’s what I can do.

And maybe . . . I can find a way to help.

At the very least, she could supply her friendly neighbor with tomatoes.

She spotted Larran at the end of the stone pier, combing tangles out of the mane of one of his merhorses. Caz took a look at the water bashing up against the rocks and volunteered, “I’ll wait for you here.”

Kiela didn’t blame him, given his fear of plant-eating sea creatures, but why was she nervous? She’d talked with Larran several times already and had found him annoyingly nice. Was it because now she knew he didn’t let just anyone ride his merhorses? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She wasn’t used to anyone spending any extra attention on her.

Seeing her, Larran waved. “Be careful!” he called. The wind tried to swallow his voice, but he boomed through it. “The ocean’s freezing today! You don’t want to fall in!”

Carrying the basket of tomatoes, she walked, slowly and carefully, out on the stone pier. She was wearing shoes with a rough sole, which was far more practical for scampering over rocks and up and down stairs than the soft slipper-like shoes she’d always worn in the library, as well as a pair of pants she’d brought with her and a blouse that had been her mother’s, embroidered with apple blossoms on the sleeves. She’d found herself wearing more and more of her mother’s old clothes—they fit the weather better, with the morning chill and the afternoon sun and the sea breeze. And they fit the person Kiela was becoming better. Every time she put on an island blouse or skirt or pair of shoes, she felt more like a Caltreyan and less like a citygirl. She’d looked in a mirror this morning and seen it wasn’t just the clothes that made her different either: a sprinkle of magenta freckles had developed across the bridge of her nose. She’d had the freckles when she was a child, and the sun in the garden had coaxed them out. She liked seeing them again.

As she approached the end of the pier, the merhorse Larran was combing reared back and snorted. Kiela recognized the beautiful gold skin and metallic gold scales. “Hi, Sian, remember me?”

Sian’s nostrils flared, and her deep blue eyes fixed on the basket.

“If you wait just a moment, I have a treat for—” Kiela told the merhorse.

But the merhorse didn’t want to wait any fraction of a moment. Smelling the tomatoes, she lunged out of the water toward the basket. Sea foam sprayed around her as her neck shot forward. Startled, Kiela took a step backward—onto the slick edge of a rock.

Her foot slipped.

She lost her balance.

And for an instant, it felt as if the world froze—she saw the sky, Larran’s horrified face, the wild horse-fish . . . As she fell backward, Sian’s teeth clamped down hard on the fabric of her shirt. She was yanked forward. The basket flew into the air, and the dozen tomatoes arched up into the cresting waves. She tumbled onto the back of the merhorse and then over, into the water.

Cold wet ocean swallowed her, and she dunked under. Sputtering, she clawed up to the surface. It was far colder than the other day, biting cold. Caz was shrieking from the shore, and Larran was shouting her name, about to dive in after her—

And she saw Sian chasing the bobbing tomatoes in the waves.

Kiela began to laugh.

“She, um, my fault,” she gasped out.

Larran knelt on the rocks and held out his hand. She took it and clambered out. Immediately, she began to shiver as her wet clothes clung to her. Gah, he wasn’t joking about the temperature — why is it so freezing? She wrapped her arms around her chest. It hadn’t been anywhere near this cold the other day.

“I don’t know what got into—” Larran began.

“My fault,” Kiela repeated. “I knew she liked—”

“That’s no excuse for her—”

“She must have smelled them,” Kiela said. “I should have left the basket on the shore.”

“She’s been trained,” Larran said, “by me. This is my fault more than yours—”

No, it was her carelessness and clumsiness that was at fault. He couldn’t have predicted she’d bring Sian’s favorite treat within smelling distance. “I don’t think you can really blame yourself for—”

“Of course I’m to blame. She’s my—”

Caz bounded along the jetty, his tendrils waving in the air. “Kiela, Kiela, I thought it had eaten you! Are you okay? Are you in one piece? Count your legs. Do you have two legs? Fingers? Did you lose a finger? Are you losing blood? Oh seeds, she’s going to faint from blood loss, hit her head, and drown in the sea all because of shelving!”

“Deep breath, Caz. I’m fine.” She held up her hands and waved her fingers. “All ten.”

“You look bluer than usual,” he said. “Are you cold? Do you have hypothermia?”

She laughed. “I swear I’m fine.” But she was shivering, and her toes and fingers were so cold that she felt like she’d been burned. Maybe I’m not so fine.

Larran laid his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get you inside and warm. You need to get out of those wet clothes.” She shivered beneath his touch, and he released her.

She’d been immersed in the water when they’d rode the merhorses and hadn’t felt anywhere near this chilled. Granted, it was cooler today, and there was more wind, but that didn’t explain why the sea was quite so frigid. Its temperature must have plummeted dozens of degrees. Her teeth were chattering hard, and she couldn’t seem to stop them. “Dry clothes would be nice. I didn’t bring any with me, though. Just tomatoes.”

All three of them glanced at the water, where Sian was merrily bobbing through the waves, polishing off the last of the dozen tomatoes.

“You can borrow some of mine,” Larran said.

He held out his hand to help her along the stone pier, but she didn’t take it. She didn’t want to let go of hugging her arms. The wind was slicing through her. Caz hopped along next to her, and she could feel the worry radiating off his leaves. “Really, I’m fine,” she told him through chattering teeth.

“You screamed,” he said.

“I was startled, due to falling into the water unexpectedly.” They didn’t have to make such a fuss about it. Now that the moment was over, she was more than a little embarrassed. It would be nice if they could move on and forget that it had happened, but maybe after she got a little warmer . . . Eesh, why had it been so icy?

Larran led her inside his house. “One minute,” he said, ducking into the back room.

While Caz swung himself up onto a chair, Kiela, despite her shivering, looked around with interest. It was all warm honey-colored wood: the floor, the high ceiling, the walls, the table. In one corner was a wood-burning stove on a hearth made of white quartz. On every surface, he’d placed a seashell. A clamshell by the sink. A conch on the table. A spiral-shaped one that she couldn’t name was on the mantel. She could tell each had been chosen with care.

Larran emerged with a stack of clothes, as well as a towel. “You can change in there, if you like.” He blushed as he gestured toward his bedroom.

Gratefully, she took the clothes and towel and scurried into his room, shutting the door behind her. His bedroom had a four-poster bed in the same honey-colored wood. It was piled with quilts, slightly mussed, as if he’d straightened them quickly when he realized she might see them disheveled. Another shell sat on his nightstand, this one with a candle in it. Except for the rumpled, very-inviting-looking quilts on the bed, everything else was as neat as the library. His boots were tucked side by side next to the closet, and there wasn’t a hint of dust anywhere.

Peeling off her wet clothes, Kiela listened to Larran and Caz through the door.

“That was terrifying,” Caz said. “I nearly lost my root ball, I was so upset.”

“She’ll be fine once she’s warmed up,” Larran said soothingly. “It wasn’t a bad fall. She didn’t hit any of the rocks, and she wasn’t under for more than a second.”

“I saw your face. You were terrified too.”

She heard shuffling noises—Larran, walking around—and then a creak—perhaps a cabinet door or the wood-burning stove? Shaking out one of his shirts, Kiela held it up. It was twice the size of her, but at least it was dry. She pulled it on. It was soft as a lamb, smelled like pine trees and ocean air, and draped down to her knees.

Larran replied something to Caz, but she missed what it was—he’d moved too far from the door. She buttoned the shirt.

Caz replied, “She’s all I have. She took me in when—”

The rest of his words were swallowed by running water from the sink, but she knew the story, though she wouldn’t have said “took me in.” She’d been happy to have his help and honored that he’d chosen to assist her. She’d never had a competent assistant before who didn’t make her want to stick her fingers in her ears and say, For pity’s sake, stop talking. Plus he treasured books as much as she did, which had to be unusual for a plant.

“She was just as kind when she was young,” Larran said.

“Oh? Tell me about Kiela as a child, and don’t leave anything embarrassing out.”

And that’s my cue to return, Kiela thought. She left his pants—they’d never have fit, and the shirt was long enough to cover everything that needed to be covered—and padded back out barefoot, holding her wet clothes. “Do you have anywhere I can hang these to dry?”

“Yes, by the stove—” Larran began as he turned around. His voice died mid-sentence as he stared at her.

Self-conscious, she tugged at the hem of his shirt. “I know. I look ridiculous. But I’m dry.”

“Ahh . . .” Larran said.

Caz snorted. “I don’t think ‘ridiculous’ is what he’s thinking.”

Larran quickly turned away. “You can hang your wet clothes by the stove. They’ll dry fast.”

Huh, she thought. Was he . . . interested?

No, definitely not. She looked ridiculous, and the plant had no idea what he was talking about. And now we’re all embarrassed. Fun. She spread her wet pants and blouse out on a rack near the stove. It must have been where he dried his clothes after a day with the merhorses. The stove smelled like burning pine, a woodsy almost-cinnamon-like scent.

“What I came to ask—” she began at the same time he said, “Can I get you something to eat—”

Caz flopped sideways. “Ugh, you two.”

For the first time ever, she wished that Caz wasn’t here. If she were alone with Larran inside his house, what would he say? What would she say? What would she do? She thought of how she’d just been in his bedroom, and she felt a blush heating her cheeks and neck. It’s better that Caz is here. If she were alone with Larran, it would most likely be ten times more awkward than it already was, and even if he were interested, he’d quickly change his mind.

“You should sit near the fire, warm yourself up,” Larran said to Kiela. He repositioned one of his chairs next to the stove and then retrieved one of the quilts from his bed. He moved to wrap it around her as Kiela reached to take it.

She froze, and he stopped—their faces an inch from each other’s.

He has nice eyes, she thought inanely.

His breath smelled nice too, a little mint and a little cinnamon, and she found herself blushing. She didn’t usually notice other people’s breath, but then she wasn’t usually quite so . . . My, they were really nice eyes.

He retreated. “Sorry.”

She cleared her throat and then wrapped the quilt around her shoulders. It fell over her legs, and now she felt swaddled in the scent of him. Change the subject. “Why was the ocean so much colder today?”

“Same reason as the wheat stalks withering, the orchards sickening, the rain becoming erratic, and the fish becoming scarce—the magic is unbalanced, too concentrated in some areas and absent in others. At least that’s how I understand it. I’m not a scholar.”

Suddenly, she itched to get back to her library books. Somewhere in there were all the answers she could ever want. She remembered packing several about weather manipulation . . . Had the sorcerers caused all of this: the shrinking merhorse herds, the drastic fluctuations in ocean temperature, the gradual starvation of Caltrey? And if so, was there a way to reverse it?

There was silence for a moment, but it wasn’t a terrible, awkward silence—it was just the quiet of two people, plus a plant, thinking about what had been said.

Finally, Larran said, “I do apologize for Sian’s behavior. She knows better than that.”

“I’m the one who brought the tomatoes,” Kiela said. “I’m sorry. They were for you.”

“Oh? For me?” He seemed surprised. And pleased.

Belatedly, she realized she should have led with saying they were intended as payment, for her borrowing tools and supplies. “Well, they were for you and Sian, but not all at once. And they weren’t a gift.”

“Oh?” This was a different “oh.” Curious and a little wary.

“You see, I need to build jam shelves.”

“You need shelves for jam?” Larran asked. “Why jam?”

“Exactly what I’ve been wanting to know,” Caz said.

Because she had the raspberry bushes. Because the recipe was in her parents’ cookbook. Because jam made people happy. You couldn’t eat jam and be sad. It was fundamentally impossible. Besides, it reminded her of tea with her parents, and it was a good memory—the three of them around the hearth in their tiny apartment in Alyssium, her mother reading aloud from a book, her father making comments that would make her laugh, and all of them having tea with jam on slightly stale bread that her parents had bought in the market in exchange for a bit of her father’s work with mending nets. It was a taste that came with near-forgotten emotions. But she didn’t say any of that. She simply said, “It’s nice.”

“Okay,” he said. And didn’t ask any more questions.

She liked him all the better for that.