Chapter 21 #3
I didn’t believe him for a moment, but I also didn’t see much point in arguing about it. “What are you doing in Montréal?” I said, turning back to the cabinet. “Everyone seems to think you’re in New York.”
“I was in New York. I move every few years, for obvious reasons. Before that I was in Paris.”
“Paris,” I echoed.
He glanced up at me, seeming to notice something in my voice. “You’ve seen it?”
“Naturally I haven’t.” In fact, I had always harboured a secret desire to visit Paris, and New York too, among a dozen other places. But it was a wistful sort of desire, not one based in anything so fertile as hope.
“Why not?”
I gave a short laugh. “It takes weeks to reach France. I haven’t spent more than a day or two away from the shelter since we opened.”
He turned back to his worktable. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Where have you been, anyway?” I said, wanting to change the subject. “Off blighting some poor farmer’s crops? Enchanting small children to have nightmares about you?”
“I only blight crops on Saturdays. And children do that without my assistance. Here.”
I turned to find that he was coming towards me with the silver pen. “What are you doing?” I demanded, holding up the clipboard as if it might ward him off.
He stopped. “The pen will allow you to identify the enchantments contained within each Artefact. It’s quite easy: only hold it to a piece of paper, and speak the word—”
“No,” I said, taking a step away from him.
He gazed at me, uncertainty clouding his expression. “It won’t harm you. I’ve woven the enchantment carefully.”
“It’s a—” I remembered the coin he had offered me. “First-order enchantment?”
“Yes.”
I frowned at this. “What happens if a human tries to cast a second-order one?”
“You don’t want to know.” He amended, “It actually depends more on the talent of the magician than the strength of the spell. Most magicians do quite shoddy work, and it’s why Artefacts have gained a reputation for being dangerous to humans.
On the whole, they are, but not for the reason people think.
A large piece of machinery is dangerous if poorly constructed.
A badly made pencil, less so. Even if you cast one of my stronger enchantments, you would likely be quite safe. ”
I rolled my eyes. “Hand me an Artefact meant to ward off egotistical magicians, and I’ll consider it.”
I made no move to take the pen, and he slowly lowered it. “I know you have good reason to fear magic,” he said, “given that it cost you your home—”
“That’s not it,” I said. “I simply want nothing to do with it.” I gave a brittle laugh, knowing how ridiculous it sounded. “Or as little as possible. I certainly don’t want to playact as a magician.”
He chewed his lip. “There’s something else, then. You’ve been harmed by magicians before? Or is it because of your husband? Yannick told me he died suddenly. Is that why you despise us? You feel that one of us could have helped him?”
“No,” I said, startled by this unexpected mention of Robin, but also by the fact that he’d bothered to retain such mundane information as my personal biography. “Do you really have that much trouble accepting the idea that some people might dislike magic?”
He didn’t look like he believed me, and I recalled our conversation after Valérie’s attack. Magic is who I am. Naturally he would have trouble with the concept; I might as well expect a fish to understand a fear of water.
“I have no sordid history with magic,” I said. “I simply see no reason to respect the sort of people who have the power to do a great deal of good, but can’t be bothered to.”
“Oh, some can,” he said. “Though they’re few and far between. Must magic be useful? Can’t it simply be beautiful, like art? If you tried it, you might find you enjoy it.”
“Enjoy it,” I repeated, thinking of the crater in the wall of the old shelter. That was art to him, was it?
“Yes,” he said. “Is that a foreign concept? Enjoyment?”
“I don’t take your meaning,” I said coldly.
He shrugged. “Do you do anything for yourself? You spend morning to night taking care of your menagerie.”
“How do you—” I groaned. “Yannick.”
“He didn’t have to tell me that. We’ve lived together for some time now. I’ve heard you stomping about until midnight sometimes, cleaning, moving cages about, talking to those cats. I certainly haven’t heard you throwing any parties.”
I went red thinking about the silly nonsense I said to the cats when we were alone. He’d heard all that?
“They need me,” I said levelly. “Someone has to care for them—nobody else is doing it. And anyway, I like what I do. What business is it of yours how I spend my time? Are you trying to convince me that I should see magic as some sort of—holiday?”
In reply, he held out the pen. He was all cold confidence again, no trace of awkwardness remaining, which I had come to interpret as the magic within him rising to the surface.
I had no fear of him in that moment, though, only curiosity.
After a pause, I took the pen. His hand brushed mine, and I thought of the embers of lightning I had felt on his skin after he fought Valérie.
“Now,” he said, opening the cabinet and removing the gold chain I had been admiring before. The links were delicate imperfect circles. “Hold this, and speak the command. The enchantment trapped in the gold will reveal itself.”
He said something then, obviously a magic word, so inhuman-sounding it might as well have been birdsong.
“I can’t pronounce that!” I exclaimed. “I can barely remember it.”
“It gets easier with practice.” He repeated the word again.
“Ellnose uz?” I tried.
He winced.
“This is pointless,” I said, trying to give the pen back. He put his hand around my wrist, stopping me.
“It’s the language of the Rivenwood,” he said. “It takes time to perfect, even for magicians. I’ll say it slowly.” He did.
“Helnez althz,” I said, which sounded a little better, but still a ways off.
It was a sharp-edged, hissing sort of language, and it reminded me of fire: the rustle of the flames punctuated by the snap of sparks.
Somehow it was easier to say with him standing so close, enveloped in the disquieting scent of magic.
“Close enough,” Havelock said. He was still holding my wrist, his thumb brushing the place where my pulse beat, and we both seemed to realize it at the same time. He released me and stepped back.
“There are actually only a handful of commands used to release spells from their vessels,” he said. “That’s one of the simpler ones—they increase in complexity for the more difficult spells.”
“Is that why ordinary people have more trouble casting spells?” I said. “They can’t get the pronunciation right?”
“That,” Havelock said, pausing, “and the fact that humans have no affinity for magic, the way we do. It’s part of us from the time we’re born. That’s why the Rivenwood calls to us.”
“How unpleasant.” I took up my clipboard and turned to a fresh sheet, holding the pen to it.
“Ink?” I said. He only shook his head. “You don’t use ink?” I pressed.
“No, I write all my correspondence in my own blood,” he said. “Agnes, it’s an enchanted pen—just try it.” He put the gold chain in my other hand.
I didn’t know why I wasn’t more nervous.
I suppose it was because I didn’t expect anything to happen—the idea of me casting a spell was so incongruous that the possibility barely occurred to me, even as I spoke the word he’d taught me.
I liked the idea of proving him wrong, of showing him that magic and I were oil and water.
But the word didn’t sound the same this time; it rose inside me, warm and almost fizzy, and it sounded closer to what he’d said. Afterwards my mouth tasted of charcoal and night wind.
I made a strangled sound. My hand was darting across the page—or, rather, the pen was, dragging my hand along with it.
It wrote a dozen words and then skittered to a stop, a terrible sort of twitching motion that reminded me of a bird that had flown into a window.
Then it was still, and it was only a pen.
I jolted to my feet, mindlessly panicking, and clipboard and pen clattered to the floor.
Havelock caught me in his arms before I could flee, or faint—I’m not sure which impulse was dominant.
I remembered what he’d said about magic being alive, and felt abruptly repulsed, as if I’d briefly given myself over to some parasite.
“Are you all right?” He settled me quickly on the table, then stepped back, all awkwardness again. “You did well. It’s good that you spoke with confidence; spells always come off better that way, though your pronunciation is—well, it was an admirable first attempt for a professional cat herder.”
He snatched the clipboard up, a smile spreading across his face—one of his rare genuine smiles, which chased the mordant glint from his eyes.
It was in that moment that I realized two things: one, I had done magic; and two, I was beginning to have feelings for Havelock Renard.
I had no idea which was more upsetting and incomprehensible.
“Oh, hell,” I murmured.
“No, it’s all right,” he enthused obliviously. “The handwriting is hard to read because it isn’t yours, you see. It’s the writing of the magician who enchanted the necklace, an eighteenth-century magician named Sarah Thomson…”
He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. I blinked rapidly, but that couldn’t save me this time, and my eyes began to well.
It took him a moment or two to notice, but he did, eventually. “What is it? Are you—?”
“I’m all right,” I said in a broken voice. “I’m only overwhelmed. I always cry when I’m overwhelmed. It will stop soon.”
To my surprise, he took me at my word. “Yes, I noticed that before. Here.”
He went to his worktable and rummaged about in a drawer, excavating a handkerchief. It was a little dusty and smelled of magic, but I blew my nose on it anyway.
“Can you make it out?” he said, sitting beside me again and showing me what I’d written on the clipboard.
His unperturbed reaction to my tears was vastly more comforting than any to-do he could have made about them. I wiped my eyes and leaned forward, squinting. “For the prevention of poisoning,” I read. “Oh! That’s what the necklace does.”
He nodded. “Not all enchantments are so straightforward, but nevertheless, this will tell you what sort of magic is stored in each Artefact. As for the enchantment in the pen, I’ve woven it with a recursive spell to make it stick, so I’ll only need to refill the magic every now and again.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t certain I understood. My head was still swimming.
“You needn’t use the pen,” he said, watching me. “If you don’t wish to.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s helpful. Thank you. I—I have to attend to the cats, but I’ll return momentarily.”
I tromped up the stairs, nearly tripping and falling in my haste. No doubt he assumed he’d frightened me, which was better than him guessing the truth. I could still taste charcoal on my tongue.
élise was in the back room when I surfaced, digging through the storage cupboard.
“Don’t tell me we’re out of litter again,” I said, trying for an ordinary tone.
She turned and fixed me with a probing, suspicious look. “You’re finished already?”
I shook my head. élise could read me well, but I could read her too, and I realized then that she knew what had upset me—she’d worked it out before I had. My eyes welled again.
“Oh, Agnes.” élise came forward and folded me into her arms. She smelled as she always did: vanilla-scented perfume woven with coffee and cat hair, familiar and comforting. “I wish you’d left him to bleed to death. It would have made everything much simpler!”