Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
EMBER
When performing the Memory Extraction spell, the Mentalist must be absolute in the removal of all sensory details.
— Helen Blackburn, Echelon to the
School of Mental Magic
We left the forest in silence.
Downtown Hartik’s Hollow was slowly waking up when we ported into Conventicles Crossing.
A door would open, and my senses would flood with smells of cinnamon-sweet pastries and freshly baked bread, the scents so wonderful I could almost ignore the iron spelltracks hanging over us as more and more witches left their homes to travel to work.
I’d been staring too long at a windowfront, when, out of nowhere, Leland decided he was talking to me again.
“Do you like pepperoni?” he asked.
My answer resulted in him ducking into a bakery, and insisting I take one of the two pepperoni calzones he came back out with.
Not wanting to offend the baker, who was staring expectantly at us from behind a wide, glass window, I grabbed the calzone by its brown paper wrappings, ignored the dirt on my hands, and dug into it.
I knew the reason for Leland’s gesture. He didn’t want me to starve to death before Selection, before he fulfilled his end of the Dark Deal he’d made with Jaxan.
What I didn’t know was what he was getting from it.
Why a five-year-old would need to go to an Echelon for protection. It seemed too personal to ask.
“Want to sit?” he asked.
I nodded, chewing, and he steered us to a wooden bench where we sat as far as humanly possible from each other. To stop myself from looking at him, I gazed out at a tiered fountain, concentrating on its gentle bubbling, wishing I knew if it was a weird thing to do to go up to it and rinse my hands.
My ears popped.
I clapped my hands over them and frowned at Leland for taking away the cathartic noise of the fountain.
“Privacy,” he said. “It’s a Creation spell.”
“I know what Privacy is,” I informed him, though I’d thought a Creator could only cast it indoors, in a defined space, like a room. Then again, this was Leland — and Leland wasn’t regular.
“I’m not trying to talk down to you,” he said. “I don’t know how much you know yet.”
Under the intensity of his stare, something came over me. I stopped inhaling my calzone, and just nibbled the corner.
“Did Ash teach you?” he asked.
“Ash?” I turned my head away, shaking my head. “She barely wrote, and when she did, she didn’t write about magic. Getting her to talk about what’s going on in her life . . . it’s pulling teeth.”
“That a family trait?” The dip of his chin, the lift of his eyebrows — it wasn’t a very subtle way of implying he saw similarities.
Ash was reticent. I couldn’t blame her, though, and would defend her from anyone who did.
Twenty-four years ago, Helen was sent to the human realm for a breeding experiment, to see if it was possible to produce a half witch.
Dad said she went voluntarily, but she must have had a change of heart about the experiment after Ash was born, because, for a while, she hid my sister’s existence.
Ash was five when Everden found out about her.
And while witches were curious about whether or not a half witch was possible, once there actually was one, they weren’t pleased.
They came to the human realm, raided our house, and took Ash to Everden for nine months of experiments, interrogations, and medical evaluations, just to see if she reacted to magic the same way they did.
Helen let it all happen, officially moving to Everden when it was over, after they’d dumped Ash on our front lawn, the same Halloween night I was born.
“I answer things,” I said, then defended my sister.
“Ash was five when the witches put her through nine months of interrogations. So, as far as I’m concerned, Ash can be as closed off as she wants.
” I set the calzone on its paper, my appetite gone.
“Helen — you would know better than I would. The things I know I learned about by digging through Ash’s trash, stealing Helen’s letters out of it.
She also sent a few of the Echelons’ texts.
The Allwitch Affliction. A text about the Sundering and how morally superior witches are.
I know a little about the different jurisdictions from the brochures she sent Ash on the eight magic academies.
And the humans teach your constitution, so I thought I knew about your founding principles — equal rights for everyone.
But that doesn’t align with how Everden treats Dark Witches and Allwitches, so maybe I know nothing. ”
“You’re right,” Leland agreed, “it doesn’t.”
“There’s a process for that where I’m from in the human realm.”
“I know about your government.” Leland set down his own calzone now, his golden-green eyes dulling.
“They teach it?”
“No.” Leland stared off. A normal person would’ve taken the opportunity to explain how they’d learned about it then, but I could tell from his body language he was ready to change the subject. “Will you tell me what you want to know?”
“How to get to the portal?”
“Nice try,” he said. “You know I can’t answer that.”
I sighed. “I know the spells. The history, somewhat. But culture, laws, customs — I’m less informed about.
I don’t know what it’s like to live day-to-day here.
I have no idea how to get gold, how much it costs to buy a calzone, or how much of Helen’s stuff I’ll have to sell to afford a shirt you approve of. ”
Sometimes, only sometimes, I’d catch a twitch in the corner of his lips, just before they flattened out.
“For the calzone,” he said casually, “five copper. That’s basically five of your dollars. A silver is fifty. A gold is five hundred. Price of a shirt depends where you’re shopping. Helen never taught you this?”
I took a huge sip of moonale, then held the flask close to my chest and fidgeted with the cap. “She doesn’t speak to me.”
He stared off again, saying nothing for so long I started to wonder what I’d done, and my armor shot up at his on-and-off standoffishness. I didn’t understand his shift in tone, nor did we discuss it as we walked back to Helen’s.
After he said goodbye at the porch, I shut the door, totally perplexed, then headed straight to the washroom to drink from my flask while I soaked in the bath. I was on my second bath when my transmitter buzzed against the porcelain rim of the tub.
Leland Stray: Dress or pants?
I think you’d look lovely in either, I thought half-mindedly.
But I was held off from replying my honest thoughts as I searched for a hand towel to dry my hands. Apparently, I was too slow.
He sent a second message. A picture of Odessa Hall, along with news that my presence there had been requested, and there was no getting out of it. Odessa Hall was the Echelons’ palace.
By now I knew that, wards or no, there was no arguing with Leland’s instructions.
His magic was odorless. The front window to Helen’s house, which should have been impenetrable to anyone who wasn’t a Blackburn, had been opened in the night.
And he’d sent that Good Morning message, as if he’d known the exact moment I was awake.
If I refused to go to the palace, he’d only violently haul me out of here.
I sighed at the pile of clothes on the floor. Leland’s sweatshirt that fell to my knees. Ash’s jeans, muddy and so tight-fitting I was still unwrinkling from the red ridge they’d etched into my stomach. I had nothing. Not even undergarments.
Ember Blackburn: Pants
Ember Blackburn: And on second thought. I would like you to Refresh my things. If you still have the spells for it.
What did it matter? I was a job to him.
* * *
I was grateful for the clothes he’d brought.
A simple black shirt, olive dress pants, matching black ballet flats.
Grateful because he’d shown up looking infinitely more polished than I did puttering around in his oversized sweatshirt.
His soft knit tee was perfectly tailored to him, and his wristwatch looked expensive, making me think of a young college professor.
There was something admirable in the way he exuded confidence.
His unflinching stares. How he spoke, expecting you to listen.
“Are you listening to me?”
The severity in his tone pulled me out of my daze. I jerked my head up, Odessa Hall looming ahead as we crossed the wide, marble bridge butting up to the palace’s pavilions.
“No,” I admitted, mildly embarrassed. “I wasn’t. I was thinking about . . .” How the almond color of his shirt brought out the amber in his eyes. I cleared my throat. “What were you saying?”
With a vague look of disapproval, he dropped the conversation, instead occupying himself with monitoring the foot traffic on the bridge.
For a Saturday, it was strangely full of commuters, everyone walking purposefully to and from the palace.
Yet crowded as it was, our way was clear.
Everyone scattered for the edges of the balustrades at the first sight of Leland.
We walked through the gate into a vast courtyard, the white stone palace gleaming brilliantly in the afternoon sun.
It was a stately building, long and symmetrical, five stories high and with an elegant shape to it.
Everyone walking to and from it was in business attire.
I spotted a few briefcases. Expensive handbags.
And Leland’s backpack, though a different one.
I eyed it suspiciously, wondering how many syringes he’d packed.