Chapter 9
Talisa
One week later
My hand clutched the worn wooden railing for support as I pulled myself up the stairs to my suite, step by painful step.
A week after we’d received the terrible news about Mama, Mira and Juno still sobbed themselves to sleep every night. My own tears had run dry after my outburst in Chatelaine Lirelle’s office.
I moved through my days in a fog so thick I could barely see through it to perform the simplest tasks. I was exhausted beyond words, but I hated falling asleep at night.
Because my dreams tormented me more cruelly that Lukhan FitzMurad or his friends ever could.
Night after night, I’d dreamed Chatelain Lirelle called us into her office to tell us that the news of Mama’s death had been a mistake. That it was actually another ship that had been lost. Or that Mama had been rescued by a passing vessel.
Or that she’d missed the Peregrine’s departure and was still in the capital, or in Felicitas Victoria.
I’d wake up, feeling light with relief and the absence of grief, only to face the harsh reality that nothing had changed.
Mama was still dead. And my sisters and I were still here, trapped in this place filled with bullies and teachers who turned a blind eye.
If I’d been home in Bernswick, at least Elfrieda would’ve been there to talk to. She’d known and loved Mama, too. But Elfrieda was on the other side of the Caelrith Straits, and I couldn’t even hope for a letter from her before spring arrived.
As I reached the third-floor corridor, I caught the murmur of voices. Light spilled into the hallway from Elio’s half-open door, painting a golden wedge across the worn floorboards.
I paused, momentarily tempted.
In the wake of our loss, Elio had taken over hosting the nightly tea circle in his rooms to give us the time and space to mourn.
I was grateful for his offer. It was hard enough to remember how to breathe through the crushing pressure in my chest. I didn’t have the strength—or the will—to deal with a group of first-years needing reassurance and sympathy.
I wondered if Mira and Juno were at tonight’s tea circle. I hadn‘t seen either of them since our Runic Script and Arcane Languages class this afternoon.
They’d stopped asking me a few days ago if I was all right, which was both a relief and an accusation. I knew I was failing them when they needed me to be their anchor in the perilous sea of this academy. But I could barely keep myself afloat right now.
“Talisa?” Elio appeared in his doorway, as if he sensed my presence. His tall frame blocked most of the light, casting his face into shadow, but I could sense his concern. “You’re back late. And you missed supper again.”
“I was at the library,” I said. “Doing the assigned reading for Fundamentals II.”
Luckily, the academy stocked copies of Mage Sancola’s various treatises, since I couldn’t afford to keep replacing the books that Lukhan and the others stole and damaged.
“You’re just in time to have some tea and dessert. I talked the dining hall staff into letting me have a dozen spice buns.”
Elio held out a platter piled high with pastries. The honey glaze on the golden-brown spirals glistened in the lamplight. The familiar scents of ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon reached me, and my chest ached.
Mama baked these same buns each year for our village’s Mother of Harvests banquet.
“Come in and join us?” Elio wheedled. “Alara heard that Lady Helene made quite a spectacle of herself in the senior common room today.”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“She apparently tried to impress Lord Lukhan by reciting a poem she said she’d written for him, but Lady Beatrix said she recognized the verses from The Enchantment of Thornfield Hollow, or, The Mage’s Ward.
” He grinned at me. “Lukhan looked as if he’d bitten into a rotten apple. ”
A week ago, I would have laughed. The Enchantment of Thornfield Hollow, or, The Mage’s Ward was such a popular novel that even Mama owned a copy, purchased from a bookseller in Herrewick.
Now, I couldn’t summon even the ghost of a smile.
“Join us. Please,” Elio wheedled. “Just for an hour. Everyone’s been asking about you.”
Behind him, I saw Alara’s red braids, and the twins’ dark heads bent together, and the other first-years from the Western Tower clustered in a loose circle.
I felt as if the tea circle belonged to a different world. One I’d inhabited before grief had hollowed me out.
“I—” My voice cracked. I swallowed and tried again. “I can’t. I’m tired. But I’m fine.”
It was a lie.
But the days since Mama’s death had been an ordeal of well-meaning questions and awkward condolences. Everyone wanted to know how I was doing, and I didn’t know how to answer them.
How could I explain my utter inability to believe that Mama was gone forever? Or the way the world had lost its color, its sound, its meaning?
“You don’t have to talk,” Elio said, as if reading my thoughts. “You could just sit and listen. Or not. Whatever you need.”
His kindness was unbearable. It threatened to crack the icy shell I’d wrapped around myself, to let in the pain I’d been holding at bay. I kept my gaze fixed on the floor, afraid that if I looked at him directly, I might shatter.
“Maybe tomorrow,” I whispered, the words a promise I knew I wouldn‘t keep.
I stepped around him and continued down the corridor, feeling his concerned gaze like a physical hand on my back. At my door, I fumbled with the key, my hands clumsy with exhaustion.
The click of the latch behind me was the sweetest sound I’d heard all day—the promise of solitude, of not having to pretend that everything was fine.
I didn’t bother to light a lamp. Instead, I picked my way through the gloom to my bedroom, undressed, and crawled beneath the blankets.
I closed my eyes and prayed to the Divine Mother that tonight would bring dreamless sleep. Just a few hours of blessed oblivion to help me escape from the weight that threatened to crush me.
∞∞∞
Damien
“Ugh, what’s that smell?” Lukhan asked loudly as he swept into the Intermediate Potions lab and collected the basket of ingredients Emina handed him with a blush and a shy smile.
As usual, my friend’s arrival was carefully timed so that he attracted notice as the last student to arrive, but before Uncle Varro would mark him tardy.
I’d noticed a certain unpleasant odor when I’d entered the lab, but assumed it was part of today’s lab.
Lukhan flashed me a sly grin before composing his features into a puzzled inquiry. He called, “Miss Fishwife!”
All heads turned to look at her.
Looking oddly shrunken in her stained black robe, shoulders slumped, she was meticulously lining up the various packets and vials of ingredients for today’s lab exercise.
She ignored him.
“Hey, Miss Fishwife?” Lukhan raised his voice. “Why does your book bag reek like that? Maybe you should check it.”
Lady Beatrix and Lady Helene exchanged significant looks and giggled.
Moving like an automaton, Miss Fishwife opened her satchel and paused.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a delighted smile bloom on Lukhan’s features and wondered what he’d done now.
Then Miss Fishwife dragged a handkerchief-wrapped oblong bundle from her book bag.
The stink of rotten fish exploded into the lab, coating the inside of my throat with a layer of foulness every time I breathed.
As she held the vile package delicately between thumb and forefinger like a farmwife holding a dead rat by the tail, Lukhan groaned theatrically. He made a show of pinching his nose between his fingers. “Divine Mother, have mercy on us!”
The class erupted in laughter. I saw Uncle Varro’s mouth tighten. He turned from chalking the instructions for this week’s lab exercise and glared around the lab.
My throat tightened. “Lukhan,” I hissed, keeping my voice low. “She’s in mourning. Can’t you go easy on her for a few days?”
“Are you joking?” He shot me a disbelieving look. “Go easy on her? Now? When I’m so close to winning? Look at her! I hope she drops out and rushes home to comfort her grieving peasant family.”
He had a point. But I didn’t like how it made me feel.
My uncle barked, “Miss Bernswick, this week is the ‘Vitality, Growth, and Organic Sympathy’ module. We won’t be covering ‘Decay, Corruption, and Diagnostic Reading’ until next week.”
The class exploded into laughter. Even the other commoners joined in.
Miss Fishwife’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, Mage-Instructor Varro. My apologies,” she murmured without raising her eyes.
She dropped the stinking bundle into the waste bin.
At a nod from Uncle Varro, Teaching Assistant Emina hurried to remove the bin from the lab, looking slightly green as she did so.
Miss Fishwife returned to her workbench and just stood there like a lifeless mannequin.
I missed her previous air of brisk efficiency, and the way she used to lift her chin defiantly and glare at me or Luk after one of our pranks.
Tormenting her when she was vulnerable like this felt wrong.
Looking smug, Lukhan settled at the workbench beside me as Varro launched into his explanation of today’s exercise. We were tasked with creating a soothing salve, something we’d learned in Beginning Potions last year, then fortifying it with a Wood magic charm meant to restore damaged tissue.
We got to work. I concentrated on my task, the lingering smell of rancid fish stinging my nostrils and my conscience alike.
I told myself this prank was no worse than any of the others that Lukhan and I had pulled over the past three weeks.
So, why is it bothering me so much?
Maybe it’s because we’re all suffering from that awful smell right now, I told myself.
The rest of the lab flew by as I concentrated on working the charm. My strongest magical affinity was with Earth. Channeling Wood magic was always a struggle.
When the academy bell rang noon, everyone hurried to pack up their scales and notebooks
“Mr. Corvellan, a moment of your time, if you please,” Uncle Varro called.
His tone informed me it wasn’t a request I could refuse.