3. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Kalcedon landed in the garden below, body unfurling as he stumbled on newly grown feet. Feathers sheeted off his gray skin and fell apart like blossoms of smoke on the breeze. He straightened and looked up at me.
With a scowl, I bolted for the stairs and clattered down the long, winding circle of the four-story building to the tower’s base. By the time I reached the ground floor Kalcedon already stood in the kitchen with his back to me. Eudoria was nowhere to be seen.
He’d lit a fire in the oven. The kitchen was too warm, scented with woodsmoke and the acrid burn of the weeping onion he chopped.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how it’s done?” Kalcedon asked, without looking my way, as the knife in his hands thudded rapidly against the cutting board. Despite the power swallowed by his transformation, I couldn’t feel any real difference to his heat.
“I already know how. You ripped it from Odson .” I quickly rubbed dry soap on my hands.
Eudoria had purchased the book last year and given me the job of inspecting and cataloging its state, since Odson’s Variations on Material Forms was a rare find. I’d taken longer than I’d needed for the task, copying the phrasings down in secret and committing them to memory with little effort.
“Who said you could read Odson ?”
“There’s a feather on your shoulder,” I noted with some satisfaction. “Sloppy of you.” He glanced down and flicked it off, then turned and studied me with narrowed eyes. The feather disintegrated before it could reach the ground.
“Get the thorn out of your heel, Meda. It’s not my fault you’re a weakling.”
“You could have told me. Or, I don’t know, transformed on top of the tower instead of jumping off it .”
“Where’s the fun in that? You wouldn’t have shrieked like a dying rabbit.” He leveled his long knife at me. “Now help me shell beans.”
“Do I have to?”
He nodded. With a sigh, I ladled water over my hands to rinse off the soap.
A plain ceramic pot rested on the counter beside Kalcedon, ready to go into the hot oven as soon as he’d piled ingredients into the dough-shell that lined it.
There was nowhere in the world as cozy as Eudoria’s kitchen, which was strange, since prickly Kalcedon was the one who mostly occupied it. It was Kalcedon who’d strung the dried herbs up in bundles on the ceiling. Kalcedon who’d carved the sigils into the cabinets: enchantments for preservation where we kept the food and for protection where we kept the knives. A long, scrolling line of sigil-work over the stove kept the fire burning hot and strong without a single lick out of place. It reminded me of the shields written on my family’s kilns, the first sigil-work I’d learned by heart.
Written enchantments were stiff and lifeless, and they didn’t work when someone strong wasn’t around to power them. But they had their purpose, and with every syllable hacked into the wood Kalcedon had claimed this room as his own.
“Stop dawdling,” Kalcedon said. I shook my head quickly, realizing that I’d dazed off staring at his backside, at the shift of lean muscle under his undyed shirt as he worked the knife. The giant runner beans were already soaked and boiled but still in their casings. Leaning against the counter, I took one into my hands and carefully pinched it open. The bean inside tumbled back into the bowl. I dumped the translucent shell onto the counter.
“If you go that slow we’ll eat at moonrise,” Kalcedon said, his voice soft and distant. He was beside me, trying to peel a thin layer of onion skin that he’d missed off one of the diced pieces in front of him. The rippling heat of his power felt like being beside a fire on a freezing cold day.
“You cooked too many of them,” I complained.
“Astounding,” he muttered. “The woman who spends every waking hour sneaking away with obtuse books about spells she could never cast thinks this is too much work.”
“I would hit you if you weren’t holding a knife.” I peeled the next bean in the bowl.
“Lucky me.” Kalcedon elbowed me gently, playfully. No flare of magic. He'd touched cloth, not skin.
Having failed to split off the thin translucent skin, he quirked his fingers and sketched a quick series of sigils. I felt the heat of magic shift around him, and glanced over to see what he’d done. A repulsion: the skin slid off the diced onion to pile by the side of the cutting board. Except the ones he’d already placed there shifted over by the same amount and slapped against the patterned blue tile wall, fluttering apart like dead leaves.
“Sloppy,” I told him. One of my hands moved, half-sketching sigils. It mirrored his own enchantment, with a small change at the start and a few directional limits drawn in. At the last moment I pinched at Kalcedon’s magic and fed his power into my spell. He flinched and spun on me like a hissing cat.
Too late to stop me; the onion skins gathered themselves into a neat pile. My discarded bean pods tumbled over to join them.
“At least ask ,” Kalcedon said, voice rough with indignation that I’d stolen his power.
“Consider it a lesson.” Pleasure thrummed through me, a burn of satisfaction at the casting.
“I shouldn’t have to guard myself in my own horned home!”
“ Fine . Be ungrateful.” I reached over and ruffled the pile of gathered rubbish, shuffling it all over the counter. Kalcedon slapped my hand away.
“Stop,” he spat. His words sounded distant to my ears as I fought to hide the way my mind blistered; the way my whole body tensed and loosed at the eruption of power in his touch.
“Admit it, my repulsion was better than yours,” I said hoarsely.
Kalcedon made a tsk noise, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He scraped the cut onion into the dough, then emptied a jar of olives in after. I drew a deep, shaky breath, and exhaled slowly. I’d never get used to the way it felt, being skin-to-skin with that power.
“Anyways, what do you know,” I told him sourly as I tore open another bean pod. “One day I’m going to cast workings the likes of which you’ve never dreamed of.”
He paused to peer at me then, lifting one dark eyebrow. Kalcedon managed to pile a lot of weary superiority into the look.
“Undoubtedly,” he said at last. “Please tell me when you do, so I can watch you burn yourself cold and fall over your own feet.”
I was going to do it. If I could just convince Eudoria of my talents, she might recommend me to the Temple. They’d see what I was capable of. With a bevy of other witches to draw power from, I’d lead great orchestrated workings so spectacular Kalcedon would swallow his words.
“Oh, I’ll make sure you’re there,” I told him. “A front-row seat. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
“Enough.” Eudoria’s voice was soft, but it caught both of our attention instantly. “You act like children.”
She stood in the doorway, her dense silver hair half-pinned back, her eyes scrutinizing the kitchen counters. The old witch slowly rubbed her hands together. I could smell the nettle cream she used against her aching finger joints, freshly applied.
It wasn’t the first time Eudoria had mentioned our immaturity. But I didn’t know how else to be, around Kalcedon. The burn of his magic made my skin feel prickly and alive; made my heart pound and turned my head dizzy. I was constantly having to remind myself not to forget what he was. Before I took the position at Eudoria’s, my parents had made me swear I wouldn’t let my guard down.
“When will supper be ready?” Eudoria asked.
“Not for an hour. There’s bread and oil, and some salad, if you’re hungry now?” Kalcedon offered.
She waved him off and took a seat at the small table where we usually ate. Eudoria planted her elbows and rubbed her fingers against her forehead. I paused to silently tidy up the mess I’d made as Kalcedon ladled her a cup of water from the jar. He set it reverently in front of her.
I worked my way through all the beans as Kalcedon added his other home-grown vegetables to the dish, then oil and salt and herbs. Into the oven his pan went. Eudoria still hadn’t brought up my spell, or that she’d thrown me out of the workroom.
Kalcedon tugged the bean bowl out from under my hands and started to fly through it.
“Don’t just stand there like a fool. Start cleaning the snails.”
There was a knock on the door. Eudoria pushed herself up from the table slowly, with a groan.
“I can get it,” Kalcedon said, but the seer was already around the corner. I strained to hear the conversation. There was a male voice alongside Eudoria’s, but I couldn’t quite make out the words, even though Kalcedon was silent—perhaps doing the same thing as me.
Then footsteps, as Eudoria returned.
“Meda. Some boy is here to see you.”