39. Thirty-nine
Chapter 39
The statues were all around us, frozen and pale. Oraik leaned against the wall, breathing hard from the run. Kalcedon crouched slowly in front of the creature, so close my skin crawled, and studied it through the slits in his mask.
“We have to go,” I said. Of all the things that would make us easy to scry, I could think of few as risky as being part of a spectacle.
“I think it’s a golfu,” Kalcedon said.
“Is it dead?” Oraik asked.
“We have to go,” I repeated, more loudly.
Kalcedon straightened slowly and turned, taking in the street.
“We aren’t leaving these people,” Oraik said.
“You just want to stay,” I told him.
Kalcedon approached one of the statues, then slowly reached out to touch it.
“I still have nightmares about the people we left on Montay. I’m not doing that again,” Oraik said.
“But we can’t hide here any longer. Not after this .”
“So what? If they come, the faerie will fight them off.” He hadn’t moved from where he leaned against the wall, though he wiped his face with the hem of his shirt.
“And what if we can’t? What if they take you and the Ward goes away altogether?” Didn’t he see it—that this could happen everywhere, to everyone?
“He’s right,” Kalcedon said. “We have to help them.” He stood with his back to both of us, arms crossed as he studied one of the figures.
“But…”
“Come on, Meda,” Oraik said. “The sooner we start the sooner we can go, yes?”
“Any ideas?” Kalcedon asked.
I felt like they were pairing up against me.
“Of course not. Why would I know how to turn someone back from stone?”
“You must have read something, somewhere,” Kalcedon said.
“How many books do you think there are about living statues?” I muttered, and ran my hands through my hair. The answer, as far as I was aware, was zero.
Restore a tree dead from inside to out. But these were people turned to stone. Not wood; not trees.
“You’re the one with the talent for phrasings. I’m just a heartless faerie.” He said the words almost jokingly— dryly , but I knew Kalcedon—as he at last turned my way, arms still crossed.
“I don’t know where to even start.”
“With you writing a spell,” Kalcedon said.
I wandered over to one of the statues. The girl looked young, perhaps twelve, though it was impossible to get a real sense of age from the determined stone face. Her frozen mouth gaped in a silent unending yell, arm cocked back to throw her stone. I frowned and pressed a hand to the figure. I could feel no magic, no life. No heartbeat. No warmth. To all purposes, the child appeared to have never lived.
I felt sick to my stomach, and overwhelmed.
“What if we get it wrong?” I asked.
“Better than doing nothing,” Kalcedon said. He’d followed behind me, his steps silent.
“We have to try,” Oraik agreed.
“It could kill them. What if we try to, I don’t know, soften them, and they melt ?”
“One at a time. Maybe we don’t save them all, but it’s better than nothing. Right?” Kalcedon asked.
“Horns,” I muttered. I took a step back from the child. How could we even choose who to try it on first, not knowing what the results would be? “This is chancy. And no doubt we’ve got hunters headed our way.”
“Meda,” he said quietly. “You know I’ll keep you safe. You don’t need to worry.”
I shook my head grimly, mouth still pressed tight. It wasn’t just about me, or even the other people who were in danger with every move the outland fae and the Colynes made. The fight on the warship had almost done Kalcedon in. I couldn’t risk that happening again.
“I know phrasings for loosening muscles,” he told me quietly. “Maybe there’s something there?”
“Maybe. I don’t have anything to write with.” My bag was back at the inn.
A shop down the street sold school supplies, books and maps and abacuses. Kalcedon went to look. He returned with a slate board and a piece of chalk.
“There wasn’t anyone there,” he said. “They must’ve run. I just took it.”
“Well, we are trying to save people,” I rationalized. I was sitting beside Oraik. Kalcedon walked up to us, then crouched. He thought for a moment, hand covering the red mask’s mouth, then leaned forward and began drawing sigils. After a moment I came to stand behind him and watch him work. Kalcedon’s hand froze, the chalk lifted just over the board. He shifted, ever so slightly, towards me. Then the chalk started scratching again, harder than before.
I looked at Kalcedon’s work. He’d written the sigils quickly, and a little messily. If he were casting, it wouldn’t go well, but I could see what shapes they were meant to form. I crouched and studied it a moment longer before spotting a problem.
“That won’t work. There. This whole phrasing would be meaningless to stone. You have to frame it around the problem.”
“I’m just putting what I know. Change whatever you want.” He added another sigil before passing it to me; his fingers lingered as I took the chalk. I studied it a moment longer, then wiped out a few of the phrasings with the side of my hand and replaced them with ones I liked better. Another minute of staring, trying to feel the spell. Then I made another big change, and some small adjustments.
“What do you think?” I asked Kalcedon, turning the board around in my hands to show him.
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“I know you wouldn’t know . I asked, what do you think .”
“It’s long. How much power will it take?”
“It’s a sink,” I admitted.
“Koraica is a large city. There are other witches,” Oraik said. He stared at the dead golfu with an expression on his face like he’d just taken a bite of something unpleasant.
“They won’t be as powerful,” I said.
“Oraik has a point,” Kalcedon admitted. “It’s better than nothing.”
“You’re agreeing with me? Again?” Oraik looked up from the monster, sounded surprised. “Meda, I fear he may have hit his head.”
“A group working…?” The largest I’d ever cast with was three. My mother and brother, firing the pottery kilns. Eudoria and Kalcedon, scrying. But I’d never cast with strangers before. “Maybe someone else will have an idea how to fix this.”
“I guarantee they won’t,” Kalcedon said dryly.
“Well, they’ll have as good a chance as us,” I said absently. I frowned at the phrasings we’d written and added another line.
“You really don’t get it, do you,” Kalcedon muttered under his breath. “You aren’t normal, Meda.”
I wasn’t sure if it was an insult or a compliment, and I was too focused on the spell to care.
“Someone had better start spreading the word,” Oraik said.
“I’ll stay.” I tapped the slate. “I want to keep fiddling.” I wanted to add directional limits, to stop the spell from spreading to the other statues or the city itself if it went wrong. The last thing we needed was buildings coming to life, or all the creature’s victims destroyed in one go if it were wrong.
“The statues are curdling me. I’ll go,” Oraik said, exactly as Kalcedon started to say “Fine, I’ll…”
Both men looked at each other. Kalcedon looked away.
“...big city. We could go different directions,” Oraik mumbled half-heartedly as he slowly stood.
“Shouldn’t be by yourself,” Kalcedon muttered in response.
“Well, if it’s for the greater good, then…” Oraik trailed off.
Kalcedon’s reply was a wordless grunt.
“We haven’t seen Painter’s Hill yet,” Oraik said cheerfully, straightening and turning towards Koraica’s high ground. “Let’s head that way—might as well, no? The view is supposed to be spectacular. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Degnac. Today’s clear, isn’t it? Clear enough?”
Oraik had already started walking towards the end of the street. Kalcedon stayed standing in place for a long beat. His masked head swiveled to look at me. Then, with a sigh, he walked off after the still-chattering prince.