40. Forty
Chapter 40
I had just stood up to stretch when I heard footsteps. A young man and woman were wide-eyed at the edge of the alley, whispering to each other. I didn’t feel heat from either of them.
“You’ll have to walk around,” I called.
“We came to watch,” the woman announced. I blinked at her in surprise.
“It’s not a show.”
“Let them,” a voice said behind me.
I turned to see another witch approaching, her power far more palpable than mine. She was tall and thin, pale, with trousers and a billowing blouse.
“It could be dangerous. It’s not entertainment. It might go wrong ,” I said. It was all true, and easier to say than ‘and we don’t know who’s scrying for us.’
“Many will want to see,” she informed me staidly. “It’s our city, our people. Let them watch.”
I pressed my lips together and turned back to the couple, only to find they’d been joined by an old woman and a pair of young men. They crowded around the faerie creature.
“No, no, get back,” I admonished, and strode towards them. “If you want to stay, stay. But keep back , please.” I waved them past the last statue.
The other witch had picked up my slate board.
“What do you think?” I asked eagerly. But she only blinked and bent to set it down again.
The crowd kept gathering, and I kept pushing them back away from the statues. Some twenty minutes later an old, bearded man walked out of the crowd, leaning on a cane. I almost snapped at him to turn around before I felt the familiar warm hum of magic from him.
I took him to look at the runes, but he waved a hand and shook his head.
“Spare me. I’m just here to do my part.”
The next witch was an enthusiastic young man with honey-brown eyes. Then a young copper-skinned girl hand in hand with her grandmother. Some felt as powerful as the first woman, some as weak as my mother. One, a middle-aged man who stared at me defiantly, felt as weak as me. Still, he insisted that he would do his part, even though I knew unless he was good at holding sigils he wouldn’t have anything to add. They came from every direction, the witches of Koraica emerging to lend their strength. The final one was a strong weather-witch from Buis, whose ship happened to be docked in the harbor.
When Oraik and Kalcedon returned, they could barely squeeze their way through the crowd. Hundreds of people had come to watch. I tasked the prince to keep the throng from slowly shifting forwards.
“How do we choose who to start with?” I muttered to Kalcedon, after he’d approached. “If it goes wrong…”
“Her,” he said, and pointed at the statue of the old lady. I raised my eyebrows.
“What, just because she’s…? That’s so mean.”
He snorted. “Because she’s the one closest to us, dunce. You cast. I’ll manage the draw.”
He threaded power from all the witches, and slowly fed it to me as I read the slate and signed out what I’d written. It felt strange. Even though the power was coming from Kalcedon there were so many threads mixed in, mostly unfamiliar, none used to working together. Without him to wrangle it all I couldn’t have focused on the spell. I read off the chart we’d made, for some reason unable to hold the sigils in my mind—perhaps they were too complicated; something about them didn’t fall into place for me.
At last I released my hands from the casting. The stone woman in front of us was unchanged.
The crowd craned their heads for a better view. Some jumped to see over the front. They were staring at me as much as the statue, and I wished I had worn my mask like Kalcedon.
Kalcedon reached out and touched it.
“Meda,” he said. I put my hand out too and pressed it to the woman’s shoulder. It felt… soft. Not like stone. There was a little give, almost sponginess. But it remained cold and unliving. I picked up the slate and glared at it.
Oraik trotted over.
“Do you need anything?”
“No, go away,” I said. Then I sighed. “Oraik, wait. What makes a person different from a statue?”
He leaned back on one heel, eyes looking up to the sky.
“Everything?” the Prince asked.
“Come on.” I narrowed my eyes.
“But I’m awful at riddles,” he groaned. “I don’t know. People breathe? Their hearts beat? We eat, we talk, we feel, we laugh, we dance, we—” he was rapidly counting ideas off on his fingers now.
“Enough,” I said, and shooed him back to the crowd. But my mind churned. Movement; was there something to that? The spell was focused on softening, loosening. But heartbeats? Air moving in and out of lungs? I went to add another phrase and paused, the chalk dangling in midair above the sketched sigils.
Sinking to the ground, I started to write. The sigils flowed more quickly than my mind could follow; the spell nearly doubled in length. I didn’t stop to think. A sort of knowing had taken over, like I could feel the shape of the spell itself, like I was molding the magic I wanted into phrasings rather than using phrasings to coax the magic out.
It felt right. I didn’t need to read the spell back. I had it now; the song of it in my head.
I strode back to the statue of the old lady and started to scribble sigils in the air, pouring power into it. Kalcedon was talking to one of the other witches. He stopped mid-sentence as he felt me cast and hurriedly fed power into me once more.
Halfway into the spell, the woman’s windswept hair inched softer. It dropped down against her stone skin. Her little finger trembled. Two-thirds through now, and the woman blinked. Color came slowly back into her. I finished casting with a twist of my left hand. A thin veneer of stone shattered, and the woman fell to her knees with a cry.
The watchers erupted in applause and cheers as the other witches helped her to her feet. They ushered her over to the waiting crowd. I sank down and rested my head in my trembling hands with a smile.
It had taken more out of me than I’d expected, but I felt triumphant nonetheless. Kalcedon came over to check on me. I quickly stood to stop anyone from worrying.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Let’s do the next one.”
We took breaks between each statue. The crowd supplied lemon water, figs, and bread, watching in silence as each spell was worked and erupting in raucous applause at each returned figure. Three more witches arrived as we worked; word was still spreading.
The man with the shattered nose and hand could be saved, but we couldn’t restore what had broken off his body. He trembled and fought back tears as his partner rushed forward to hold him. I turned away and closed my eyes.
It was midafternoon by the time we finished. Kalcedon and I shivered from cold, so drained we were both flirting with danger. A dozen strangers offered food, money, praise, and shelter. Oraik shooed them off and shuffled us both back towards the inn, where our belongings awaited us.
“You can’t sail like this,” Kalcedon croaked.
My whole body trembled. I knew I was in a bad way. Not so much cold—Kalcedon, who was barely warm, had made sure of that—but exhausted in every way. Still, we needed to leave. It was too risky here, especially after such a public casting. We were in no shape to defend ourselves if faeries attacked, and the witches of Koraica were in no shape to help us.
“I’ll be fine in a moment,” I said. I put my hand out on one of the limestone buildings to support myself.
“No, you won’t. We’ll leave tomorrow,” Kalcedon insisted. “You need sleep . Lots of it.”
We both looked at Oraik.
“What? Don’t look at me. You two decide,” he said.
“We’re staying. Look at her,” Kalcedon said, and pointed at me.
“Look at yourself,” I muttered, as my knees threatened to buckle.
Oraik sighed. “Kalcedon’s right. You need rest, both of you. We’re staying.”
“Don’t coddle up to him. He wanted to kill you,” I reminded the prince. Oraik only snorted and pushed open the door to the inn.
I don’t know how I hauled myself upstairs and into my bed. All I know is, I was asleep the moment my face hit the pillow.