Chapter 18 #2
My first impulse is to use my candle-lighting spell on some tinder, hoping to get away with not invoking the first magic.
This results in nothing more than an acrid puff of smoke.
I then light a candle and hold its flame to the tinder; the flame dances as though actively avoiding the tinder, and I have to admit defeat.
No shortcuts. I’m going to have to try proper fire-lighting magic.
I’m not sure why I’m so intimidated by the idea of it, other than that it’s the oldest magic in the world and meant to be practiced by two people together. I think back to Honey’s lesson, and then decide to try it my own way.
“Hearth,” I say, feeling only a tiny bit foolish, “I apologize for letting the fire go out. I was busy feeling sorry for myself rather than keeping an eye on you, which is a good lesson for me. You’ve kept me warm for more than two weeks, you’ve boiled my water and toasted my crumpets and consumed the inedible remains of several of my experiments with turnips.
” I pause. “Sorry about that, by the way.” Burning turnips, it turns out, don’t smell nice.
“I’ve never lit a fire by myself before, and it might take me a couple of tries. Please be patient with me, and I’ll make a better effort this time round to keep you well-fed and happy.”
There, that felt right. I lean forward and strike my flint and my steel. A spark flies up and lands on the back of my hand. I shriek and drop my flint, and it cracks in half when it hits the hearthstone.
“Oh, seven hells,” I breathe. Now there’s a little pink welt below my second knuckle, and my flint’s broken.
“Sorry, hearth,” I say, after a deep breath. “That wasn’t aimed at you.” I set one half of the flint aside and try again with the other.
After several more goes, I’ve got several more tiny burns on the backs of both hands, and no fire. I huff out a frustrated breath.
“This’ll be my last try,” I tell the hearth, “since you clearly don’t want to get going tonight.
Which is fine; I can manage.” It’s not that cold and I can eat apples and bread for dinner.
Maybe I can ask Sasha to help me get one going tomorrow.
I strike the flint against the steel, and this time a spark actually lands in the little nest of tinder and starts glowing.
Thrilled, I lean forward and blow on it, gently, and the fire catches.
“Oh, thank the great dragon,” I breathe, sitting back.
I give it a moment, then take the poker and adjust the kindling a little—more to feel as though I’m contributing than anything else.
Which is the exact moment everything goes terribly wrong: A gust of wind rattles the door and blasts through the open window, scattering the burning tinder—which is only lit strands of flax anyway.
I leap backward to keep my skirts away from it, and it lands on the little rug just beyond the tiled hearthstone and starts smoking.
In a wild panic, I grab the little mound of burning flax and toss it back into the fireplace and then stamp the rug where it had landed.
I don’t feel the pain of the burn for a heartbeat or two after I’ve tossed the tinder back into the hearth, and then it hits, hard.
I curse again and fold my burned hand against my chest; the pain is like…
like I’ve just grabbed a handful of stinging nettles. Which were on fire.
“Ugh!” I yell, more at myself than anything else.
The fire has definitely gone out and now I’ve burned myself, possibly badly.
I pull my hand away from my chest and examine my palm: red, a few blisters.
At least it doesn’t look too bad. It sure doesn’t feel great, though.
I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the unmistakable sensation of tears building up behind my eyelids, and take a few deep breaths.
This is fine. I’ll be fine. After a long moment, I open my eyes and get up.
Household Magic doesn’t have any remedies for burns—I’m beginning to suspect there’s a third volume to go along with Household and Garden Magic, one which I haven’t yet found a copy of, but which speaks to health and hygiene.
In any event, I eventually gather my wits; the bluecaps lead me to some tiny volume of remedies for minor injuries, and I wind up washing my hand carefully in cool water and wrapping it in a clean cloth.
I don’t have any of the herbs nearby that the book suggests for healing salves, alas.
My ministrations don’t make my hand hurt any less, but at least I feel as though I’ve sorted myself out somewhat.
I wind up eating a roll for dinner and going to bed in my clothes, only loosening the ties that keep my vest closed with my good hand, and feeling very sorry for myself.
“What is it with tragic romances and this town?”
I spin around. The first book club—which, Sasha has admitted, is called by its participants “The Coven of Conviviality”—is tonight, and I’ve been upstairs making final preparations.
Carefully, using my bandaged hand sparingly.
Since Sasha’s at school, I’d turned the stone to “closed,” and yet, somehow, the pirate is here, upstairs, staring at the “tragic romances” bookcase.
I will my heart to stop hammering in my chest and turn away, pretending disinterest.
“Oh, bother. Come to steal another teacup?”
“I heard something interesting was happening today and didn’t want to miss the fun.” He’s holding a copy of By Firelight We Fall, a classic of the tragic romance genre, in one hand.
“Put that back,” I say, glancing at him. “I’m hoping to sell it tonight, and I won’t be able to if you pinch it.” I pause. “And I haven’t heard about any more princes, so you’re out of luck on that count.”
He shrugs and sets the book on the “chickens” shelf.
I cough and nod pointedly toward the correct shelf. He leans against the bookcase and smiles at me without moving the book. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I was busy ensuring that you didn’t make off with my property.”
“Is it really your property, though? Aren’t you cursed to stay here for some limited period of time, after which it’ll revert to her heirs? Or the landlord or the state—that is, if the old lady didn’t leave a will.”
I find myself staring at him, ever so slightly taken aback.
“Or so I hear,” he says.
“She handed me a key. The key. To the shop. In front of witnesses. I’ve been told that’s a strong argument in any court of law for the passing of property in an intestate parcel.”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
I groan. “What do you want?”
“Just looking for a bit of a diversion. I dropped by hoping that another prince might have shown up, but a gaggle of mead-drunk women talking about how much they fancy…” He picks up Firelight and flips through it.
“How much they fancy Farmel Frothering, illegitimate son of Lord Fantal Frothering the First, dead in a fire with no legitimate offspring…tall, dark, and angsty, sounds like pretty good fun. They’re over at the inn, by the way, making eyes at your ridiculous prince for a bit before they come over. ”
When he puts it like that, Firelight does sound ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But it’s also a great read. I myself have read it several times.
“So you’re what, going to join the Lord Mayor’s book club?” I say, crossing my arms and doing my best to arch an eyebrow at him. Well, trying to cross my arms. Doing so makes my wrapped, burned hand brush against my body, which hurts, so I drop my arms again.
“Think they’ll have me?” he asks.
I have no doubt they’d be delighted to have him, but I say nothing.
He is, as always, wearing tight breeches and a billowing shirt, open just a tiny bit too far down his chest. His hair is tied back neatly at the nape of his neck, but there’s quite a lot of it.
Surely all that hair must get in his way on board a ship?
“You haven’t explained how you got in. I locked up before I came up here, and the store was empty before that,” I say, willing myself not to think about what he’d look like on the deck of a ship, hair caught in the wind. That’s much too distracting. And utterly irrelevant.
“And I didn’t hear you come up the stairs,” I add, a little petulantly.
“I can’t go telling you all my secrets, now, can I?”
“You haven’t told me any of your secrets,” I point out.
He puts a hand to his heart and affects the expression of a man mortally wounded. “Why, my dear princess, you know my deepest and most terrible secret.”
“That you’re afraid of water? Please.” I snort. “You told Sasha and me that within moments of meeting us.”
“I was taken by your beauty. I could hardly control myself.”
I roll my eyes. “For heaven’s sake.”
“Perhaps I was overwhelmed by the depth of the angsty teenager’s ironic detachment and felt compelled to try to connect with her by laying the contents of my innermost self before her.”
I smile, despite myself. “If you’re finished, I’d be grateful if you could see yourself out, given that you saw yourself in so easily. If you’re serious about coming back for the book club, it starts at half seven.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
I pick up a book and then set it back down on the table with rather a more resounding thump than I intended. “Which question?”
“What is it with tragic romances and this town?”
“I have no idea.”
“You do have an idea, I think. Aren’t you dying to tell someone?”
“Are you very bored? Is that why you insist on showing up at inopportune moments and being quite so deeply irritating?”
“Extremely bored,” he says, agreeably.
“Surely you can find something to do besides drop by and steal my things.”
“Your erstwhile suitor and I get on quite well these days; I often drop by and steal his things, too.”
I drop into a chair and put my head in my hands. Carefully. “This is so weird,” I moan. “Why is this all so weird?”