I winced and rubbed my temples. “Certain thoughts have been very loud recently.”
He watched me a long while as he chewed. “You have a lot weighing on you.” His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it before—he tended towards Faolán’s gruffness combined with Bastian’s sarcasm.
His eyes twitched, telling me I’d thought that too loud.
Smiling sweetly, I batted my eyelashes at him. “You aren’t like anyone else. You are a beautiful and unique snowflake.”
With a wry smirk, he wiped his hands clean, the apple finished. “Let’s clear your unpleasant memory, then I have a suggestion to calm your mind. Perhaps you can quieten those loud thoughts.”
We pulled two chairs opposite each other, and he hovered his hands an inch from my temples.
I held still, forcing my breaths to slow, conscious that if I turned my head, we’d be touching.
“Ready?”
“Ready.” Biting my lip, I pushed my thoughts towards Elthea’s treatment room. Bright and bloody. The coppery tang in the air. My cries. Leather straps biting into my arms as she poked and pulled at parts of me that were never meant to be prodded.
Kaliban’s presence was a cotton swab wiping it all away.
No blood, no fear, no…
I blinked. Kaliban’s home. How had I…？
He sat back, nodding slowly.
I’d left the Hall of Healing. There was something in there I wanted to forget; I had no idea what. Rubbing my forehead, I nodded. “It’s gone. Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. You brought your payment.”
“I thought fae liked politeness.”
He chuckled. “It’s preferred, but not required. Come.” He led me to the two chairs before the fire.
Although I’d never seen anyone else here, a pair of tweed slippers sat before each chair—one dark purple, the other the same blue-black that Dusk’s guards wore.
“I’ll get these out of our way,” he muttered.
The purple pair he swept away with his foot, but the other slippers, he scooped up like I’d scooped up Vespera when she was a kitten. He placed them beside the fire, then gestured for me to take the chair they’d sat before.
I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was taking someone else’s spot, even though I knew he lived alone. Or at least he did now.
I gave him a small, tight smile.
“Take off your gloves.”
“But—”
“I’m nowhere near you,” he said, sinking into the other armchair. “We won’t touch—I don’t have a death wish. But the marks on your fingers are part of your magic. I want to be able to see them.”
With a sigh, I obeyed. “I thought this was about my thoughts.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You think these things are separate?”
“I think I have no idea what my magic is, just that it’s here and I can do nothing with it… except risk killing someone with a careless touch.”
“Then listen to me, young human. I’ve been doing this longer than your people have been speaking Albionic.”
My eyes widened. “Wait, how old are you?”
“Old enough that I know what I’m doing. Now,” his voice pitched lower, “look into the fire.”
I probably shouldn’t trust the random fae I’d met on the street. But he’d had opportunities to hurt me or steal thoughts from my mind and hadn’t. This couldn’t be any more risky than that.
The flames licked in the fireplace with that odd orange-pink hue. The magic meant they could call the fire into being with a word and extinguish it just as easily. It also didn’t burn flesh and could only escape its fireplace with outside influence. There were no accidental house fires in Elfhame.
“Now what?” I threw him a glance.
“Now, you learn some patience. Stars above, human attention spans are as short as a gnat’s.” He huffed. “You keep looking at the fire. Focus on it.”
I did as he asked, waiting for the next instruction. This couldn’t be it, right?
“Let your breaths slow,” he murmured. “We’re not trying to get rid of thoughts or emotions. They are important and necessary.”
I wasn’t sure emotions were. They were nothing but confusing. Thoroughly impractical.
“But we need some stillness and perspective on them too. We don’t want them to control us.”
That I could understand. I didn’t want anything to control me. Too many things had.
Fear. My father. My uncle.
The hairs on my arms prickled, but I kept my eyes on the flames.
“Thoughts and feelings will come, just acknowledge, then nudge them away. They’ll soon float off, like clouds in the sky.”
Dutifully, I did just that. Goodbye, fear. Goodbye, Father. Goodbye, Uncle Rufus.
“All you need to focus on is the fire. What do you see? What can you feel? Scent, colour, shape—focus on your senses.”
Its warmth pushed away the lingering chill from outside. But I’d thought fae fires scentless. I drew a deeper breath. The hint of woodsmoke and something faintly herbal.
The longer I watched, the more I saw. As well as the coral pink and deep sunset orange, other colours leapt in the flames. Yellow frilled its edges. Sparking green and deep blue tangled at its centre, hugging the burning wood.
There were shapes, too. Just flashing for an instant. Huge hulking beasts with long tusks. The Great Yew, with its split trunk and spreading branches, followed a blink later by Dawn’s Great Oak, upright and proud. A couple locked in a spinning dance.
And for a moment.
A fraction of a fraction of a second.
A fiery crown.
Such strange beauty.
I sank into its crackling show, letting it reveal more shapes and colours.
Gradually, I became aware of the way the fire hummed. As did the world around me. Kaliban’s magic was a constant presence. There was more in the room, different tones—perhaps magical objects like the fireplace and the fae lights. Outside, other pitches merged together, forming a chaotic set of notes.
But there was the makings of something beautiful in there.
I sifted through the vibrations. They weren’t quite sounds but close. This note and this note went together. Add in a third and ignore the rest, leaving… A set of frequencies that worked together like a harmonious chord.
“Now look at your hands,” Kaliban’s soft voice crept into my reverie.
I let my head sink, everything slow as treacle after so long staring into the fire. I blinked at my hands where they rested in my lap. Why was he asking me to—？
I gasped.
My fingers.
The purple stain had retreated, leaving only my nails and the very tips dark. “I… I did it. It’s gone!” I huffed a laugh, heart leaping. “Does that mean—？”
The colour flooded back, covering my skin to the first knuckle.
“Oh.” I didn’t bother to disguise the way my shoulders sank—my thoughts were probably loud enough for Kaliban to hear my disappointment.
“Not ‘oh,’ Kat.” He sat back, palms pressed together. “You controlled your magic.”
“Only for—”
“A moment, I know. But it was a moment more than you’ve managed before. If you can do it for a moment, you can do it for a minute. And if you can do it for a minute…” He spread his hands and raised his eyebrows, his rare smile infectious.