We do not know who codified the first spells or committed them to writing. Such knowledge has been lost. But we do know that every chant or conjuration has always included the One Word, the ineffable name of Power, without which a spell is only empty speech. Without the Word, there is no magic.
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings, Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
CHAPTER TWO
I’m sorry.” Not looking the least bit sorry, Dom Lafont—a nervous little man with black-rimmed spectacles perched on a warty nose—shook his head. “It isn’t possible.”
Lin Caster placed her hand flat on the wooden counter that separated them. The Lafont Bookshop in the Scholars’ Quarter was a dusty little place, the walls festooned with old prints and sketches of Castellane and famous historical figures of days past. Behind the counter, shelves of books stretched away: some bright and new, in fine colored leather jackets, some plain, bound galleys produced by the Academie to aid students in their coursework.
It was one of those—a treatise on hereditary illnesses by Ibn Sena, a teacher of medicine—that Lin itched to get her hands on. She craned her neck, trying to pick out exactly which of the bound manuscripts on the shelves it was, but the shop was too dimly lit.
“Dom Lafont,” Lin said, “I have been a good customer of yours. A frequent customer. Is that not the case?” She turned to her friend Mariam Duhary, who was watching the interaction with worried eyes. “Mariam, tell him. There is no good reason that prevents him from selling me a book.”
“I am aware of that, Domna Caster,” Lafont protested. “But there are rules.” He wiggled his nose like a rabbit’s. “What you are asking for is coursework for the medical students at the Academie. You are not a student at the Academie. If you had a letter from the Justicia, perhaps—”
Lin wanted to slam her hand down on the counter. The man was being ridiculous. The Ashkar, as he knew perfectly well, could not attend the Academie as students, or apply to the Justicia for relief. These were Laws—bad Laws, that made her stomach twist, her blood run sour in her veins. But they had been the way of things since the founding of Castellane. “For students,” she said, making an effort to be calm, “these manuscripts are free. I am offering to pay. Name your price, Dom Lafont.”
Dom Lafont spread his hands wide. “It is not a matter of money. It is a matter of rules.”
“Lin is a physician,” Mariam said. She was a small girl, birdlike in her delicacy, but her gaze was firm and searching. “As you know. She cured your gout last fall, did she not?”
“It still comes back sometimes,” he said sourly. “Every time I eat pheasant.”
Which I told you not to do, Lin thought.
“Lin merely seeks to acquire wisdom that will allow her to heal more of the sick, and relieve their suffering,” said Mariam. “Surely you cannot object to that.”
Lafont grunted. “I know even your own people do not think you should be practicing medicine,” he said to Lin. “I know you have no business pawing through knowledge not meant for your sort.” He leaned across the counter. “I suggest you stick to what you know—your little amulets and magic trinkets. Don’t you have enough wisdom already, you Ashkar?”
In that moment, Lin could see herself in the shopkeeper’s eyes. Someone powerless, someone clearly different, almost foreign. And yes, she wore, as the laws of Castellane required, the traditional colors of the Ashkar: a gray dress, a blue jacket. And around her throat, the traditional symbol of her people: a hollow golden circle on a chain. Lin’s had been her mother’s once.
But more than that marked her out. It was in her blood, in the way she walked and talked, in something invisible that she sometimes felt hovered about her like a fine mist. She was knowably, clearly, Ashkar—alien in a way the sailors who thronged the port of Castellane simply weren’t. Travelers had a clearly delineated role and place. The Ashkar did not.
Don’t you have enough already, you Ashkar? It was what all Castellani felt to some degree. The Sundering had destroyed all magic, erased it from the world. All save the small spells and talismans of gematry, the ancestral magic of the Ashkar. Because of that, Lin’s people were hated and envied in equal measure. Because of that, special Laws applied to them. Because of that, they were not allowed out of the Sault, the walled community in which they were required to live, once the sun had gone down. As if they could not be trusted in the shadows.
Lafont shook his head, turning away. “There is a reason books like this aren’t meant for hands like yours. Come back if you’d like to buy something else. My door will be open.”
The world seemed to darken before Lin’s eyes. She took a deep breath, her small hands knotting into fists—
A moment later she found herself outside the bookstore, being steered down the street by Mariam. “Mariam, what—？”
“You were going to hit him,” Mariam said breathlessly. She had come to a stop between a lodging house for students and a shop selling ink and quills. “And then he would have called the Vigilants, and you’d have been fined, at least. You know they aren’t sympathetic to the Ashkar.”
Mariam, Lin knew, was right. And yet. “It is unbelievable,” she fumed. “That inbred bigot! He didn’t object to my knowledge when he wanted me to treat him for free, did he? And now it’s Keep your filthy hands off our books. As if knowledge belonged to any one type of person—”
“Lin!” Mariam interrupted in a whisper. “People are staring.”
Lin glanced over. Across the street was a tea shop, already crowded with students enjoying a day free of lectures. A group had gathered around a weathered wooden table outside to drink karak—a heavily spiced tea with cream—and play cards; several were looking over at her, seemingly amused. A handsome student with a mass of ginger hair, wearing a paper crown, winked in her direction.
What if I asked one of them to buy me the book? Lin thought. But no; it wouldn’t work. Malbushim tended to be suspicious of the Ashkar, and even Dom Lafont would see through such a ruse so soon after she’d made her attempt. She returned the young man’s wink with a steady glare. He put a hand over his heart as if to indicate she’d wounded him and turned back to his companions.
“We ought to get back home,” Mariam said, a little anxiously. “The streets will be a madhouse in an hour or two.”
This was true. Today Castellane’s independence was celebrated, with speeches, music, and parades stretching on into the night. Visits to temples to give thanks were conducted in the mornings; by the late afternoon, the Palace would have begun distributing free ale to the populace and the celebrations would become considerably rowdier. By Law, all Askhar had to be locked inside the Sault by nightfall; it would not do to be caught out in the jam-packed streets.
“You’re right.” Lin sighed. “We’d best avoid the Great Road. It’ll be packed. If we cut through these back streets, we’ll reach Valerian Square.”
Mariam smiled. She still had dimples, though she had grown so terribly thin that even her made-over clothes seemed to hang on her. “Lead the way.”