Breathing in the cool, sobering air from the window, Sciona experienced a flicker of doubt. Was this the right thing to do? Half the spellwork had already taken form in her head. It was waiting, buzzing, at her fingertips. But the moment she stamped it on paper, the plan would be in motion, and for Sciona, trying to stop a plan in motion was like trying to stop running down a steep hill.
She had to pause here and ask herself one last time: are you really going to do this, Sciona? Is this the mark you want to leave on the world?
Doubt froze her there as the chill air crept in, threatening the candle flames. But she thought of the black-haired girl bleeding out into the ocean. She thought of the tears standing in Thomil’s eyes when he spoke of the crossing. She thought of Bringham’s paternalistic dismissal of everything she had tried to explain. Ultimately, it was the memory of Renthorn’s tongue in her mouth that drove her resolve home. Her fingers hit the keys, and every mad thought in her head poured forth.
Feryn damn her.
Feryn damn them all.
It was a scale and complexity of spellwork no mage should have attempted over a single night, but Sciona had little choice. If she didn’t have her plans in place before the meeting of mages, she might have to wait another year for all of the High Magistry to gather in the same place. And this couldn’t wait.
She didn’t realize she had gone to sleep on her work until she woke to Alba’s hand on her shoulder and the imprint of spellograph keys on her cheek.
“God!” she blinked as she took in the light outside the windows. “What time is it?”
“Past noon, honey.”
“Past noon!?” Sciona had lost half the day! “I have to go.” She stumbled from the desk, shuffling spellpapers into her folio as she went.
“Go?” Alba said in worry. “Where?”
Sciona didn’t answer as she hauled out her travel case—the big one with the wheels—and dug through her clothes for less-loved blouses she could use to cushion the spellograph.
“I thought you were taking the week off to relax.”
“Work relaxes me.”
“My goodness, what is all this?” Alba asked as she took in the sheaves of spellwork stacked on the desk, the bed, and the floor around Sciona, the mountain of scrapped pages overflowing from the trash in such volume that the bin itself was nearly buried.
“This”—Sciona scrubbed her hands over her face—“is a very complicated spellweb. The most ambitious I’ve ever attempted in such a short time.”
“You mean…” Alba trailed off in disbelief. “All this is one spellweb?” She might not know much about magic, but she had seen the amount of paper Sciona’s other projects occupied. Never more than a few-inch stack.
“Yeah,” Sciona smiled sleepily. “Eat shit, Renthorn.”
“What?”
“I mean, he will if I can just get it polished. They all will.”
After Sciona’s night of work, the web was structured but far from finished. Since one couldn’t test magic on this scale, Sciona needed a second set of eyes to be as sure as she could that it would work. And the spellwork itself was only part of her plan. There were a few other pieces for which Thomil would be essential.
“Sciona, darling,” Alba fussed as Sciona packed the spellograph into her travel case. “I’m glad to see you engaged in your magic again, but I really think you should rest a little longer.”
“I can’t. Not until this spellweb is done.”
“And where are you going?”
“I can’t finish on my own. I need my assistant.”
“You what?” Alba blinked as though sure she must have heard wrong. “Since when do you need anyone’s help with magic?”
“I don’t know,” Sciona admitted. “Since pretty recently, I guess.”
This was one of the subtler changes that had taken hold over the past few months. Sciona didn’t just tolerate Thomil anymore; he had become part of her process, part of the way she did magic, when, for twenty years, it had been a solitary art.
She tore from the apartment as fast as she could while dragging the spellograph and all her papers in the wheeling case behind her. Catching the first train headed east, she stopped by the Magistry just long enough to grab a ream of fresh spellpaper, return Dermek’s keys to his office, and leave a note under the keys in blocky letters no one would identify as a mage’s handwriting:
Send no one to clean the master spellographs on the evening of the third. If things go awry after that, DO NOT come to work. Keep yourself and all your staff at home.
– Meidra
Of course, Dermek could have no idea what ‘things’ might go awry, but he would know it when it happened. It would be impossible to miss.
By the time Sciona left the Magistry, her travel case was so heavy the wheels were creaking in protest. She only got it on the train to the Kwen Quarter with help from two other passengers, and Aunt Winny turned out to be wrong about how dangerous the Kwen Quarter was. Sciona—a diminutive Tiranish woman in a nice dress, slowly struggling down the street with a large bag—made it all the way to her destination without getting robbed. At one point, a copper-haired laborer stopped to help her get the thing over some particularly uneven cobbles and laugh at her a bit, but that was the only indignity she suffered.
Lugging the travel case up the metal grate stairs to Thomil’s apartment took everything in Sciona’s body, but she managed it, one painful step at a time. Then, sagging against the case for support, she knocked at Thomil’s door.
This time, it was Carra who answered the knock. And if Thomil’s expression upon seeing Sciona on the stoop had been cold, Carra’s was withering.
“Oh,” the teenager said, “it’s you.”
She was better groomed today, her face washed of everything but the crescent scar, her stunning red hair plaited down her back, though she still wore a boy’s bulky trousers and suspenders.
“Hello, Carra.” Sciona tried for a polite tone that didn’t sound condescending—Feryn knew she had loathed the condescension of adults when she was Carra’s age. “May I come in?”
Carra considered Sciona, her frown deepening before she jerked the door the rest of the way open. “Whatever.”
“You’re not going to stab me again?” Sciona smiled, only half joking.
“I haven’t decided yet. Are you going to be a bitch?”
An involuntary laugh burst out of Sciona. “I’ll try not to be.”
“Great. Then you can come in.”
“Thank you.” The wheels of Sciona’s travel case caught on the threshold, and she realized she simply didn’t have anything left in her arms to lift it over.
Carra watched her struggles with total disgust for a moment before muttering, “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” and shouldering Sciona aside.
The stringy fifteen-year-old gripped the bag handle with one hand and lifted it into the apartment. She may not be Thomil’s real daughter, but she sure had his strength.
“Uncle Thomil’s out running errands.” Carra dropped the travel case loudly to the floor. “You can sit or whatever. I don’t care.”
“Thank you,” Sciona said again as the girl stalked from the entrance to the tiny excuse for a kitchen.