She stopped walking, white robes settling as she turned to face him. “Who is to say what is truth, and what is superstition? We choose the stories that bring us comfort. Believe what you want.”
“What do you believe?” he asked.
“Well, the Sanctuary says—”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Ezril’s mouth twitched, in a way that said she clearly knew. “I believe there are things we know, and things we don’t. We know that magic flows through everything, that the elements can be wielded and made into spells. We know that the world is guided by a natural order, and that it demands balance. But beyond that…” She shrugged. “You yourself are proof that magic still holds mystery. After all”—she tapped a finger on his shirtfront, right over his heart, and the spellwork that bound his life to Kell’s—“we are taught the river flows one way, and yet, here you are.” Her hand vanished back into her robes. “A nice reminder, that we are only guessing.”
After that, they walked together, side by side, strolling the moonlit orchard until the clouds cleared from his head, and though Rhy hadn’t called for Ezril, he was glad that she had come.
VI
Tes couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept.
A headache had crept through her skull halfway through the first night, fueled by sugar buns and bitter black tea. It thudded in time with her pulse, but she didn’t care. She was lost in the work.
The next day, she kept the shop locked tight, ignored the occasional knock at the door, the rattle of the handle, ignored the hunger mounting behind her ribs, and the snarl of her curls, ignored Vares until even the little owl stopped clicking his beak, stopped shifting his talons, trying to get her attention. Only his head swiveled now and then, mismatched pebble eyes watching as she rose, and circled the piece, studying it from every side.
“Kers ten?” she whispered to the broken object as she worked.
What are you?
It was like trying to assemble a puzzle when you didn’t know the image. At first, you simply tried to find the pieces that went together, but at some point, you started to see it, the picture that existed somewhere between what you had and what you didn’t.
“Kers ten?” she said, the words becoming a chant.
Halfway through the second day, she’d glimpsed the shape, if not the spell. It was a kind of box. Or at least, it was contained in one. But as she put it back together, the magic lined up, too, until she could finally make out the places it had tangled and torn, and how to mend them.
“Kers ten?” she asked, over and over.
Until, at last, her work answered back. Told her what it was. What it was meant to be.
Her hands froze in midair as she finally understood. A thread twisted between her fingers, waiting to be woven through, but Tes sat perfectly still, only her eyes darting over the spellwork, reading it again and again to be sure.
And she was.
Not a box at all, though it was made to look like one. No, this was a door.
Or rather, a doormaker.
A shortcut, basically, something designed to collapse distance, to allow a person to move across an unlimited amount of space in a single step, regardless of walls, or locks, or space. Which wasn’t forbidden. But it was impossible.
Or at least, it should be.
Tes knew that the Antari could create doors like this, so that meant the magic was there, it existed, but it was a talent only they could use. This device took that power, and handed it to anyone. Tes tried to imagine a spell that would give everyone the ability to see and change the threads of power, and shivered at the thought. Some gifts were rare for a reason.
And yet.
Someone had found a way to take the rarest magic in the world and put it in a wooden box. A box that sat, almost fixed, on her table. And Tes couldn’t walk away, not now. Her heart began to race, but her hands were steady. Her fingers moved, quickly now, darting like fish between the final threads of the spell as she paired and mended the last strings, the work going faster and faster until it was done.
Tes tugged off the blotters and tossed them aside, rubbing the bruised skin around her eyes as she took in the device. It looked so ordinary. Or it would have, to an ordinary pair of eyes. But to her, it was incredible. A piece of Antari magic translated into an articulated spell. It was an extraordinary piece of craft, unlike anything she’d ever seen. Tes shoved up from the stool, limbs stiff and aching, body calling out for food and sleep, but she had to know if she’d done it. Had to know if it worked.
She took up the box and rounded the counter, knelt as she set it gingerly on an empty stretch of floor. Spellwork like this needed a trigger, but the original commands had been damaged beyond use, so she’d written her own, using Arnesian, and kept it simple: Erro, and Ferro.